The Zen of Ultra Running

This weekend is Eau Claire Summer Festival. One of the activities that they organized was "yoga on the bridge", which is free to anyone. This class was offered by Amy from Latitude Yoga because she wanted to promote her new studio in town. This studio will also have hot yoga (finally!!!). I'm so looking forward to try the hot yoga. This is how it was set up. Because it's a foot bridge, we could lay our mats on one side of the bridge and people could still walk on the other side. The class was at 11am so it was super hot and sunny. I had to close my eyes while doing poses on my back.  Then, we strolled along Barstow street checking out the summerfest. There were many vendors from Eau Claire and Chippewa falls areas. After having lunch at the summerfest, I came home and took a nap before heading out to Lake Wissota to practice open water swimming.  I heard that open water swimming can be dangerous especially when there are motor boats i...

Today was my first day practicing swimming. I admit that the swimming leg is the leg that I am scared of the most. Why? because I'm not a good swimmer. I've swum in open water before (scuba diving) but it's not the same. I used to like swimming for fitness but recently became tired of showering and getting ready after swimming.  But it is a part of the triathlon!!! so, I just need to shut up and do it. I only have to swim 400m at this triathlon, which is about 8 laps non-stop. Not too bad. 

Started my day with a yoga class at the gym with one of my favorite yoga teachers. The class was nice because there were only 5 people in the class and the teacher was able to go around and make some adjustments. Super relaxing. Then, I began my regular training schedule. Today it was running 5 miles. The weather was on the high 70s but with the sun it was warmer than usual. There are a lot of hiking/biking trails around Eau Claire and there is one near the gym that I go. It took me almost an hour to run 5 miles. The evening we saw that the EC Brewing Projekt had new beer on tap. So, we went there to grab some drink and ran into some people that we usually run into at different breweries in town. Such a small town, indeed.

Today was another boring day at work. The campus is usually empty in the summer but today was the student orientation day so there were a lot of students and parents on campus. It was nice to see those incoming students. So young, so excited about everything :) I then came home and ran 4.5 miles. It was raining in the afternoon and it stopped just before I got home. The weather was still too hot to run outside so I waited until it cooled down a bit. It took me longer than usual to run 4.5 miles due to the heat. Had to slow down and drink water often to cool down. This is my first running selfie. Still need to improve the skill but this is not too bad for the first timer? ;)