The RunRunLive 4.0 Podcast Episode 4-314 – Bonnie Talks Easy Yoga
(Audio: link)
[audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/epi4314.mp3]
Link epi4314.mp3
Support my Hood-to-Coast Relay for Cancer Research – https://give.everydayhero.com/us/chris-russell-hood-to-coast-for-cancer-research
Intro Bumper:
Hello and welcome to episode 4-314 of the RunRunLive podcast. Yes it’s been a month… or two fortnights… since you last received a RunRunLive podcast. But now, your wait is over. As you sleep I have silently packaged up another greasy ball of endurance sports content and slid it down the pipes of the internet to your electronic familiar.
And it’s been a weird month indeed. In my last missive from the field I told you how I had lost my computer, a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 that I have been using since last November. And how with that missing computer went all the files for Episode 4-313 – ‘the lost masterpiece’.
This week, two weeks later, after I had gotten a new Surface, procured all the magic software that I require for my clandestine audio wrangling and tickled my ganglia into producing today’s replacements show – Delta sent my old one back to me.
Yeah, I got it back. So next week I’ll double down and release the stillborn Episode 4-313. It will be our little game of time travel!
What’s crazy is how attached I am to my devices. When I lost it, it was like losing a friend. I went through, denial, anger, grief and acceptance – then it shows up!
My training has been epic over the last couple weeks. I’m back on the Mountain Bike and back in the water and back on the trails. As you didn’t hear in the missing episode I decided to get off the road marathon merry go round and have some fun this summer. And fun I am having by the bucket load.
I signed up for an Olympic Triathlon in Mid-July. Is that where I line up with nations from all over the world and march around the infield representing my country in full splendor? No, it’s not. It’s about a mile swim, a 22 mile bike ride and a 10K. Twice as long as a sprint tri.
Swimming is my weakest sport. Weakest is probably the wrong phraseology. Swimming is the part where I have the least racing confidence. I’ve been trying to get into the pool and do some drills because I haven’t swum at all for almost two years.
Last Saturday Coach had a 1700 yard pool workout on the schedule with a 2 hour bike. It was a nice day so I decided to just go down to the pond and do it as a brick. (Meaning do an open water swim in the pond and then take my mountain bike out for a tour.)
I eyeballed the pond and guessed it was probably 1/3 of a mile across. I got my wetsuit on and set out. After I warmed up I fell into a nice rhythm. The pond is still cold enough to be comfortable, maybe 75 degrees. The water was black and murky and full of pollen, and I was basically looking at nothing. The sky was overcast so the sun wasn’t in my eyes when I rolled to breathe.
When I had been doing a lot of pool work a couple years ago when that Plantar Fasciitis sidelined me, I managed to work out a 3-stroke alternate breathing pattern. Stroke – Stroke – Stroke – Breathe Right, 1 2 – 3 Breathe Left, and so on. Miracles of miracles this seems to have corrected most of my slice. When I sighted I was swimming fairly true towards the horizon. (With My old 2-stroke cadence I basically swam in a circle and had to site and correct constantly.
The cold water flowed by in a murky silence. Dark and deep. The grey skies muffled the world outside my goggles. The tri-wet-suit kept me easy, balanced and true in the water. The ear plugs completed the deprivation. I fell into a deep meditative practice and pulled silently across the lake.
When I got close to the end I turned around and pulled back. There was a bit of a head wind and a little chop on the return but I was relaxed and strong, considering it was like my 3rd time in the water in 2 years.
I had stuffed my Garmin under my swim cap to see if I could at least get the distance estimate. It won’t pick up your HR through the water, but it will track the GPS, and if you put it under your cap it gets jostled around less.
When I climbed out of the water at the town beach feeling tired but settled I checked the watch. According to Mr. Garmin I had been in the water for 56 minutes and had swum 1.49 miles. Really? I was blown away! Even if it was off by 30% that was a hell of a swim for my 3rd time in the water.
