Most of what I do—and, I'd bet, most of what you do—all day is filling in the spaces left out in success-story montages. It's the work necessary between setting a goal and reaching it. Much of it is tough, much is repetitive, and the progress comes in fits and spurts, rather than following a linear path. (And there's no 80s music playing while we put in the work, is there?)

That makes it extra special when you can enjoy the work itself. Today, it struck me that after six months of getting up to speed in my new role as co-owner of a yoga studio, I'm really having fun with all the small moments of the job. I like checking students in for class. I like writing our newsletter. I even like filing our student waivers and copying our paper schedules. Can you find some joy in your routine today?

In March, I spent two lovely days in sunny San Diego (stay classy!) filming a video series on athletic recovery and hanging out with two fantastic and inspiring role models: the preternaturally prolific fitness writer Matt Fitzgerald and the lovely, fiery, and fun yoga teacher/attorney Ingrid Yang. (You can find Matt's books here and Ingrid's classes at Prana Yoga in La Jolla and online at YogaVibes.)

Here's the first of the series. I could have gone with brighter lipstick and glitzier earrings, but I think it's beautifully produced. What do you think?



If you're interested in learning more about recovery and you'll be at USA Triathlon's national championships in Alabama next month, please join me for my two-hour presentation on Friday morning, September 24. If you can't make that, download my hour-long webinar on the subject and read my column at Lava Magazine.

From the beautiful little book A Wheel within a Wheel, by Frances Willard, which my fantastic athlete Julee gave me a few years ago, a lovely thought on learning and progress:

Once, when I grew somewhat discouraged and said that I had made no progress for a day or two, my teacher told me that it was just so when she learned: there were growing days and stationary days, and she had always noticed that just after one of these last dull, depressing, and dubious intervals she seemed to get an uplift and went ahead better than ever. It was like a spurt in rowing. This seems to be the law of progress in everything we do; it moves along a spiral rather than a perpendicular; we seem to be actually going out of the way, and yet it turns out that we were really moving upward all the time.

This morning, my local paper ran this interesting story about Duke professor Adrian Behan's constructal theory—basically, the concept that wheels exist throughout nature and serve as an underlying mechanism for our motion. (Read much more at constructal.org.) It's interesting stuff applicable both to yoga and to endurance sports, where efficiency is everything and where an off-balance system is doomed to eventual failure.

I'd take exception, though, with Bejan's statement that "taller runners run faster." Perhaps it's out of context and refers instead to taller runners in evolutionary history, but I'm sure we all know shorter runners who demonstrate more efficiency than their taller peers. Sometimes, you can almost see the wheels in action.

Check out the article for some interesting ideas about how nature reaches compromises, finding the balance between apparently competing needs.

In my classes this week, we've been discussing the concept of samskaras, our habitual actions, and experimenting first with becoming aware of them and second with the idea of moving out of them, to live more mindfully. (If you'd like to read more about samskaras, check out this lovely Yoga Journal piece by Bo Forbes.)

It struck me as I was "working" (I use the quotes but keep the word working because I firmly believe that piddling around is part of the working process, a swing toward rest that brings me back toward more focused attention) and opening a new browser window that the Top Sites feature in Apple's Safari 4 browser is a visual reflection of my habits. It shows the 16 websites I visit most, and by presenting them, it encourages me to continue in this habit. Although I've noticed this, I won't go so far as to disable the feature—seeing these Top Sites gives me a cue to remember and appreciate that most of my actions are born out of habit, and to consider whether the habitual actions are the appropriate ones.

A power company sign spotted on my run this morning: OVERHEAD IS SERVED FROM UNDERGROUND. This made a wonderful meditation. First, on the importance of a quick and efficient footstrike in running, and on the importance of a steady base in yoga poses. And broadly: how much of what we "think" with our brains comes from somewhere deeper. Our strong roots serve and inform our intentions. We draw from a deep underground well of experience, and what we imagine with our minds is always an expression of what's below.

In spare moments over the last month, I've worked my way through Nick Morgan's book Trust Me, on public speaking. It's full of interesting information about the interaction between the verbal and the nonverbal conversation. Morgan explains that the nonverbal conversation dominates; if there's a conflict between body language and spoken language, the audience will default to body language, believing the speaker's movements and gestures over the speaker's words.

