Trying easy

A few months ago I found an AWESOME podcast, of which I am now an avid listening. Power Yoga with Dave Farmar is a Baptiste Power Vinyasa podcast, led by (you guessed it) Dave Farmar, a student of Baron Baptiste. I particularly like Farmar's teaching style and flow. Although he tells the same jokes over and over, I find that its actually quite endearing. He also comes up with these utter gems of wisdom and sprinkles unassumingly throughout his classes. Things like [in down dog]: "Ok, now drop your head. Ok, now drop your day. While you're at it how about you drop your entire childhood." He also talks about finding a balancing between muscling through and giving up. For me its so often about powering through, generating some sort of (angry) vigor to make things happen, or else I'm left feeling utterly depleted. In this same vein, my favorite Farmarism is when he instructs you to stop trying so hard, and to try easy. Thirty seconds, or two minutes into a warrior sequence this can sometimes seem like the most absurd suggestion imaginable, but on occasion its just whats needed.

After my successful run on Sunday I spent much of the first half of the week psyching myself out about my next mid-distance run; basically talking smack at myself, doubting that these sorts of runs were replicable. Today I was due for a basic 4 mile training run. I dutifully pulled myself out of bed and headed to the gym, with low expectations. Then miraculously, as I laced up my shoes and tic-tic-tic-ed my way through my ipod to my intended playlist, Dave Farmar came to mind. Why don't I try easy? Not muscle, just flow. If I need to slow down, I'll do that. If I have a little more, I can pick it up. Regardless, it will be a run. The sweat will flow,  the blood will pump, my feet will follow one after another. And I ran, without judgment- listening to the music in my ears and the rhythm of my feet on the belt. It was pretty sweet. Not a super fast time, but that wasn't really the point. And as I emerged from the gym, into the cool morning air, for my walk up the hill to the Psych Department, things didn't look half bad. In fact, they looked pretty good. Something about the crisp fall air gets me every time.

One foot after the other. Along the road.