I hopped on my 29er and rode the trails for another 2 hours – for a heck of a workout.
So the lesson, my friends, is that your body doesn’t forget the training. Once you have the endurance engine and the endurance mindset it doesn’t go away. I rolled out tools that I trained into my body in the winter of 2013 – and my machine remembered them.
I hope that Oly lets us wear wetsuits. My two-piece leopard print bikini just has too much drag.
…
I went out for a run the next day in the trails. I was supposed to do like 1:45. I’ve started taking Buddy for a first 2 ish mile loop, then I stick him back in the house and go out for the rest. He’s getting old and his hips bother him 20 minutes is enough to get him some exercise but not wreck him.
I’m pumping up this little hill on the trails behind my house, with my hat on, my head down and my headphones in, lost in the run and WHAM! I take an overhanging oak tree right off the noggin like somebody hit me with a 2 x 4.
There I am laying on the trail seeing stars and I feel bits of teeth in my mouth! This tree fell across the trail about 5.5 feet off the ground and I ran right into it. When I hit it it jammed my jaws and broke a couple of my teeth! Crazy. So I took the dog home, put the tooth pieces on my desk and went out and finished the run. No worse for wear but I did have to visit the dentist and get a bunch of teeth bonded up.
Tuesday I ran 1:45 with my buddy Bob in the land locked forest and Wednesday I rode my mountain bike the 18 miles to work and back. I feel like superman but I’m beat! I love summer! I love multisport training!
We’ve got a great show for your today. I have a chat with Bonnie Kissinger, triathlete, mom, engineer and Yoga instructor. I used Bonnie’s yoga routines for my Boston training this year. I think it helped and I definitely learned some new tricks. (Old dog – new tricks).
I wanted to plumb her thoughts on the current popularity of yoga and meditation and how we can make it more accessible for every day runners like you and me.
In the first section I’ll chat about how beginning runners can find the time to start their fitness routines. In the second section I’ll review a book I read last week called “The Art of Work” – that is about how to find your calling.
Everything is cool. It’s summertime and the living is easy. The catfish are jumpin and the cotton is high.
On with the show!
Section one – Running Tips
Finding time to start running – https://runrunlive.com/creating-space-in-your-life-to-start-running
https://runrunlive.com/back-to-basics-how-to-become-a-runner-from-scratch
Voices of reason – the interviews
Bonnie Kissinger
Coach Bonnie Kissinger is a 500 RYT and mechanical engineer, specializing in yoga for athletes. She is also a certified health coach and Ironman Triathlete. With 10 years of experience teaching yoga and focusing on functional movements in yoga, her instruction focuses on cultivating more balance within joints and better kinetic movements.
30 Min Hamstring Y Class: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-RawDwT_00
Meditation 101: Lesson 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slILB–WCds
Triangle Chat: http://bonniekissinger.com/online-yoga/
http://bonniekissinger.com/online-yoga/
Section Two – Life Lessons
The Art of Work – https://runrunlive.com/the-art-of-work
Outro
OK My friends, you lucky devils, you herd of catastrophically fortunate humans, you got to the end of the episode 4-314 of the RunRunLive Podcast and next week, if all goes according to plan I’ll post-date-launch episode 4-313 with some sleight of hand, so that future generations will never know there was a gap! Re-writing history we are.
As it turns out, I’m racing this weekend. Getting up at the crack of dawn on Sunday and driving down to Plymouth for the Mayflower Brewery ½ marathon. I’m treating it as a tempo run, not a race. I haven’t been training for road racing – so I just have to not hurt myself and get a little exercise with friends.
My heart seems to be working ok. With the multisport I don’t drive as much direct stress into it but it seems to be staying in zone 2 well and it recovers very quickly from efforts. There’s an AFib support group on Facebook that Paula pointed me to. It seems that this malady is quite common.