It's been a busy month of teaching travel, and while I have some posts brewing, I wanted to share a physical representation of what I've been up to. Click here for the Carrboro Yoga Company's spring schedule, available for downloading and posting on your virtual refrigerator. You can always see the live, up-to-date version of our schedule, including workshops, on our schedule page.

Ten days into studio ownership, I can see how this role will be an extension of my yoga practice. Amid all the paperwork, getting up to speed on office systems, lining up instructors for the March schedule, working on revisions to the waiver, finding a working VCR for childbirth classes, cutting keys that will open every door at the studio, and dozens of other details, Lies and I have had to keep track of a lot.

It's Yoga Day USA, a day of free or deeply discounted yoga across the country. You can find a local option by searching the map at the Yoga Alliance's site.

To my delight, Runner's World's Best of Running list contains a favorite yoga pose (which appears on page 2, just under Best Training Advice: Value Rest, on which I plan to write much more in 2010). To my surprise, that pose is Bird Dog, in which you're on your hands and knees, with one arm (say, the right) reaching forward as the opposite leg (say, the left), reaches backward. (You can see an illustration on page 34 of The Athlete's Pocket Guide to Yoga, searchable by using Look Inside the Book on Amazon.)

As this year wraps up, I'm planning my 2010 teaching schedule. I've reserved the fabulous facility at ZAP Fitness in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina for two weekends, May 14–16 and October 22–24. It's a wonderful place to spend the weekend doing yoga and running (and eating, and sleeping, and hot-tubbing), and my 2008 and 2009 retreats were both wonderful.

I've just put up a new episode of Sage Yoga Training—my podcast of short yoga routines for athletes and everyone—this one with some very relaxing, gentle folds and twists using a wall for support. You can download it in iTunes, watch it on YouTube, or simply play it from here (though the quality of the pictures is lower, I think you'll get the gist).

Today was my last trip of the season to teach yoga to the UNC football team. They've had a good season, which officially ends next Saturday but which will continue to a bowl game. My role is as part of the lift-and-flush workout, in which they do some light weights and running, plus yoga. It's always interesting to see the progression as the season continues. Last week, for example, instead of the usual chatter about who went to what club the night before, I heard some guys talking about who blew what assignment; others were comparing stats. How cool to see a team hit its stride!

Kripalu is offering an early-bird special of a 10-percent discount off my February weekend workshop. If you're wondering, "Who or what is Kripalu?" the answer is that it's a lovely yoga center in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, not far from Albany or Hartford. The grounds are beautiful, especially covered with February snow, and you can see ice fishermen on the lake in the distance as you eat the amazing food and sip hot tea.

• Improve strength, flexibility, and focus
• Increase physical and mental endurance and balance
• Avoid injury and recover faster

Many athletes are turned off by yoga because it’s too hard, too easy, or out of sync with their training. Over this weekend, coach and teacher Sage Rountree will demystify yoga and explain exactly how it fits with training and competition. Yoga’s emphasis on form and breath will translate to increased efficiency and focus in your sport and your life.

In this weekend workshop, appropriate for all levels of yoga and athletic experience, we’ll learn poses to increase range of motion and flexibility, especially in the hips and hamstrings. We’ll spend some time cultivating sport-specific core strength and playing with balance, and we’ll examine yoga as mental training, learning how incorporating yoga’s approach to the body and mind can make us better athletes.

Discover how to include yoga in your annual training plan, choosing sequences to complement your training both in season and during the off-season. Practicing the poses and techniques you’ll learn in this workshop will increase your flexibility, core strength, stability, balance, and physical and mental endurance, while lowering your recovery time and risk of injury.

Weather permitting, we’ll head out for a run one or both mornings. Recommended reading: The Athlete’s Guide to Yoga and The Athlete’s Pocket Guide to Yoga, both by Sage Rountree (VeloPress, 2008 and 2009).

