….and My Story Runs On….

As many of you know, I’ve had to take a break from running due to a heel spur.  I blogged about it a few times in  What? The ChiRunning Instructor is injured?? and  My Worst Running Tragedy so far…..  After being a big baby about this, I realized how many silver linings I’ve found for this part of My Running Story.  So I decided to blog about them. First one is: Cross Training.

Thanks so much to Flip’n Fit because if it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be having these experiences.  You basically pay a monthly membership but get to try out a lot of different modalities from Dahn Yoga to Spinning to Cross Fit!

Today I had an amazing experience. I signed up for what I thought was a Yoga Foundations class at Dahn Yoga.  They are 8 minutes from my apartment so I figured why not. I love trying new things and always like to see how it could improve my fitness level as well as my running.  I’m always a bit nervous to go somewhere new by myself but that’s part of the process too. If I tell people to get out of their comfort zones, I better walk the talk too!

I honestly cannot explain to you exactly what happened but it was awesome! I’m thankful to be flexible (mentally) so I went with the flow.

I walked in right before the 9:30am start time and participants were in a circle punching their stomachs. I’d heard about this from Qi Gong so I started in with them.  I think we did it 100x?  We just kept counting to 10 and starting over.

The next series of exercises included a few things that I recognized from the ChiRunning body looseners but very small movements that had big impact.  At one point we were doing some movements and trying to balance these plates in our hands while moving and twisting.

Plate balancing while twisting the intestines and stretching!

After several standing exercises we moved to the floor and did many reps of chest and belly breathing.  I’m trying to body sense as I write this and not sure if it’s my core muscles or my intestines that are sore…I think it’s both!

The last part of the class included a 10 minute Energy Meditation which I loved.

I remember being so mad at myself for letting my heel spur get to where it is but today I’m very grateful that it happened.  As cliche as it sounds, I truly believe there is a reason for everything and this is part of My Running Story.

Moral of the story:

• Get out of your comfort zone and try something new
• Always find the silver lining no matter how hard it seems sometimes
• Be flexible.  Go with the flow and just allow things to happen as they are supposed to.

Anyone ever try this?  I talked to them after class and looks like on Wed they focus on Tai Chi, Thu is Back and Spine and Friday is Brain Wave Energy work. Decisions, decisions! I have Spin tomorrow too…next blog post about that!

Can’t wait to see how all these things are going to impact my ChiRunning when I’m able to get serious again about running!

There were a lot of neat posters in the room and this one caught my eye…

From My Running Story to Yours….
(if you feel inspired to share your comments, do so below…I want to hear your story too!)