Yoga, Strength Training, Running.... (and other random stuff)

So this week I taught my third yoga class. All I can say is the difference between "doing" yoga and "teaching" yoga is not to be underestimated. The drawback to teacher training courses I would suspect is that while you will get teaching time in front of a group of students in one form or another, most of the "students" you will be teaching are already familiar with yoga, if not aspiring yoga teachers themselves. Within five minutes, I realized this was not going to be the case with the class I was teaching. I was really excited about this because it meant I was going to have to really understand the poses I was presenting and be able to communicate this understanding clearly to others who quite possibly had never been to a yoga class before. I think for this reason alone, I'm so glad to have taken this route for my teaching journey instead of the more traditional one which would have had me teach at a yoga studio. Plus correct me if I'm wrong, but there are plenty of yoga teachers for traditional yoga students with an ongoing practice. I want to be someone who serves as a fun and non-threatening introduction to yoga.

I also started my preparation for winter training after a few weeks of completely non-structured training. My runs have been really good, including a 17:00 3 mile run about a week ago. I was really encouraged by this run. It means that the weight loss and the core work and everything else I've been doing are paying off even without structured workouts. I'm getting faster by just by being good to myself. Gotta love it when that happens. Sweet. And I'm seeing the same thing on the bike. Though I haven't been on the tri bike outside in a while, the Moots is putting up some pretty fast times in my informal time trials.

One thing I'm noticing on the bike and in my running (I don't time swims at this time of year so, I'm clueless here) is I'm conscious of engaging and using my core more and more. Again I'm going to have to give the credit to both yoga and the handstand push ups I've become obsessed about doing recently. Yep, you read that correctly. I am obsessed with doing handstand pushups. Honestly I have no idea why, and aside from the core muscles necessary to pull it off for the balance and stability, it is probably a bit of a stretch to make the case for this type of work in the context of triathlon training. But what the hey, that's just the way I roll. Check this out. See if it doesn't get to you just a little.