Sweat and Devotion

I made yet another alteration to my marathon training plan today by attending a yoga class instead of doing the scheduled 5-mile run. If it's not obvious yet, these first few weeks of my training plan won't be followed to the letter because of ongoing preparation for my first half marathon in 2 weeks. I'm getting in all the mileage that is scheduled for this week, just not on the exact days it is scheduled. The forecast is calling for rain Saturday and Sunday, so I'll most likely switch my scheduled long run of the week from Sunday to tomorrow and hit the treadmill for the 5-mile run once the rain starts.

I went to a bhakti flow yoga class today at Flying Yoga in Oakland with Pradeep Teotia. I read that "bhakti" is often translated to "devotion" in Sanskrit. For me, it translated to lots of sweat, planks, and ab work. While not particularly pleasant in the moment, I know this class will be very beneficial for me for injury prevention, so I'll be back.

My favorite part of the class was when we were holding the second or third plank for twenty seconds, and Pradeep told us in the midst of our suffering to either hold the pose or not to hold it, to choose one and go for it. He said too often in life we go back and forth, should we or shouldn't we, and that life is too short to spend so much time in this state. I really went for that plank (that approach became harder to take with each subsequent plank), and I intend to apply that thinking to other aspects of my life.