I had a blast at the New York Marathon—not just during the race itself, but for the whole long weekend. There's a full report at my site, mostly pictorial. Marvel at Joan Benoit Samuelson, the bunny-head runner, and the crowds! Thrill as I pose pretentiously in front of banners! Sigh at the cuteness of my children in Halloween costumes! Find it here.

Athletes have a love/hate relationship with pigeon pose. Most who hate it at first do so because it hits all the tight places in athletic hips. Once those release, folks learn to love it. But in its traditional orientation, facing downward, pigeon pose can be far too intense in an athletic body, causing more trouble than it solves. That's where changing the pose's orientation to gravity can be really useful. Practicing the leg action of pigeon (external rotation and abduction) from your back helps you target the stretch while holding your back in neutral alignment. It's much safer for your knees, since—provided you move into it safely—it doesn't transfer any tightness from the hip directly to the knee joint.

Today I was asked why we call hip stretches "hip openers." I don't have a good answer! Are we opening something that's locked? Is "openness" of the hips even desirable, given the stiffness that's required for good running? I decided that a better term might be "hip balancers," since there's so much going on anatomically around the pelvis, and much of our work in yoga is to stretch the tight parts and strengthen the weak parts.

For many of us—not just athletes, but Westerners, who sit in chairs and cars, with our hips and chests closed off under desks and over keyboards and steering wheels—the problem is tightness in the front of the hips, usually in the iliopsoas, the major hip flexors, combined with weakness in the glutes and hamstrings that attach to the back of the pelvis.

Weakness? Indeed. The number-one complaint I hear in yoga class is "my hamstrings are tight." What do you mean by "tight"? Are they tight because they're so strong, or are they tight because you spend most of your day with the hamstrings in a state of overstretch? If, when you come into a low crescent lunge, you feel more stretch (or, yes, "opening," which leads to balance) in the front of the back leg than in the back of the front leg, it may be the latter. In this case, you'll want to target the hip flexors.

Last week in my yoga for athletes classes, I taught a sequence with a ton of hip-flexor stretches, which got us primed for some nice backbending. (Without that release in the front of the hips, any backbend just crunches the lower back and doesn't target the thoracic spine.) Here's what we did (not all of this may be appropriate in your body!):

Supine warm-up

• One knee to chest, releasing the other leg straight along the ground (apanasana)
• Reclining lunge position, bent-leg foot to the sky (half happy baby)

In both, keep reaching through the long leg to target the front of the hip. Next, we flipped over to enjoy six moves of the spine before . . .

Main sequence

• Downward-facing dog to three-legged dog, bending raised leg slowly to feel a psoas release
• High lunge
• Low lunge
• Low lunge with closed twist
• Low lunge with reach behind body to quadriceps stretch (i.e., with left leg forward, left hand reaches around to the left to grasp the right foot)
• Crescent lunge with lateral stretch (if leg leg is forward, right arm reaches over left shoulder)
• Low lunge with straight-facing quadriceps stretch (right hand to right foot)
• King Arthur pose (back leg against the wall)
• Bow-pose sequence (as in The Athlete's Pocket Guide to Yoga)
• Revisited three-legged dog with psoas stretch, flipping to a three-point backbend

Finishing sequence

• Supported bridge with block under hips
• Psoas exercises on the block à la Jill Miller (her Hip Helpers DVD is fabulous)
• Supported fish over two blocks
• Knees-down reclining twist
• Full happy baby

You asked me to email you, so here it is: as measured on an Inspirometer, a simple device that provides a gross measurement of exhalations, my lung capacity increased from 3.0 liters to 3.5 liters as a result of class tonight. It's not consistent, but most likely could be with time and practice. Very exciting for me as a professional brass player. I have tried many things to increase my lung capacity and have never been able to exhale over 3 liters.

My cardinal rule in yoga for athletes is that the intensity of the athlete's training and the intensity of the athlete's yoga practice must be in inverse proportion. That is, the closer you get to your peak competition, the more mellow your physical practice should become. Hence power, flow, Ashtanga, or hot yoga have their place in the off-season or early base period, not later in the season; gentle and restorative classes suit the bill as athletes' training builds to a peak.

