Bikram Yoga

I bought a 25 class pass to a Bikram Yoga studio a couple of months ago from a groupon-like website. I’ve always avoided hot yoga, didn’t seem very pleasant. I don’t want to drown in my own sweat. It was kind of a whim that I bought the pass.
Than I put off using it for 6 months because I was convinced that I was going to hate Bikram yoga. Or pass out. Or vomit. Or both.
So what is Bikram yoga?
From Wikipedia:
Bikram Yoga is a system of yoga that Bikram Choudhury synthesized from traditional yoga techniques and popularized beginning in the early 1970s.^[1][2] Bikram's classes run exactly 90 minutes and consist of a set series of 26 postures and 2 breathing exercises. Bikram Yoga is ideally practiced in a room heated to 105°F (≈ 40.6°C) with a humidity of 40%, and is the most popular form of hot yoga.
So it’s hot, extremely structured yoga for an hour and a half.
I took my first class today. Brought my yoga mat, my towel to place over the mat (to catch the sweat), bottle of water. Wore as little clothes as possible. Stepped into the room and immediately rerated this decision.
But I stuck it out and I liked it.
 
 

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Pros:

• The heat made me super bendy.
• Most of the poses aren’t very difficult and because you’re holding the pose for quite some time, it’s easy to follow.

Cons:

• Wasn’t the most relaxing yoga class I’ve been to. The instructor talks throughout the class the entire time and at a rapid pace. It was like being at an auction.
• There’s no variation so I can see getting bored of Bikram quickly.
• I like sun salutations and vinyasas. Felt odd to do a yoga class without downward facing dog.
• I was drenched in sweat.

I’ll go back again, maybe next week. I really want to do more yoga. It’s a nice break from running and weight lifting.

CLX Lean Circuit

I just finished Lean Circuit 3.

Oh my god.

My chest muscles are shaking.

I'm having mixed feelings about Lean Circuit.
I like that it's very challenging and a good change from Push Circuit. But its very hard on my wrists, especially Lean Circuit 2 and Lean Circuit 3. I think I'm going to have to come up with some modifications. Exercises like one arm row while in plank and push ups to side plank are not what my poor slightly arthritis damaged wrists need.

Back to It

Back to work tomorrow. And I seriously need to get back to eating properly.
My vacation week eats went out with a bang last night – late night out with friends at Boston Pizza that included two massive pitchers of beer. Which is good in a way cause I felt kind of gross afterwards so am happy to make a massive salad for lunch.
Today’s agenda:

• Chalean Extreme – Lean Circuit 1
• Hair cut
• Laundry
• 5K afternoon run

Toronto Women’s 5K May 2011 Recap

This was my third time doing this race – I did the 5K portions on August and October of last year.
I picked up my race kit from the Running Room on Saturday. A couple of good samples in the kit – a mini luna bar, chap stick, Immunity FX (I keep getting this in race kits and I can’t use it – my immune system wants to attack my joints so it’s not getting any support!).
Fabulous blue long sleeved shirt. I requested a medium but the shirts ran a bit small. Luckily I was able to exchange it after the race.

Sunday morning, I was up early and left my place around 6:45. Had no issues with Sunday morning buses and got to the park by 7:30 (half marathon started at 8, the 5K at 8:20).
The half marathoners went out first in 3 waves. Than all of the 5K’ers were clumped together. There were around 1500 doing the half and 700ish doing the 5K. So not a huge race, but I wish that there were at least signs saying “under 30 minutes”, “35+ minutes”, “walkers”, etc to split everyone up properly. I tried to position myself further back, but there were lots of faster runners dodging people to get ahead and lots of walkers ahead of me that I had to get around.
The race runs through Sunnybrook park which is pretty and green with winding paths. Only problem with this is that you have a ton of people all on a smallish path plus whoever else is in the park that day. There were narrow sections where it was really hard to pass people. This didn’t bother me last year but after running down Yonge Street in the Sporting Life 10K, I appreciate having some space.

The course is and out and back. It was great seeing the leaders coming back. Everyone on the other side of the path cheered for them.
Just before the water station, volunteers were handing out Cadbury Thins chocolate. As much as I like chocolate, it was so not appealing while running. Some people just took them to carry, but I didn’t particularly want to carry a chocolate bar for the rest of the race.
I was slowing down on the way back, feeling kind of tired. As I was approaching the finish line, I looked at my Garmin. I was at 39 minutes – I just wanted to break 40. So I sprinted to the end. Looking at my Garmin splits, the last 500 metres I was running between a 4.5 to a 5 min/km pace. I hit the mat, looked at my watch, saw it was under 40 minutes and leapt into the air. I may have yelled something.

Got my medal and a brown bag full of snacks (more chocolate, a banana, bottle of water, a breakfast pita and a bag of chips) than headed home.

Overall, I really like the Toronto Women’s Races. They’re well organized, not too big and the post race area is always well laid out. The volunteers were great, the energy was fantastic. I’m planning on doing the 10K and either the 5K or 8K in October.
Thinks I liked:

• Shirt (and easy size exchanges)
• Medal
• Beautiful park setting
• Post race food

Things I didn’t like:

• No start corrals for the 5K
• Narrow paths

Week Off – Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

My week off is almost over. Very sad.

Monday was our wedding anniversary but the husband had to work so we didn’t do anything until Wednesday. We decided to spend the day at Canada’s Wonderland, a big theme park just north of Toronto.


I hadn’t been to Wonderland or on a roller coaster for about 6 years. We went on some of the big coasters, ate some bad for us food (including funnel cake) and got a lot of sun.

Thursday, we went to see Thor.

I enjoyed it, but I’m really into all of the movies leading up to The Avengers. We saw it in 3D – I’d recommend saving the extra $5 and seeing it in 2D. We only went to a 3D screening because it was all they had a the theatre closest to us.
I haven’t been eating great this week, but am keeping up with my workouts.
Wednesday – Chalean Extreme Push Circuit 2 & Abs
Thursday – Ran 5K
Today, I was going to do my long run for the week (6K) but I’m taking a rest day instead. I’m really trying to aim to get in one rest day a week, but I want to do strength training 3 times a week, running 4 times and some yoga thrown in so it’s difficult. But I’ve been feeling kind of off and sluggish all day so I figure that it’s good to take a rest.

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