As I did in my blog yesterday I am going to refer to my first post that I wrote a few days ago.  I mentioned in that writing that as of January of this year I weighed over 200 lbs and was a 31 year smoker, today I am 170 lbs (and counting) and have not had a cigarette for 154 days!

My blog is really about a journey as I discover new things along the way to Me.  Well today I went to my first yoga class.  Even though I have taken up a healthier lifestyle and added lots of exercise to my life, until now I have avoided Yoga like it was a disease.  It just seemed too still for me and also I struggle with my core and flexibility, so basically I was chicken.

Silly me, I really enjoyed the class today and felt wonderful afterwards and will be back in the next class on Wednesday. I realized that not everyone who does yoga can stand in a tree pose for several minutes without losing balance so I had nothing to be embarrassed about.

My other discovery today; I really enjoy running outside!  I have committed myself to running, well now it is more walking/running but I do enjoy it and will get better, faster, stronger.  Until today I have done most of my running indoors.  I find I need to see my progress to know how far I have gone, speed, etc. so I have become addicted to treadmill running or running at the YMCA indoor track.

Today, the weather was gorgeous and I felt so great after yoga that I took my motivated butt down to the river to run.  Guess what!?  Five miles feel a heck of a lot shorter when you have the river and trees and people to view.  Although I do not have any type of tracking device like a running GPS or pedometer the river loop in our city does have mile markers and I do have a watch so I did not feel like I could not measure my progress.  I had done 2.5 miles before I even realized how far I had gone turned around at that point and headed back completing a Five mile loop.  It was wonderful!

One last note – If you take up outdoor running, use sunscreen 🙂