There's a scene in A Discovery of Witches* where the protagonist attends a yoga class full of paranormals.** The protagonist holds her own for the most part until they get to the final pose--Savasana or corpse pose. Even though this is the easiest of all poses (and my personal favorite), for a variety of reasons, this causes the protagonist to have a panic attack. The ancient yogi leading the class quietly comes to her and simply says, "Not for you." The yogi places the protagonist into fetal position, and peace returns. I cried reading that.
I tell you that to tell you this: I took a step back to take a step forward. I changed training programs.
I had been using a pretty standard C25K program. Lots of people had done it successfully. People I knew. So it should be simple for me, right? But from the beginning, none of the runs were solid. I would try to repeat templates while I watched others on the same program lap me. I tried to push harder, but all I was hearing was FAIL.
Finally, I heard my Inner Yogi say, "Not for you."
So I switched training programs. I got one from Runkeeper that emphasizes endurance and breathing.
The first half of my outing was the actual training--20 minutes with warm-up, alternating running and walking. Every single run was solid. I never got too out of breath. The second half of the outing was walking back--brisk but meditative.
And I tossed in a sprint toward the end, just to prove I could.
*No, I haven't finished this. But I'm willing to if someone will lend me a copy.
** If this is the wrong term from this series, it's been a while since I read it. Lay off, fan girl!
