5-27-14

Lunch  hour yoga. No balance today, in favor of extra hip, hamstring and groin stretches. Good for me since I am really tight through there, owing to the walking and running miles. Felt good then, still good tonight.

5-25-14

Did the 3.3 mile neighborhood interval with Tate. Didn't time it but think we did more running and less walking than recently. Worst of it was that none of Tate's dog pals were out. He squeaked a little at each one's house, but  soldiered on with only my friendship. Best of it was that I think I found the shoes I need for road and light trail running. I've tried some different Merrells and Nikes, and added support and cushioning with insoles but have always had some kind of issue from too little support to too rigid a sole, to my foot sliding forward and hitting the front of the shoe. Now I have a pair of Columbia trail runners that fit perfectly and seem to have the right balance of  properties. Hard to work out when your feet hurt. I'm good on this now, at least for a while.

5-23-14

Yoga on a rearranged schedule. Only one other woman besides me plus the instructor. It was good in the sense that without the confusion of a full room, I was able to watch both the instructor and myself in the window to see how close my poses are to correct and hopefully improve my form. I'm really tight through my hips, back and hamstrings but feel like things like my "bridge" are improving. More convex every week. One measure  of progress is that I threw about 10 stones at the beaver who is eating all the trees along our lake shore the other  night and had decent velocity and no after pain. Prior to starting yoga I could hardly lift my hand above shoulder level much less throw a stone.

5-19,20-14

On monday, did the  3 mile interval in the coal lands behind the factory. Pace was modest after a tiring weekend of gardening in the sun. Still we had all we wanted and it felt good.

Tuesday was yoga day. The most demanding part for me is the 15 minutes after warmup when we do sequences of various poses beginning and ending in down dog. At its peak my arms and shoulders are screaming and I love it when we move into balance poses, marking the end of the strength phase. At the same time I like that part of the workout for the strength and joint loosening benefits I've  gotten. Even in yoga, no pain no gain.

5-15-14

Yoga today. Continuing on the  path of kink removal, flexibility improvement and better balance. No breakthroughs. What struck  me today is the disparate group that we have that uniformly enjoys the session, both for the Yoga and I think the camaraderie. Beside me, there is a 40ish karate focused engineer, a 50ish field engineer fighting his weight, 3 women in the 40-50 year range, all working on weight and toning, I suppose the classic yoga participants. Everyone has their reason for being there. Everyone has different issues with the routine. But all of us appreciate the benefits and work our varied bodies as best we can to capitalize on our instructor's generosity in holding the sessions on her lunch hour. I started out worrying that I would fart during the session and embarrass myself but I think we have progressed to the point that, as long as I wasn't too crass about it, the group would just laugh and abide by the "what happens in yoga, stays in yoga" agreement we made early on. It's been great.

5-11-14

I actually want to cover from Saturday May 7 through today, tuesday May 11. Did a 2 mile walk with my wife on saturday. It was noteworthy mainly in the fact that she got so bugged with my badgering her to be more active that she decided to show me! In fact, she walked a hilly course fast and with no more puffing than me. My dedication and her talent would make an impressive person.

Sunday was a full gardening day. Hand turning over the vegetable garden and cleaning up some landscape beds. Hard work and I felt it Sunday night.

Was thinking about bagging the lunch run on monday, but my work mates were compelling and I went. It felt good. Time for our 3 mile loop was 40:08, best this year.

Today, tuesday, was yoga day. Heavy sweat and didn't bail out of anything, except for the balance poses I fell out of. Major achievement getting into side crow on both sides and holding them for 10-15 seconds. First time.

So, a good string of activity and put some nagging work issues behind me. Feeling content tonight.