Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Inner Spirit & Aching Legs

Monday night's yoga theme was "Your Inner Spirit".  I know that my instructor spent a lot of time reminding us to focus on our breathing and be present in the moment.  Me? I was a little apprehensive.  This week always involves an attempt at doing the splits.  I can do a lot of crazy poses, but for some reason the splits always elude me.  Even when I was a flexible kid in gymnastics, I could never do them.  Now they're even more elusive since my hip flexors and legs are a lot tighter as a result of being a distance runner.  I was still determined to try and I actually surprised myself.  I was probably about six to eight inches off the ground on my right side (right leg back).  That's closer than I've ever been.  Maybe I'll get there someday.  (We won't discuss the left side...it just hurt right away and I gave up rather than taking a chance on injuring myself.)

Tuesday I was scheduled for an easy 3 miler before meeting a friend for dinner.  That run did not go anywhere close to what I planned.  I haven't downloaded the data from my Garmin yet, so I can't give you an accurate breakdown right now, but yeah...that was interesting.

I got started late, so right away I knew that I wasn't getting the full 3 in and making it to dinner on time, so I cut it down to just over 2 miles.  My legs have felt like two lead bars since Saturday's trail run, but being in a hurry dictated a rather fast pace, but since it was a shorter run, the speed wasn't so bad.  I had just turned into my driveway, with thoughts of a cool shower dancing in my head, when I was stopped by a cop!  You read that right.  He asked if I'd seen a girl running.  I must have given him a funny look because he asked again if I'd seen a blond female in her early to mid thirties running.  I said that other than myself (for the record: I'm 31 and have blond highlights), I hadn't.  Then he asked me if I'd just robbed a gas station!  Seriously??!?!  I said that I definitely hadn't and he finally went away!  I dove into the shower and headed off to meet my friend for dinner.  The Good: I got to catch up with my friend, the weather was fabulous so we were able to sit outside, and I was only 15 minutes late after my brush with the Five-O!  The Not So Good: My margarita was pure tequila and didn't taste very good, I stayed out too late and was a total zombie today (I can live with that), and my dinner did not sit well and I felt kinda icky all day.  Oh well, the good definitely outweighed the bad!

Rain, aching legs and a sour tummy dictated that today was a rest day.  The Husband and I hit the market for bunny greens (dandelion greens, italian parsley and baby carrots) and while we were there, we picked up a lemon rosemary rotisserie chicken for dinner.  We paired that with fresh italian bread, mozzarella, tomato and fresh basil from the garden.  Yum!  Dinner was consumed in front of the tv while watching this week's episode of Deadliest Catch and was followed by a Vosges Haut-Chocolat Red Fire bar for dessert.  It's been a really relaxing night.

What are your favorite things to do on a night in?

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