You might say Chris, you’re pushing it too hard, but the multisport training is more of an overall body stressor than a heart stressor. It’s actually quite well balanced. I’m not worried about it or giving it much attention at this point – I’m just having fun.
You know what else is really prevalent? Cancer! That’s why I’m continuing to support cancer research this summer. I set up a page for the Hood to Coast Relay. The link is in the show notes. I’m still fleshing out my campaign, but any donation you can make helps. Cancer sucks.
Also I n the show notes are links to a few of Bonnie’s yoga videos that I used, and continue to use, in my training. Check out her site and the resources she has there.
It is summertime! I’ve already started harvesting salad from my garden. My hops, my berry crops, my herbs and my beans are all thriving. My peppers and tomatoes are a bit sad, I’ll have to give them some chemical encouragement this weekend.
But my biggest success is the new potato box that we are experimenting with. You build a simple board box, with 4 upright posts and flat boards up the sides. I made mine 4 X 4 – which is a little large in retrospect.
You start by putting one row of boards on – so in my case like 8 inches high. You fill that up with soil and plant your potato sets. As the potatoes grow you add boards and soil so the box keeps getting higher. I’m up to 4 boards now with no sign of stopping. I’m going to have 300 pounds of potatoes.
In theory, you are supposed to be able to remove the bottom boards and harvest from the bottom. We’ll see how that works. That seems to run counter to Newton’s laws. But, I’ll try. You have to keep learning new things.
I guess that’s what scares me or disappoints me about this heart problem. It might mean I have to stop going longer, deeper and harder in my sports pursuits. To me that means a curtailing of adventure. I don’t do all this stuff for achievement, I do it for adventure. That’s the itch that needs to be scratched. That’s how I’m wired.
I like to learn. As they say in the business world; “I’m a hunter, not a farmer.” How about you? When was the last time you tried something new? Something outside your routine? Something that forced you to learn? Something that, maybe, scared you a bit?
How are you positioned to rise to a new challenge? What would you do if you lost your laptop? How would you react if you learned you had a heart problem or something worse?
These people in this AFib FaeceBook Group are very scarcity and fear focused. They bemoan all the things they can’t do. Like a recent post where a bunch of them gave up sex due to fear of triggering a heart-racing episode – (which is kinda what sex is about, no?)
All they can focus on is loss because they started with the wrong mindset. They were never comfortable with what they had to begin with. They weren’t grateful for what they had. With this existing negative mindset they are less capable to deal with any new challenges. They essentially see their heart problem as a confirmation of their negativity bias. “See? I told you life sucks!”
What if, and stay with me here, you instead saw your life and everything in it as a gift? How would that position you to deal with new challenges? Would, you maybe see them as opportunities? Opportunities to break with the old, embrace a new beginning and rewrite the future?
Maybe these things, as we have heard from so many challenged athletes on this show over the years, are not challenges per se, but gifts. Ask yourself, what if you were given the gift of an eraser for your chalkboard. What if you were forced by some event or challenge to wipe that future clean and start from scratch?
And, how about this? What if you didn’t wait until that car crash or divorce or disease to slap you up-side the head? What if you started now and designed this cycle of renewal into your life?
All interesting questions. But what action can we take?
It’s up to you. There’s lots of tools out there for facilitating direction changes. I would suggest having an adventure before the summer is over. Take a leap. I don’t know what an adventure is for you. Maybe it’s hiking the Appalachian Trail. Maybe it’s taking a sabbatical to work in a homeless shelter. Maybe it’s writing that book that’s been kicking around in your head. Maybe it’s a road trip across the country with your kids (god help you). Maybe it’s walking into your boss’s boss’ office and saying “I have a plan!”.
Large or small. Take a leap. Schedule an adventure in the next 3 months. Large or small. And let us know what it is.
Cause some chaos in your life…and I’ll see you out there.
Closing comments
Support my Hood-to-Coast Relay for Cancer Research – https://give.everydayhero.com/us/chris-russell-hood-to-coast-for-cancer-research