19 Weeks

In a mere 4.5 days we learn whether we’re having a boy or a girl. I’m beyond excited. And while I only took a few pregnancy “bump” photos with Potamus, I’ve been curious to see how I’m progressing this go round. I want to compare with my first pregnancy, mostly because I’m actively working out and trying to eat healthier…something really important with my currently VERY stressful job.

This picture isn’t a comparison between pregnancies, but rather one of my abs engaged vs not engaged. Trying to maintain my core while I have the ability to do so!

When I’m 21 weeks I’ll do a side by side comparison with my Potamus belly!

A Yogi Named Mellow

I went to my first evening back-to-work yoga class. I was feeling vulnerable. Tired after a long day of work. Guilty that I had whisked Potamus from daycare and got to only spend 1.5 hours with him in the evening before I left again for my class. But there I was, ten minute early, alternating between savasana and easy sitting pose, when Mellow came in.

There she was, sitting front row. And in the ten minutes before class she was engaging in all sorts of yogi acrobatics. Full splits with head to knee. Full ekapadarajkapotasana (king pigeon) pose. All with a half-smile on her face, and her long hair in one sweet french braid, wearing cheetah panties. Yeah, panties.

I mean, bikram yoga is pretty notorious for the minimal clothing, but I can mostly tell the difference between yoga bottoms, which look like bikini bottoms, and underwear. And she was wearing underwear. Her seductively intimidating warmup, with her six pack abs, and slightly glowing skin, made me feel like a giant slob. And while there are plenty of super-awesomely-in-fit practitioners that I see in every class, it was this attitude oozing from her that was both better-than-and-humbler-than, which made me want to gag.

And so I spent the entire session down on myself. My balance was off in the standing poses. I couldn’t cool myself down during the floor poses. And generally altered between feeling like crying and wanting to punch someone. Maybe it was a test, on pushing through when it’s distracting. Or a giant metaphor about how balancing work-life is the theme of the week when the balancing poses are so hard for me. Because, with hindsight, it wasn’t about her, it was about me. I got distracted. And jealous. And down on myself. I focused on things I couldn’t change, and forgot to breathe and be proud that I was there after a long day of work. She’s probably a very lovely person, but I was jealous and annoyed, rather than filled with awe, respect, and a silent congrats that she had gotten to such a limber state.

How do you deal with comparison/jealousy in your physical fitness endeavors?

A New Level of Crazy…

It was freaking gorgeous in Seattle on Saturday. I’m talking almost barefoot weather, with sun shining and I think I saw a unicorn out for a stroll when I was walking with Boof. It was one of those days where I felt the itch to run, which is still surprising to me! I sacrificed alone time running for a family walk, which was healing on so many levels. Potamus enjoyed the first 2.25 miles of the walk and only got crabby the last half-lap home, which forced me to do funny tricks like running backward with Scrummy and making faces while Boof pushed the jogging stroller. I figured the good-times-running-feeling would last until Sunday morning, so I held off until the morning.

After laundry and putting Potamus down for a nap, I told Boof I’d take off on a run. Solo. Without Scrummy dragging me down. Excited about this desire, I set out…into the Seattle sunshine. Which, in case you don’t know, is…rain.

Yes.

The magical unicorn-sunshine of the day before had deteriorated to rain, but fortunately it was sprinkling. I decided to run at least a mile, which doesn’t take too long, but ended up actually running for 28 minutes. But this time I ran without a timer. I wasn’t looking at how long I had been gone for, I just put the podcast on and headed out, in the rain, to get a little exercise. I even ventured out of my normal route and tried something new, which felt exhilerating. And while I was tired, and dragging toward the end of the almost-2 miles, it felt nice to run just to run instead of running for training or running for time. I passed daffodils and crocuses and a new level of crazy in this whole running time of my life.

My First Sun Salute

My first sun salute happened at age 16. Obsessed with all things India, I checked out this yoga book from my school library, because I had this desire to do yoga, but was super freaked out because of my fundamentalist Christian parents and the upbringing that equated yoga with devil-worship. But I felt called to do yoga. I can’t explain it, other than something in my heart and body said, ‘try this,’ and I had to follow that calling.

So I fumbled through a sun salutations, in secret, at night, in my bedroom. It was hard, looking at pictures from a book and trying to figure out how to link the sequence or figure out the right alignment without any verbal directions or hands-on tweaking. I fumbled on until the book had to be returned, and I smuggled it back into my library to not be checked out again, by me.

Not willing to risk delving deeper into yoga, I gave it a break, for about a year, until a summer or two later when I came across an excellently marketed product called iFit yoga, that had stripped the Indian spiritual and philosophy, from the asanas and made it appealing as a form of exercise. I snapped up the packaged mat/block/strap/bag and audio CD, and began practicing for 45-60 minutes every night (again, in my bedroom, in semi-secret). I felt more open about my practice, but focused on the exercise benefits.

My practice has waxed and waned for years. Whole years have gone by where I haven’t actively practiced asana, and simply focused on breathwork, or philosophy, or at the very least, simply reading yoga magazines and wearing yoga pants to the grocery store.

But I miss it.

The asana practice, that is.

So, today, while Potamus was sleeping, I did some asthanga yoga to a youtube video. It felt hard, and good, and right. And it also felt a little bit scary. Because I’ve been on this journey for years, and I love it, and it feels different than running, because it feels like it hits my soul in a different way. I avoid because it’s hard to go inside myself and feel things I don’t want to feel and be exposed to the big picture of suffering and complexity that seems overwhelming. Why this happens during yoga and not other exercise (yet) is a mystery to me, but there it is. In some ways I am still both drawn and frightened by yoga, as that teenager fundamentalist was drawn and frightened. For different reasons.

The ebb has come back to flow, and I think I might do asanas more regularly. And I want to expose Potamus to yoga, but that’s a whole other post for another day…

When did I become a person who could run two miles?

On Sunday I was whining about being slow and steady in the running department, in comparison to my friend who had only run 3 times (as opposed to my 8 weeks) and finished the 3 miles faster. After talking to my sister-in-law, a former college track/cross country runner and now high-school track coach, about my training methods vs. my friend’s, I was feeling much more confident in the longevity of my training routine. Her advice was to keep at it, slowly, building up endurance and then working on speed, while focusing on form…all things that I have been doing in my runs. She said that my friend’s leg pain was probably going to compound itself and cause an injury if she’s not careful. Her advice made me feel more relaxed about my running, and so off I went.

Today I was able to squeeze in a few minutes of running post-work and pre-Potamus-pick-up. It just happened: a two mile run. While not the first time I’ve run two miles, it was certainly the first time that I felt confident in running two miles. I did need to walk for about 10 seconds a few times, just to catch my breath and bearings, before I was off and running again. And the consistent pace was what impressed me the most. Whereas before I had found myself running harder at the beginning and reaaaaaaaaaalllly slowing down toward the end. But today I felt like I was consistent, even with a nasty headwind on the hills home.

While I didn’t get the “runner’s high” I’ve heard about in legend, it was pretty cool to feel an almost-effortless ability to run that far. I struggled at points, but it’s a far cry from where I was 9 weeks ago! Cheers to forming new habits and going slow & steady toward the goal line. Looking forward to Saturday and my first 5k!