What, then, should a yoga practice look like on the day before a marathon? Very, very mellow. Remember the rule of "nothing new on race day [or the day before]." But even if your yoga experience is limited, it's more restful and productive to move slowly through a gentle restorative sequence than to tour a noisy city, to pace back and forth at the packed race expo, or to sit in a crowded theater.

If you're going to be in New York City for the marathon on November 1, join me at 2 p.m. on October 31 at Om Factory for two hours of pre-marathon yoga, and see what I mean. If you're not running the race, you're still quite welcome. This will be a simple, doable practice suitable for anyone and everyone. Registration and a full description are available at the Om Factory site.

It's been a year since the last episode of Sage Yoga Training, but at last I have put together a new episode, and I have more on deck for the coming months. The podcast is a series of brief routines, generally under ten minutes, for practice after a workout or on their own. You could string them together to create a longer sequence, of course. They are presented in slideshow format for reference, and I measure how long each pose is held so that they're quantitatively even. You might prefer to hold these poses longer, so please use the routines as a starting point, and customize the practice to suit your own needs.

This episode features some reclining twists to stretch the hips, spine, and chest. These are some of my favorite poses, and you can find them elsewhere, too:

• In my classes and workshops
• On my class at YogaVibes
• In The Athlete's Pocket Guide to Yoga

You can find all of the podcast episodes in many places:

For a few months, especially since my Ironman, I've been struggling with sacroiliac pain. If you don't know what this is, consider yourself lucky! SI joint issues are common among yoga practitioners. Roger Cole and Judith Lasater have both written clearly on the subject for Yoga Journal, and it's becoming a hot topic in triathlon circles. Mine gets out of whack when I run on trails (which I do as much as possible), in certain poses, and when I do stupid (and fun) things like trying to flip off the diving board.



I've gotten a surprising amount of relief from a little wonder called the Sacrowedgy. (This is an unpaid, unsolicited endorsement!) As its name implies, it fits under your sacrum to support it as you lie back and relax, allowing the sacrum and ilium to slip back into proper alignment. Whether the tool itself makes the fix or the time spent lying on the floor does the job, it's been great, and my plantar fasciitis, knee pain, and shoulder niggle all disappeared after a few days' diligent relaxation with the wedgy.

My husband's reaction has been much more exciting. He liked my pink lady wedgy so much that he ordered his own blue male version (the male sacrum is narrower and longer). It's done wonders for his back issues, most of which stem from a herniated disk (L5-S1, a classic), and he takes it to and from work religiously. In fact, we've become evangelists for this little piece of rubber, spreading the good news to anyone who'll listen. It's noninvasive, it encourages you to relax and to be still (which I love both as a yoga teacher and as a type-A athlete), and for $30, it's really worth a try.

I spent a weekend in the wonderful company of a group of teachers interested in working with athletes. Walking them through my approach to the subject helped me crystallize my own thoughts, which once again come down to this:

Yoga for athletes is not necessarily athletic yoga. Yoga should complement training, not simply pile on more stress. When sport intensity and the intensity of yoga practice are in inverse proportion, yoga can buoy the athlete by improving strength, flexibility, balance, and focus.

We discussed what to teach (teach what will benefit the students in the room), how to teach it (in a way that comes from personal experience and authority), business, and pedagogy. We practiced poses that target core and hip strength, as well as hip flexibility, and we enjoyed some gentle inversions and supported backbends that help balance the demands of sport training. Then we put the theory into practice, as I brought a dozen student teachers with me to work with the UNC football team. This was a smash success: the teachers enjoyed seeing the variety of bodies and abilities, while the players loved having so many hands to offer adjustments, and so many models demonstrating the poses. I snapped a picture of the teachers as we left the stadium.


I'll be repeating this workshop in Carrboro next year, and I plan to take it on the road as well, with stops in NYC and Southern California in 2010. If you're interested in studying the topic of teaching yoga to athletes with me, please sign up for my e-mail newsletter or contact me directly, and I'll keep you in the loop.

Here are three stretches based on a lunge, designed to get your hips open and balanced. Benefit: increased range of motion, yielding a greater stride length. Plus, they feel good. Remember: static stretches should come after a run, not before.

