Something New

Last night I was on the 24 Hour Fitness web site and looked at the class schedule. I keep meaning to go to classes but haven't been able to get a time that there's a class I want and I have someone to watch Ijja.

I figured a 7:45 am Saturday yoga class might actually work.

Getting up for it was another story.

I scooted in to the class and the room was already quite full. I picked up one of the "public" mats at the door--which are not so great for a variety of reasons. I placed myself near the back in a semi-open space (i.e., less crowded than the rest of the room) and was already self-conscious since the instructor was already talking as I was getting myself settled.

The class was really nice though. My mat proved to be challenging because it stretched--so as I was doing one of the lunging poses, my lunge kept going deeper. Perhaps that's why nearly everyone else had their own mat.

I've only taken one yoga class before--and it was probably at least 10 years ago, so this was really a new experience. About halfway through I remembered what I thought of the last class: it's amazing how staying nearly still can be so much work.

Most of the time I was just focused on trying to do what I was supposed to be doing and breathe. A few times I did glance around to see what others were doing and was surprised by a few things.

Holy cow, my hamstrings and calves have lost SO much flexibility since I got hurt. There was a time when in ANY given situation, I would be one of the most, if not the most, flexible person at an activity. That has exactly flipflopped for those muscles. There were a couple of stretches that it looked like I wasn't even trying to participate, yet my muscles were on the edge of revolt it stretched so much.

Alternately, my balance still seems to be decent. I don't practice balancing much any more, so was surprised that I still seem to be able to control my body to keep it from flipping over. There were a few poses that I was one of the few actually able to do them, let alone hold them. It made me feel a little better for being lousy at the flexibility earlier on.

Again, surprised by how much work it was to stay still. Sheesh!

After I was done with yoga, I decided I hadn't done enough to myself yet, so I went for a swim. Between being sick and having a hard time getting to do workouts lately, it was a bit more challenging than it had been.

Oh, and I learned that the pool I've been practicing my "half miles" in is actually only 25 yards, not 25 meters. Okay, so there's only 3 inches difference between a yard and a meter, but on one length of the pool alone, that's nearly 2 meters difference. On a half mile, it means a 3 pool length difference.

So all those "half mile" practice runs I swam to get ready for the triathlon?

Weren't.

While it may surprise those who have seen my house, I have a few OCD tendencies. With swimming, it is even numbers. So instead of swimming 35 lengths of the pool to get in my half mile, I did 36. Not only that, but I divided up my breaks mathematically as well: 4-8-12-8-4, stopping for about 30 seconds after each group of lengths.

That's not even going into the math I do in my head while swimming the lengths so I don't go crazy following the black line on the bottom of the pool.

Let me step back on this side of crazy now.

I came home from swimming and...felt the beginnings of a migraine. Rather than wait for it to blow up, I took some of my back pain medication. I did spend a few minutes debating this as I'm pretty sure my back meds are causing my migraines. However, since I'd already taken them before yoga (about 5 hours prior), I couldn't take my migraine medication (have to wait 12 hours after back meds before migraine meds), I had a Christmas party to go to in the evening, and the back meds do take care of the existing migraine (before causing the next one), I took them anyway and went to go to sleep.

Four hours later I woke up feeling no worse, but not much better. I got ready for the party, got my daughter ready for the party, and when my husband got home, we left, on Moroccan time, about 30 minutes late.

As we pulled into the street that the home was on we were about to visit, my husband informed me he wasn't feeling well--and he thought I had what I had a few days ago.

I turned around and drove him home rather than expose him to everyone at the party.

Then my daughter and I went back and enjoyed ourselves socializing for a couple of hours. The senior preschool teacher (meaning she teaches the 4-year-olds!) was there and was very complimentary, telling me how cute my daughter was and she was amazed that at 8:30 pm, my 3-year-old was the only child there not in the middle of a meltdown.

And she had been a little angel the whole evening.

Until we walked out the door.

On the way home, I drove her down one of the streets with lots of Christmas lights. I thought she would be thrilled, but apparently I had left the party at the exact moment her nice temperament had worn out and instead she really didn't seem to care.

At least my headache seemed to have disappeared by that time, and by time i got home the whole family was ready for bed.

Except the dog, who needed out 37 times.