Well, for the past month, I think every chance that I had free time (and no schoolwork that I SHOULD be doing), I was reading the third Twilight book. If you haven't read these books yet and you have a lot of free time for reading, I highly suggest reading them. If you don't have time to get sucked into a 4-book series...or you are like me and should be doing schoolwork...I suggest putting them off to a later date and watching the movies.
Yes, these books are supposed to be geared toward teenage girls and are about a love story with vampires and werewolves...BUT they are super addicting no matter what age/gender you are. I got hooked by one of my clients who is 30-something, and I got my boyfriend (who will not sit through a chick-flick) to watch and LOVE the movie. Trust me, there's something for everyone in these books. From what I understand, its similar to the Harry Potter series, although I was never big into Harry Potter myself. Anyway, read it. Love it. You won't be able to put them down.
Ah..let's see. Many of you know that I am training for two triathlons right now - one in August and one in October. I have been a dancer (Note: do not read stripper, read ballerina) for most of my life, and I am slowly transitioning into endurance sports...my attempt at being a well-rounded athlete. These are both sprint triathlons, which are shorter distances but still include one leg each of swimming, road biking, and running. They vary in distance, but the ones that I am starting out with include 250m swim, 9-10 mi bike, 5K run. Still not so easy, but attainable. I'm hoping to get a few of these under my belt before competing in the longer distance races since the tri coach and a few friends say that the transitioning takes some getting used to.
Anyway, swimming should be a breeze for me since I have swam most of my life and currently swim with a masters' swim team (ignore my 2 week hiatus for sleep and schoolwork that I just took). 250 m is about a third of our warmup for practice, so I'm not concerned. The biking will be challenging for me because I have to get a bike, get used to it, and learn how to use it effectively in a short period of time. Cardiovascularly, I think I'll be fine. The running, however, is a different story. Running a 5K and slightly longer distances has been something I have just recently conquered because dancing and swimming involves absolutely no running. I literally had to force myself (with Adam dragging me along, not letting me stop) to run in college because I knew it was something I wasn't good at, but needed to be better at. So I have been working on it, and this past Saturday I ran a 4 mi race (random distance?) down in Ballantyne at a faster pace than my previous 5K pace time in October. Preeeeetty excited, I'm not going to lie. So I have a few more 5Ks that I am scheduled to compete in (with my awesome roommate....my new running partner!) so I will hopefully be very comfortable with my pace by the time August rolls around....now about that bike.....
Also this weekend I took my second yoga class ever. My first yoga class was back in MD and it was Bikram yoga. If you have never heard of Bikram yoga, also called hot yoga, it is way intense. Although it did fully suck to be in a room heated to 105 degrees for an hour and a half holding crazy postures, I actually did enjoy it. I felt pretty awesome after, and so did my skin from sweating out of every pore in my body. However, if you don't like to exercise in a sauna for 90 minutes, don't try Bikram yoga. If you want to "detox", definately try it.
Anyway, so today was my second ever yoga class, and it was ironically called "detox yoga". I was expecting something similar to my first yoga experience, but it was completely different. It was in a heated room, although not as hot (which I liked), but it was 90 minutes of a variation on Vinyasa yoga...or also called "power yoga". It uses different poses that are linked together in different series and you actually break a pretty good sweat doing it. This is where the warrior pose, downward dog, etc comes from. Being a dancer, I have good balance, flexibility, and strength, so for my first time I did pretty well with all of the postures. But then there's the yoga meditation and breathing. You have to be somewhat composed in a yoga class because not only are you focusing on your posture, but you're supposed to "live in the moment". If you know me, you know that is a challenge for me. I kept it together for most of class, even when I lost my balance, or was forced to look to the side wall...which for me, was a great view of the K&W cafeteria and all the old folks walking in for their sunday morning cholesterol. So we get to the end of class for the "breathing sequence". I already knew this would be a problem because most of the time when you breathe in yoga, there is a sound associated with it. I don't do well with awkward sounds. So far so good until we get to the "lion's breathing". The instructor tells us to "bulge your eyes out of your head and open your mouth to exhale like a roar". No sooner does this picture create itself in my head do I start to lose it. As soon as its time to breathe, I'm giggling out of control while everyone else is ROARing.....so much for my yogi composure. I guess I can handle the exercise, but I'm going to have to work on "quieting my mind".
Ok that's it for now. It's bedtime and I was already too productive for my own good today. Yoga, start and finish a 10 page paper, AND blog. Whoa. Lock it up, Katie.
...krg