For a full series of postrun lunges, see the "Lunge Series" episode of Sage Yoga Training—you can view it as a slideshow at the podcast archives or on YouTube. And for a book full of routines for practice before and after your workout, please check out The Athlete's Pocket Guide to Yoga.

Please check out my instructional vignettes and class for athletes at YogaVibes.com. The vignettes, available here, include my take on yoga for athletes, an explanation of ways to access the hamstrings, and more. We had a great time filming the class, which focuses on hips and hamstrings and is appropriate for athletes (and nonathletes) of all levels. From now through September 30, you can use the code sagevibes2009 for 20 percent off streaming a class on the site.

All summer, I've been avoiding the work of cleaning up my office. It's not a horrible mess, but the shelves have books wedged in sideways, and it's growing harder to find what I'm looking for. It got bad enough that I was more interested in analyzing why I felt so resistant to the work than in doing the work! Today I began, and I quickly realized what the issue was.

After my PhD graduation, I moved into academic publishing instead of into academia per se. Around that time, in conjunction with the birth of my elder daughter, I moved my office into our former guest room, so the office could become the nursery. It was a big shift, physically and professionally, and I cast off virtually all of the books I'd accumulated over four years of college and seven years of graduate study in English literature. Of course, it was a literal load gone (and a little diaper money earned at the secondhand bookstore); figuratively, it was a lightening, as well: a turning away from reading and analyzing books, and toward shaping them. I reasoned that if I were to want to revisit any of the books, I'd get them from the library. I haven't wanted a single one. I set a rule that I'd spend money only on books I'd use for reference, and I accumulated a stack of dictionaries and style guides to shelve alongside the few remaining "reference" books from my studies: The Riverside Shakespeare, Hamilton's Mythology, Holman and Harmon's Handbook to Literature.

Most of my money, though, went toward accumulating a library of books on yoga and on endurance sports training. One day a few years ago, in a moment of procrastination in work on someone else's manuscript, I turned and gazed at my bookshelf. VeloPress, VeloPress, VeloPress, read the imprints on the spines of most of the books. Hmm, I thought, and contacted VeloPress; a year and a half later, The Athlete's Guide to Yoga was published. Now copies of my own books join the nonfiction on my shelves.

Today, as part of the housecleaning, I boxed up the books to which I'd contributed essays during my academic career; another box now holds the copies of the books I have edited thus far. I'm not letting go of editorial work entirely—Chicago 15, Words into Type, and Strunk and White keep their position close at hand—but I recognize that this packing represents a shift away from shaping others' books and toward creating more of my own. Someday, I know, I'll be packing up the books on sports; in time, I'll be putting away some of the yoga books, too. Today's been a good chance to practice nonattachment. Now back to the shelves.

Try as I might, I couldn't quite tie the preceding post into this video! Here is my take on downward-facing dog for runners. You do not need to get your heels down, now or ever, for this pose to work. In fact, you don't even need to get your hands down; try taking the pose against a wall (or a boulder), which will be kinder to your hamstrings and will stretch your shoulders nicely.

I spent a half hour this morning changing the four toner cartridges in my color laser printer. The process required deciphering illustrations, some interpretation of verbal directions, physically reasoning out how things fit together, and not a small amount of patience. In other words, it was a lot like figuring out yoga or a sport: at first, hard to understand, but increasingly easier and easier to execute. I know the next time I do the task, it will be smoother still.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending class at cambio., a donation-based studio in Colorado Springs. The class was billed as "Crosstraining Yoga," appropriate for runners and cyclists, so I brought a copy of The Athlete's Guide to Yoga, although I felt unsure whether that would be an appropriate donation in exchange for class. Was it too egocentric? Would cash be better?

Here's a video that just went up on Competitor Running, part of a series I'm doing for the site. Check it out: Matt Fitzgerald, one of my favorite writers, is doing a great job loading the site with interesting information, and another of my favorite writers, Kristina Pinto, has moved her blog to the site. You'll hear my take on breathing during running, and you'll also hear my neighbor's very loud standard poodle barking in the background. If you've wondered about the location of the rock I love so much, now you know: it's directly across the street from my house.

