Yoga for the unyoga

If I’m going to make a fool of myself, I might as well do it right. I’ve tried yoga before, going to a semester of perpetually dull classes in first year university where I would frequently break into dance-like spasms simply to keep myself amused in the giant wall of mirrors.

Before I go on, you should know I don’t consider myself either an athletic chump or expert. I have never run at the front of the pack, or specialized in any sport enough to be considered good. But, I am a 21 year old male with a variety of races under my belt ranging from small triathlons to the aforementioned epic hike, in combination with a summer of tree planting I like to think I know hard work when I see it. So when my mom told me that she was becoming a regular at the local hot yoga studio, something that has always interested me I decided to sign up for a trial membership.

Before I went in the studio, the instructor looked me in the eye and said ‘at some point your going to realize this is damn hot’, of course I gave the appropriate smile and nod and acknowledged that it was after all aptly referred to as hot yoga. Turns out it really wasn’t that hot. When you’re just lying down it’s barely hot enough to make one lightly sweat, but hardly near unbearable. It takes about 60-90 minutes of moving in directions I never thought possible while doing my utter best not to revert back the awkwardness that characterized the first 18 years of my life to reveal its true suffocating heat. In true fashion of one young man in a room of 20 beautiful women, I failed miserably and instead replaced wishes of confidence and charisma with dizzying blood rushes and a dire need to vomit.

After eventually regaining control of my gag reflex I was able to continue and once again contort myself into positions that sounded more like exotic dishes than spine stretching exercises. When it was all over I picked up my 10 pound lighter frame and mopped up my 10 pound heavier clothes and staggered my way to a shower. In the end, I absolutely love it. I have a totally new respect for people who do this on a regular basis. Undoubtedly, due to the extra heat of my first class and my lack of fitness it was the most difficult activity I have ever done. It took me a second time to realize how good it makes me feel, despite having minimal balance and barely fulfilling the requirements of each pose it’s definitely something I can see pursuing.

 

More pictures:

http://www.zooomr.com/photos/jyves/sets/32162

100km and not a whole lot to show

Those smiles are about to get smacked off by the trail.

Checkpoint 3, still early, about 25km in, still looking sparky.

In the last 5km, the joy returns.

I think the concept of 'not being so bright' really isn't given enough credit in our society. I think to much emphasis is placed on education and not enough on action. Plus, there are advantages to not being the sharpest tool in the shed. Take for example ignorance, it truly is bliss. Or maybe pain or being in trouble, I think that people who struggle mentally in life may have a higher resistance, or maybe ignorance to pain caused by a lifetime of struggling to make themselves understood. As for trouble, we may just really not know when we're in it. 

Being one of these people I can attest to its beauty. For example, not knowing is quite equivalent to not caring, making my life much more stress free when I am unwilling or incapable of sweating the small stuff. Once in a while though, this ignorance gets me into trouble. While it usually allows me to push myself beyond what I believe I am capable of, it also puts me in situations where I am actually incapable, and must overcome anyways.

 

Take for example walking 100 km. Why? I know I can do a 30-40k hike with a decent pace, but it is apparently a totally different world to do 3 of this hikes in a row.  I've heard a variety of explanations for such challenges... I like a challenge, I feed on pain, I like free food or I want a good story at a party, but the best one I think is that I do it for the t-shirt. Basically, 28 hours and 36 minutes later I am even further from having an answer than ever. I really have no clue why I just did that. 

We set off at a jog with 200 other teams of 4 people from a track near Odawara at 9 am Saturay, near Nagoya (halfway between Osaka and Tokyo) and ran the first couple km to avoid a bottleneck in the trail. 

There were 3 others on my team, AK, a montreal hasher and the team organizer, Akemi, a japanese hasher and Carsten a Danish hasher and most competitive of the group. The course was cut up into lengths between 6 and 18km with checkstops in between. The checks were pretty much the highlight with locally made miso, yakisoba, ice cream, and an amalgamation of everything else. All was decent until the 2-6:30 am stage 6-7. After about 65k, even though 2/3 were over we all reached an incredibly new low of exhaustion. I also ate an expired (or so I found out after) energy gel which induced the demand to vomit for several hours on top of a mountain, truly pleasurable. There were also several points where my knees buckled due to falling asleep while walking. We had exhausted every word association game possible where 3 of the 4 had english as a second language and just about run every other topic into the ground, including having me recite every Japanese word I knew. Luckily at the next rest stop we had sun, ice cream and I grabbed a 10 minute power nap which carried me to the finish.

I'm still having difficult processing the whole event. In reality, our bodies did not finish that race, our minds did it for us. We weren't really adequately trained for the pace we were going, but still managed a 28th place of the 200 teams. In so many ways it all feels like a dream, were it not for the aches and pains I would have happily called it a hallucination. The recovery is unlike any other I've had before. It's not the sharp pains of lactic acid that ware off in a few days, instead there's a deep physical and mental exhaustion that is still with me 2 days after. I also think my foot arch collapsed... smooth.

The terrain varied from new roads, to logging roads, to singletrack along ridges and peaks, but had elevation gains and drops unlike anything I have ever hiked before. Luckily rain held off for most of the event, but the ground was still slick with mud from a previous day's pour. I would say I got to see a whole new side to the country, but in many ways feel that I got to see 28 hours of the 3 feet of ground in front of me.

The biggest part was the mental weight of knowing how far we had to go, and the group pressure to beat the previous years time. The joy of finding out you only had 38 more km to go at 2 am doesn't last long. Luckily the course was staffed by incredible volunteers who would burst into applause each time we arrived at a checkpoint, kind of made you feel like a celebrity. Really until we saw the finish line it felt as though it would never end. With a pace starting at 5km/h then slowing down to 3km/h 16k stages were stretched into 5 hour behemoths. 

Would I do it again? Not anytime soon. I also would definitely not recommend it to anyone not properly trained (i.e. me). It had a totally different feel to it than finishing the marathon, rather than the joy of having completed 42k and loved every second of it, I was simply ecstatic to take my shoes off. I'm not sure if any of this makes any sense, but if not, go walk 100km and we can talk. More pictures to come.

According to a United Nations press release my feet have recently been declared a chemical weapon with imminent threat capabilities. Luckily I was saved by UNESCO who just named them a world heritage site due to the previously undiscovered species living on them. I think the message is clear.