supercheesegirl

Yesterday morning I left for work early because I thought the transit strike was still on, so I didn't get to do yoga in the morning. I also didn't have much time to do it last night, but I managed to cram in half an hour. It was really nice. I'm continually surprised by how much stronger I am now than I was before I began my morning exercise program. I can hold a plank really reliably. My thighs are solid. It's pretty great.

This morning, with the strike over, I was able to get back to my Tuesday jog! I listened to a new playlist today, all songs from VNV Nation's album Empires. I have to say, it's kind of corny, but I still think "Kingdom" is one of my favorite songs. Anyway, I hadn't jogged with this playlist before, and so when I took my usual route and got home and there was a whole other five-minute song left to go, I was kind of surprised. I was only out for about 23-25 minutes, rather than 30 minutes like I'd planned. I went past both parks and everything, and I thought I'd been going pretty slow. Apparently I need to add another loop to the route.

It was a nice warm morning, but I underestimated "50 degrees"--I need something a little warmer than an Old Navy long-sleeved t-shirt, at least when I start out. But I was fine in regular cotton pants and no earmuffs. I suspect that next week I'll be back to the fleece-lined wind pants again. Today's weather was a nice respite.

If this is jogging week 9, and I missed one week being sick, that means I've now been doing the morning program for 10 weeks. 10 weeks! I hope the weather stays nice enough that I can keep going with the jogging for a while longer. However, just yesterday I was able to get my College ID card as F's domestic partner, so now I can use the campus gym--it'll require a little extra time if I'm going to go there in the morning, but it's still a good option.

There are still leaves everywhere. It still feels odd to be jogging after sunrise. Also, I saw a grey and white cat.

Had a very nice yoga practice tonight. Worked on all my strength-building stuff. I also was able to get straight legs in revolved triangle for the first time in ages--I have freakishly long legs so I can hardly ever manage that. Overall, it was really nice to come back to a solid yoga practice after only doing jammie yoga all week. I'm looking forward to getting back in the groove!

F and I caught up on last week's Heroes tonight. ( Read more... )

I've been out of commission the past few days with a mild case of the flu, so my morning workout schedule is all out of whack. Monday was the worst day and I mostly just slept. Tuesday (yesterday), I did some jammie yoga (20-25 min) because I knew I was feeling better but couldn't quite tell how much better. After yoga, it was clear: not better enough. I called out sick again and went back to bed for a few more hours, and by the end of a day of resting, was feeling significantly better enough to walk to the post office and do laundry.

Today I did jammie yoga again (20-25 min), partly to test and make sure I was feeling as better as I thought I was, and partly just to make sure I didn't overdo it.

Now I am feeling much better, even occasionally approaching feeling great, where "great" means, roughly, "I'd really love to go jogging right now!" So that's a good thing. Going to try not to push too much, though, and will be putting off jogging till at least the weekend, probably waiting until my regularly-scheduled Tuesday morning. One good thing is that it was raining nastily here yesterday so at least I avoided jogging in the rain. Hooray for flu symptoms?

Did an hour of yoga yesterday! It was wonderful. It had been a few days, so it felt really good to stretch. I did the more strenuous things that I don't usually get a chance to do. It was awesome to do a headstand. A really excellent practice.

Today F accompanied me on jogwalk week 7. F checked the temperature before we went out and it was only 38 degrees. Once we got moving, though, it wasn't too bad. We went farther than we'd gone before, and so we were out a little late--probably close to 35 minutes. I was really tired by the time we got back, but I had also been worried about time and I think I was pushing myself to go faster so we could get back, and thus tired myself out.

Now I am very sore!

Half an hour of yoga this morning. Pretty standard. F had to leave early to take the car for a checkup, and after he was gone and I knew I was alone at home I kept thinking I heard noises, so I didn't have a good meditation, but otherwise, fine.

Did yoga this morning. Pretty standard half-hour morning practice. Am craving more yoga time. (Am craving more everything-time, too, but that's pretty normal.)

Last night was my third dance class. There were at least three occasions when I wanted to cry and stomp out and never come back because my body just can't DO this stuff. But I reminded myself that I am a grownup, and I don't have to be perfect at everything all the time, and I am just learning, and learning something new is fun. And I did improve some, and there are some things we do in class that I do very well. Also, there are other women in the class who are way more awkward than I am and who are just as obviously having a great time and just enjoying themselves. So, I will proceed patiently and gently and with kindness. Or I'll give that a shot anyway.

This morning I invented a new kind of yoga! It's called "Jammie Yoga". It's what happens when you're totally zonked and don't want to get out of bed early to do yoga! I made a deal with my body that if I got up, I would be allowed to do only gentle poses and wouldn't have to put on real clothes. It was an excellent solution. I wore my jammies and did some cat and dog tilt, and then did a series of seated forward bends and twists, nothing strenuous at all. I am considering having Jammie Yoga every Friday. I really don't do the seated poses often enough, and it was nice to do yoga and not have to worry about strength. Also, Friday morning yoga is only 10 hours after Thursday night dance class, and I don't really want to be doing strenuous stuff back to back like that. So Jammie Yoga on Fridays seems like a perfect solution!

