seawheeze | Fit Girl. Happy Girl.

As I’ve been training for the half-marathon in September, I’ve been using the Lululemon SeaWheeze half-marathon training app on my iPhone. On the non-running days it suggests doing yoga to help stretch and strengthen the muscles in your legs. Unfortunately, my gym doesn’t offer yoga or any group fit classes so on these yoga days I usually just ignored it and went running anyways.

That was until I discovered the Lululemon YouTube channel! What a treasure! They have a bunch of yoga videos geared specifically toward running the half-marathon, as well as other yoga videos. I had used some of the short post-run yoga, or what they like to call “Run into Yoga (RINY)” in the app but I never explored outside of it.

When I found these videos last night I decided I would wake up early this morning to do a power yoga video because today was supposed to be a “rest” day. It was fantastic! In the app, Lululemon describes power yoga as “a high-intensity, fast-paced style that emphasizes overall body strength and stamina.” They also say it’s a great way to build “balanced strength” which is especially good for runners. My legs have been super tight this week and I don’t know about you but those pesky hip-flexors are the hardest to stretch out but this power yoga video was great for that.

Posted below is the power flow yoga video I did this morning. I would also highly recommend visiting Lululemon’s YouTube channel, hit subscribe and give yoga a try.

This week was extremely successful in terms of my training. I was able to fit in four runs this week, which was really great and on my days off I did yoga. I have always been interested in using yoga with my run training but never really tried it. However, it is included practically every other day in the LuluLemon SeaWheeze Half-marathon training app that I’ve been using so I figured I’d give it a shot. Turns out yoga really does help! The stretches are designed for runners and get at those hard to reach muscles in your legs. Yoga also helps to stretch out the IT band and hamstrings. Not to mention it’s a great relaxer and helps runners focus on their breathing.

As far as my runs went this week, I was really impressed. I logged 19 miles in total, breaking down to a 4-miler on Tuesday, two 3-milers on Wednesday and Friday, and the grand finale, 9-miler on Saturday.

My Saturday run was the farthest I’ve ever ran and it felt absolutely fantastic. I ran 9 miles in 1:30:00, which I know is pretty slow but I wanted to take it easy. Intellectually, I knew I would be able to do it because the weekend before I ran 7 miles. However, the night before the run I had a nervous pit in my stomach. I had told family and friends that this run would be my first “long” run and it was kind of make or break. Most of them were supportive but others seemed to doubt me. Nine miles is a long way, I clocked it in my car the day before to get a sense of just how far it would be and realized, “Wow, this is not just a run, it’s freaking long!” But when I woke up on Saturday morning at 7:00 a.m. my first thought surprised me. The first thing I thought was, “I get to run today.” I was excited! I wanted to prove the doubters wrong and prove myself wrong.

When I finished the 9 miles I felt great. I wasn’t winded, my legs felt good and I realized I just ran 9 freaking miles! I even finished the run with a huge smile on my face because I honestly couldn’t believe I did it. The best part about it was, there’s only 4.1 miles left to 13.1.

This week I’m planning on doing a tempo run on Monday and then I have a race on the 4th of July in Maine. It’s only 4 miles so it should feel pretty easy compared to 9! In other news, I just started to read “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall and it’s pretty fascinating. Maybe I’ll write a review for a post once I finish?