Birds fly over the outdoor pool at sunset at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. You can see the athlete center behind the pool, and the Front Range behind them.

Later this week, I'll head to one of my favorite places, Boulder, Colorado. It's like Chapel Hill dehumidified, amplified, and slammed up against a beautiful mountain range. I'm looking forward to leading some of my book models and Twitter friends in my workshop on yoga for athletes at the Flatiron Athletic Club on Saturday, July 18, 2–5 p.m. If you live in Boulder, please consider joining us (and if you have friends there, send them my way). I think folks can be intimidated by the idea of a three-hour yoga workshop. No need. Only a small portion of the practice will take much energy, and even then, I'll show modifications. You don't need any previous yoga (or heck, even sport) experience. Just bring a yoga mat or a towel, and I'll take care of the rest.

Wes and I stopped by a makeup counter at a department store in Charlotte over the weekend. The clerk was a wonderful man, very easy to talk to. After only five minutes, in talking about his job, he voiced an issue I consider often.

While my trip to Ironman Coeur d'Alene* has occupied most of my thoughts in the past week, another project that's taken a lot of work has reached fruition: The Athlete's Pocket Guide to Yoga has been released! We arrived home from Idaho late, late Tuesday night (actually, early Wednesday morning) to find my shipment of books.

I haven't written much about my training for Ironman Coeur d'Alene here, in part because it went pretty much without incident. The whole experience was just . . . well, it was what it was. I did it, I thought it was a silly amount of training, I felt crummy for being too tired to do housework or think of a menu beyond pizza, I had a few really satisfying long rides and a number of fun races along the way—Valle Crucis, White Lake, and others—but in general it just was. I think the daily meditation practice I undertook throughout was much more powerful than I realized. Or, on the other hand, I may be in complete denial about what I've committed to (maybe that's why I haven't packed a stitch, even though the taxi is coming in 14 hours). I'll have all day Sunday to ponder the enormity or triviality of the undertaking.

Training for what I continue to insist will be my one-and-only Ironman has been a matter of waiting for the shoe to drop. Even as I diligently put in the miles (very long, very slow), I've been expecting something catastrophic to derail my plans. To that end, I haven't even bought our plane tickets yet. What's come along so far hasn't been hugely dramatic, but it's taught me some lessons in dealing with what life presents me. First, I managed to roll my ankle for the umpteenth time ten minutes into a two-and-a-half-hour run—not even on trails, but on a curb!—but, as there's really nothing left to sprain in there, it's been manageable and is now mostly healed. The lesson there, learned once more, is to appreciate staying upright; it's never a given.

As I sat in meditation today by an open window, a dog visiting my neighbors barked and barked. The barking was regular but not at rhythmic, predictable intervals. Yap . . . yap . . . nothing . . . yap, yap . . .

In the last 36 hours, I've spoken with four athletes who profess interest in yoga but who feel intimidated by going to their first class. Once or twice a week, I get an e-mail from a potential student who worries about coming to yoga for the first time. So I've pulled up an old draft I started when a Twitter friend (sidenote: come join us on Twitter, and learn what all the cryptic RTs, #s, and @s mean! I'm @sagetree) asked me two months ago if I had any advice for runners who'd never been to yoga before. Indeed I do! Much of it appears in The Athlete's Guide to Yoga, and I'll repeat the main points here.

Last Sunday, I enjoyed visiting the Hillsborough Sportsplex Tri Club to lead a session on yoga for triathletes. At the end of the practice, one of the participants said, “I know it sounds silly, but it just struck me that I could do yoga on my own at home.”

Yes, you can! While it’s useful to study with an experienced teacher at first—and periodically thereafter, so you have a knowing eye checking your alignment—the real work of yoga happens when you follow the needs of your own body, choosing poses that help you, that challenge you, that comfort you, and holding them for however long feels appropriate at that moment.

This doesn’t mean you need to do a ninety-minute routine with space music playing, candles burning, and complete seriousness. Why not include a few sun salutations as a dynamic warm-up, then slot a few minutes of lunges after a run? You can use some of yoga’s challenging core poses to shake up your usual core routine. Breath exercises can be practiced at your desk. It doesn’t have to be a big deal to get in some yoga every day.

