I am thrilled to announce that I have completed the 30 Days of Yoga Challenge – at least 20 minutes of yoga every day for the past month. That’s right – every day from November 1 through November 30th I practiced yoga, including 3 – 90 minute Hot Yoga sessions and 2 – 60 minute at-home sessions. That total also includes one night when my eyes flew open at 12:15AM and I realized I hadn’t done yoga. I did what any *sane* person would do in my situation – I got up and did yoga! Don’t worry, Kirk didn’t even wake up during this time. 🙂
I have tried a number of styles throughout the month:
- Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga
- Power Vinyasa Yoga
- Jivamukti Yoga
- Gentle Hatha Yoga
- Yoga for Weight Loss
- Yoga for Runners
- Morning Flow
- Lunchtime Flow
- Qi Yoga
- Lunar Flow
- Moon Salutations Flow
- Detox Yoga
- Hot Yoga
I’m no yoga expert, so some of those might be overlapping styles, but the variety of sessions has been wonderful. I was very happy with my $7.00 investment in Yoga Download for the month. I have downloaded a number of classed for my yoga library going forward with my subscription. 🙂
So what was my favorite? That’s actually a hard question, but here are my top 3:
- Hot Yoga – I wrote about my good experience with Hot Yoga earlier this week. I’ll be looking to fit this into my regular training schedule going forward.
- Hatha Yoga – Sometimes you just want a good stretch, instead of a hard workout. This is when I love Hatha Yoga – perfect for the day of a long or hard run!
- Yoga before Bed – okay, this really isn’t a style, but a class that is intended to get your relaxed, loose, and ready for bed is one wonderful. The Lunar Flow & Moon Salutions flow fall into this catgory and gets me in the proper frame of mind to turn my brain off and drift into peaceful sleep.
One question I’ve gotten about yoga that I want to address is how Yoga fits in with my beliefs. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a Christian and Yoga has its roots in Eastern religion. I don’t find this a problem for me, as they styles that I’ve practices haven’t been overtly religious in nature. One thing that I’ve done that has helped my focus has been to use those “eyes closed, prayer hands” moments to thank God for the ability to practice yoga, to be active, and whatever else is on my mind. So if you feel like things are going in a direction that is uncomfortable for you…shift your direction and focus to where it should be.
So, mission accomplished. What’s next?! I was so close to signing on to the Runner’s World December Run Streak Challenge, but decided it’s time to shift my focus back to structured race training – although the early stages. It’s time to start building for my 50K Running Race in February and adding back in bike workouts for duathlons and triathlons next year. I plan on incorporating yoga at least twice a week in December, as well. I hope one of those with be Hot Yoga!
What’s next for you? Any December goals you are going after this month? Would you be interested in a yoga challenge in the future?