Friday night, F's sister Meg and her boyfriend Nick were in town to visit. We went all over downtown--F parked in the lot underneath Love Park (which I didn't even know existed), and we walked all the way up to the Art Museum, did the steps, walked back down, tried to eat dinner at a few different restaurants that F had researched but everyone else apparently had the same idea, so instead we ate at Fado, an Irish bar, which was totally fine and tasty. Then we walked down to 13th to go to Apothecary, a bar F had found online, which had really creative and interesting cocktails. Meg is a bartender, so she particularly likes creative and interesting cocktails. Then Meg and I got gelato from Capogiro, which is the best ever. I had the vietnamese cinnamon and the dark chocolate, and it was awesome. Then we walked back to the car, but by the time we got there Nick wanted another drink and Meg and I really needed to use a bathroom, so we stopped in at Tir Na Nog briefly, then got the car and headed home. It was a good night, but a lot of walking, especially when I'd just had dance class the night before. My legs and feet hurt a lot by the end of the night. Google pedometer tells me we walked around 4.5 miles.

Saturday F and I made scrambled eggs and homefries for breakfast. We walked around campus for a couple of hours, then F's parents arrived like a whirlwind and suddenly our apartment was full of chairs, baskets, and huge potted plants. We all got dressed and went to F's cousin's wedding, which was lovely. After the reception we stopped to get eggs and milk for Sunday's breakfast, and we also got a pizza, and ate it while having a few more drinks and watching CSI. Bed around 1 AM.

Sunday, Meg wasn't feeling so hot. I made us banana pancakes for breakfast, and next time I have to remember that I can put the bananas directly in the blender with the pancake batter! This time I just dropped banana slices onto the cooking pancake on the griddle, which worked fine and was tasty, but blending the bananas right into the batter might be much more effective. Need to remember that for next time.

We took Meg and Nick to the airport and dropped them off at 2:00, then drove over to my old stomping grounds, Chestnut Hill, to meet Molly and her friends Adrienne and Fred for drinks and appetizers at Solaris and eventually dinner at Earth and Bread, one of our very favorite restaurants. Molly was just in town for the night, but Adrienne and Fred live in Mt. Airy, and we liked them a lot and hope we can hang out with them again sometime soon.

We got home at 7:30ish and were pretty much zonked, but we managed to clean up a bit from the family explosion weekend and then watch an episode of Firefly. Only one more episode to go to finish the series.

I did not do any yoga in the hecticness of this weekend, but Friday was a double workout day (with yoga in the morning and all that walking at night), and Saturday we did take that nice walk on campus, so I don't feel like I slacked. I do, however, need to climb right back on the workout horse, because I ate decidedly non-healthy things all weekend long and also drank a lot, way more than usual.

This morning I got up early enough to do 30-35 minutes of yoga, which was a very good thing. Not enough time for all the yoga I wanted to do, though. Tomorrow will be a jogwalking morning, and then Wednesday I think I might try to get up extra early and do a full hour of yoga. We'll see if that happens.

I did about 25 minutes of yoga this morning, but it was not fabulous. I was trying new yoga music (Karunesh, "Nirvana Cafe"), and I found it to be annoyingly New Agey. It was all piano and the little glimmery New Agey sounds. So I would get distracted from my pose, and click to the next track, which would be just the same, and I'd get distracted from the next pose to change it, etc. Finally I changed back to Monday's Krishna Das "Pilgrim Heart" playlist, which I hadn't had time to finish on Monday. Some of the songs were really nice, but then as I was getting settled in sivasana, the last track came on. It had a voiceover, a story about a Hindu god's wife getting kidnapped and how he goes to rescue her, and I was like, that's cool, I can listen to this for my meditation. But then, no lie, the voiceover stops and Krishna Das bursts into this calypso gospelly loud thing! It was so buoyant and perky I couldn't really be mad, so I just laughed and got up off the floor. Note to self, remove "The Ring Song" from all future Krishna Das playlists.

So I didn't do a terrible lot of yoga this morning. I did a few sun salutations and some standing work, pigeon pose, and cobbler and stick pose, but that's about it. Today's yoga practice was still a lesson in flexibility, though!

Got up early this morning for about an hour of yoga practice. I really needed it--lots of odd parts of me were sore from dance class Thursday night, but I couldn't do yoga Friday morning because I had to take F to the airport, and I just didn't have time yesterday. But today, I got in a full hourlong practice!

The wrist still hurts in upward dog and tabletop--I stopped doing tabletop right away, but I'm pushing a little bit on upward dog. Still wearing the new support brace.

Did my first headstand in a while! Lifted right up. I guess the abs are still okay!