Your home practice is the subject of my forthcoming book, The Athlete’s Pocket Guide to Yoga, which will be available this July. The book contains more than 50 routines appropriate for an athlete’s—or anyone’s—home practice. You can find some of them on my podcast, Sage Yoga Training (I’m slowly bringing it over to my new site and fixing the link to iTunes, but you can get directions on where else to find it here).

If you want specific pointers on how to include yoga in your training, complete with adjustments appropriate to your personal needs, and you’ll be in central North Carolina on Saturday, April 18, come to my workshop Yoga for Runners (and any athletes!) at the Carrboro Yoga Company from 2 to 4 p.m. I’ll break down five sequences that correspond to episodes of my podcast, so you can feel completely confident about practicing safely and productively on your own.

I'm on day 23 of the Big Sit, a meditator's version of the 100 pushup challenge. (Here, though, you dive right in to twenty minutes of seated meditation each day.) It continues to go very well and repeatedly confirms the parallels between meditation, a physical yoga practice, and endurance sports.

As I sat down for meditation today (day 9 of the Big Sit, and it's going well), I glanced out the window to see a bunch of red-breasted nuthatches perched in our backyard trees. At first they looked like pine cones as they sat, then a school of fish as they flew away, splitting into groups heading opposite directions. Echoing my experiences with Vivi and Manta Ray, it's another example of how the mind works as we try to sit in stillness. It's OK to notice the thoughts, but then we let them fly off.

Last week's webinar presentation was an interesting experience. I shooed Wes and the girls out of the house and sat at my desk, facing my computer, talking to people I couldn't see or even receive a reaction from. (This last point is not necessarily true of all webinars; because I work on a Mac, I had some limitations.) It felt a lot like my former work as a radio announcer, and I found myself clicking back into some of the habits I developed over those six years. I tapped my foot slowly to help slow down my speech; I turned away from the mike to clear my throat or sip water. I did not, however, put on a twenty-minute Ornette Coleman tune so I could duck out and smoke a Camel, as I used to do!

This month, I finally faced my fear of failure and began attending the masters swim at UNC. While there have been some moments of failure, I've gotten in lots of yardage and received many good tips. I've seen improvement in my stroke, naturally, but I've also gained new insight into the finer points of being a yoga teacher and a yoga student.

I enjoyed leading a workshop on yoga for strength yesterday. Now, when we Northern Hemisphere endurance athletes are in the base period, is the time to amp up your yoga practice. (When your training is less intense, your yoga can be more so: keep them in inverse proportion to maintain balance.)

Wes got the last copy of USA Today at the Wellness Center paper box this morning. I'm hoping that means a lot of people read today's paper, because I'm quoted in it, in an article on figure skater Sasha Cohen and her yoga practice.

I left the door open as I sat in meditation today, and after a few minutes my dog wandered in. She sat in front of me, and I could feel her watching me. Eventually she nuzzled my hand. I smiled a little in acknowledgment but kept my eyes shut, knowing that if I didn't engage with her, she'd get the hint and leave.

Registration is now available for the hour-long webinar on yoga I'll be giving Tuesday, January 27, at 6 p.m. EST. What's a webinar, you ask? It's a seminar delivered on the Web, in this case using software called GoToMeeting. You'll see a slideshow and hear my voice, and you can submit questions for me to answer at the end of the presentation.

My weekend at Kripalu is full enough that I'll need to bring an assistant. I'm delighted that Donia Robinson, owner of the Carrboro Yoga Company, has agreed to join me. Donia is a whiz at using props, which comes in very handy for athletes. She has taught a class called "How to Cheat at Yoga," a title that amuses me despite my aversion to cheating. (Ask Ford's head of social media about my Twitter response to the F-150 ad that implicates the viewer in cheating in high school science class!) The point was that props can be a shortcut to "success," inasmuch as success is our goal in asana.

