Hot Yoga

This past Tuesday I pulled a Two-Day. I don’t normally do Two-Days. However, my husband had bought me (a while back) a trial membership to a local hot yoga studio and I hadn’t used it yet. I figured now would be the perfect opportunity for yoga classes since I’m lying off the running. Also, a colleague of mine reminded me with Thanksgiving coming up, we needed to double down at the gym, and so a Two-Day was well warranted.

In the morning, I hit the gym. I rode the bike until I built up a sweat and then worked with some weights. A trainer had shown me some great exercises to build up my lower and upper back muscles. After work, I headed over to the hot yoga studio for an 8pm session. It wasn’t until I arrived that I found out this session would last for about 2 hours!!! (cutting it close to my bed time)

I have never done yoga before, let alone hot yoga. Let’s just say it was very different and difficult at times. They keep the room at 90 degrees and humid, so you sweat like a pig. It’s great for clearing out your pores, although I would not recommend doing this after a night of boozing. I didn’t really mind the sweat because I tend to measure exercise by the amount I sweat. The more I sweat, the harder and better the workout.

The instructor, or Yogi as they call him, was pretty cool. He noticed my NYRR t-shirt and asked if I was a member. We got chatting about running before the start of the class. Having something in common with the Yogi made my first class of hot yoga less nerve-racking. I also enjoyed that he spoke softly and nicely, unlike the instructors of my boot camp class who like to stand on my thighs as I’m doing wall squats. This was a completely different atmosphere- very soothing and relaxing.

As for the actually yoga, I found the standing poses tough to hold at times. It amazes me how even though I can run for hours on end, my legs could barely hold me in a warrior pose for 20 seconds. The standing poses were also hard because of the amount of sweat that was dripping down my legs and off my face. Being a newbie, I had the bright idea of wearing shorts and so my legs kept slipping and sliding off each other during poses. I made a mental note to wear pants next time. The seated poses were easier and much more enjoyable because as you know, heat rises. Lying on the mats I could feel the “cooler” air even though it was only a couple of degrees cooler. Hey it still felt good and after an hour of doing standing poses in 90 degrees, I needed it. PS- during my standing pose hour, I engaged in the Runner’s Mental Challenge. I seriously wanted to quit but knew I still had another hour to go. I was hot, tired from a long day of work and working out, sweating all over the place, having difficulty holding poses and finding my “still” place. I was tempted to walk out the door but remembered that PAIN is nothing, PRIDE is everything. Plus (no offense to the people who do yoga) I was cocky. I kept looking around the room at all the girls who were bending inside out and stretching their bodies in wacky ways. I thought to myself “They don’t look as strong as me and I bet they can’t run a marathon. I’m going to show them I can run and do this yoga sh*t too”. Hey, I’m a runner, which means I’m competitive. There are some things we can’t help.

My favorite part of the hot yoga class was the cool down at the end haha. The Yogi instructed us to lie flat on our backs and “sink into our mats” aka sleep. Being that it was 10pm, I almost fell asleep. I left class definitely feeling stretched and drenched. Overall, I found hot yoga to be a good stretching exercise and definitely something us runners could use because we all know that we don’t stretch as much as we should. I don’t know if I will go to hot yoga frequently but I think it would be a good idea to take a class once a week. I definitely felt a little sore on Wednesday, which was a great feeling.