Yoga's End

The bottom line is that I felt like over the last couple weeks I basically had to choose what I wanted more:  yoga or sex.  That's not a good place to be.  There just didn't seem to be enough hours in the day.

Seriously, this is an example of my time from last week Tuesday:

3:30 roll over as hubby's alarm goes off
4:15 roll over again as I hear the front door close as hubby leaves to go running
4:40 alarm to wake up
5:00 leave the house
5:15 start running with friends
[5:30 hubby leaves house for work]
6:45 get back home
6:45 breakfast, reading blogs, watching the news, showering, making lunch, getting ready for work
8:45 get to work
8:45 work all day, lunch at my desk with internet amusement or more work
5:45 change into yoga clothes, back to work for a bit longer
6:05 leave the office
6:20 arrive at yoga
6:30 yoga class
8:10 leave yoga studio
8:20 arrive home
8:20 make and scarf down dinner
8:45 shower
9:00 into bed exhausted, hubby already asleep

Ugh.  So I had already kind of decided that when my month of yoga ended at the end of January, maybe I'd take a little break.  I was barely seeing my husband and he was NOT happy about the 30 day challenge.  I guess I should be glad he wants to be with me.  Unfortunately, his schedule doesn't work for him to go to yoga with me often, but that wouldn't have helped -- his complaint was that we weren't seeing each other and talking enough.

I once read a post on a blog about how much Ironman training interferes with your relationships and sex life.  I think a yoga challenge is probably a smaller version of that -- only a month, and not quite as many hours a day, but if you do the yoga in addition to a regular workout schedule, that's about 3 hours per day spent working out or driving to/from workouts. 

I'm proud of myself for doing the 30 day challenge.  I started Dec. 28 and officially ended Jan. 28 -- 30 classes in 31 days.  I missed Dec. 29 and Jan. 6, but I did a double on my last day, Jan. 28.  And of course I went on Jan. 29 too, just to round out the weekend, but that was it.

I already miss it so much, but oh, I like having more time at night too.

I feel like I'm already becoming less flexible, feeling more bloated, more stressed.  But maybe that's all in my imagination.  Yesterday was a stressful day at work, and probably would have been, even if I'd had yoga at night.

I feel like I made a lot of progress in the second month of doing Bikram almost daily.  There were several postures where I felt like I wasn't even close in my first class, and then after two months, there was a major difference.  If you know Bikram, these are the postures where I think I improved the most -- standing head to knee, standing separate leg stretching, triangle, toe stand, wind-removing, locust, and fixed firm.  But I don't know if the names for the postures are the same at every studio.

I think I was proudest of fixed firm.  In the first class, I thought it was ridiculous.  I was not even close to having my hips on the floor, and I couldn't get close to going all the way back.  Within a few classes, I could go back and get my shoulders on the floor.  But the big breakthrough for me, believe it or not, was in the second set of my very last class -- my hips touched the floor while I was sitting up for the very first time.  My hips had grazed the floor a few times while I was laying back, but they'd never been on the floor at the outset until the very last time.  Crazy!  It was like my body knew I wanted to do it right once.

Second proudest was probably standing separate leg stretching -- my forehead touched the floor solidly for the first time about a week before my last class.  If you saw me do it, it wouldn't be so impressive -- my legs had to be about a mile apart for me to get that low, but I was happy to have done it.

In terms of benefits to doing it almost daily for 30 days:

No unintended pregnancies (haha, but seriously, in light of that birth control pill recall that was announced today, thank god there wasn't much time for sex!)

No illness the entire time -- and usually I get at least one cold in January, but nothing this year (it's also warmer though, so who knows about causation)

Sat up straighter at work (I noticed this) and better posture in general

No injuries while running, hard to say if this was because of yoga or not, but having just gotten going with the weighted running, I'm happy to be injury-free

Reduced soreness from strenuous exercise -- did yoga after the San Antonio marathon and after my first 18 mile weighted walk, both events that could have knocked me on my @ss for a few days, and I really think it helped

Better eating -- oddly enough, after class I'd be starving, but I never wanted to eat garbage then, just whole and healthy foods

Felt thinner, leaner, more toned.  Didn't take measurements, and weight just seemed to be water weight, but I felt good!

Calmer.  No joke.  Hubby had a car accident during my last week of yoga, while I was in class, and when I finally spoke to him, he was surprised at how I reacted.  The accident was unquestionably his fault.  And I wrote before about how unsympathetic he was when I had my accident on Christmas day -- he actually said to me something to the effect of there being no such thing as an accident, just bad driving.  And in my case he was right, I was driving too fast for conditions.  And in his case, he was following too closely and made an unsafe lane change.  Not an accident at all, just bad driving.  And I think during non-yoga time, I probably would have given him some crap about it, but I just didn't.  I've barely thought about it.

There you have it!  30 day challenge complete.  I'd like to keep doing yoga about once a week, but I have to come up with a plan for that.  Not sure how it will work since our Bikram studio doesn't have a good sporadic attendance plan.  I may just pay for the regular months and not use it much, but I hate doing that because I'm cheap.  I may try to do yoga at home.  I may try other studios.  But for this week, I'm just going to enjoy having a normal evening life again.  Monday night I hung out at home after getting to work late.  Last night hubby and I went out to dinner.  Tonight is my return to the social run -- it's that time of year again, a bunch of social group runs leading up to my favorite 5k of the year (St. Pat's).  Tomorrow night is Italian conversation group.  Friday night we're having a dinner party at home.  Saturday I'm taking my car in and hubby and I are going to try to walk/run on some trails (my very first time).  Ahhh....