Donia's approach will help students see how to make the poses work for them at home, without needing someone to move them into each pose. In general, I'm pretty hands-off as a teacher. While I've been given some wonderful adjustments by assistants in workshops—most notably, by the very capable staff of Yoga One in Charlotte at last year's Baron Baptiste immersion—I feel athletes, especially endurance athletes, don't want to be touched much. Beryl Bender Birch gave me a great quote on the topic in an interview on teaching athletes: "It’s very easy to injure an elite athlete by coming on too heavy handed in the hands-on traditions. They’re strong and very tight. It’s like a guitar string that you tighten up and tighten up to get the highest possible resonance. But then you just turn it the tiniest bit and it explodes. It’s the same thing with hands-on work with athletes."

One place adjustments are universally great, in my opinion: savasana. And in the context of a three-day weekend, it's especially sweet to get some aid settling in. Kripalu-goers, expect deep relaxation!

I am also planning to offer a sampler class on the evening of Saturday, February 7, 7:30–9:00. So if you are at Kripalu for another workshop, or simply live nearby and would like to check out my teaching style, please come!

Donia will assist at my workshop on yoga for strength January 24, 2–4 p.m. at the Carrboro Yoga Co. Please join us there, or at Kripalu in February.

And let me know: how do you feel about adjustments in class?

Happy new year! I've spent much of my holiday downtime working on a new Web site, which I've launched today. If you have bookmarks to my pages, most of them will work, but some won't—most notably, the podcast pages. I'm working on moving the RSS podcast feed to the new site, but it might take a week or two. Meanwhile, you can see the podcast episodes at iTunes and on Facebook. (When I get that squared away, I vow to make a new episode of reclining stretches, appropriate for practice in bed, at the gym, or on a grassy field near the finish line.)

I've been booking some fun workshops for the new year, aimed at showing how yoga can aid your training and racing in various ways.

I had the pleasure of attending a class at Yoga Pod in Boulder with Malachi Melville, one of the models for my next book. Not only is her yoga gorgeous, she is beautiful, too. And while we're supposed to leave competition out of the yoga studio—I've heard this pithily described as "keeping your eyes on your own paper"—I could plainly see, from my position a row behind Malachi, everyone sneaking a glimpse of her spectacular pigeon backbend. How were they to know she's been on the cover of Yoga Journal?

I'm in Boulder, Colorado, where I have spent the last three days shooting pictures for my next book, a practice guide, about which more later. It's been a treat to be in a place whose beauty is so different from that of my native North Carolina. Yesterday, I ran on a semi-icy bike path toward the sunrise, then turned around and ran back toward the mountains, lit by the dawn. Today, remembering my previous experiences with altitude, I didn't even try to run. Instead, when the shoot wrapped, I ate a hot bowl of spicy tomato-tortilla soup, then headed to Chautauqua Park for a hike on the icy trail into the Front Range.

In the last few months, I've explored a few new options for social networking (read: procrastinating from other work). I've enjoyed learning to use Facebook (friend/fan me!), and I'm really having fun with Twitter (follow me!). What better way to quickly alert my friends that I'm now the proud owner of a Jeff Burton NASCAR Crock Pot, or to confess that I now have a deep bruise on my belly after meeting the business end of my resistance band when it wasn't properly anchored in the doorframe?

Those in the Greensboro area should consider signing up for the series of yoga classes my friend and colleague Suzanne Duncan is teaching at Off 'N Running, the nice local running shop. It'd make a nice holiday gift to yourself or to a runner you love, and it's a great way to start the year with a balanced body!

I often start class by introducing myself: "I'm Sage Rountree. And yes, that's my real name—it's not a yoga handle. I got Sage from my parents and Rountree from my husband."

Sundays this fall, I've been teaching yoga to the Carolina Tar Heels football team. Each class is full of interesting moments—like the time the entire defensive line (average weight: 302 pounds) challenged one of the players to back his claim that he could do a full split, or the time another player went straight from crane to handstand, just after I'd proffered, "This pose is about balance, not upper-body strength," or the time my suggestion "You might rest your fingers on your chest so you can feel your ribs" was greeted with chuckles and a good-natured call of "Maybe you can feel your ribs." 

A viewer in Hawaii pointed out that the customizable menu of my DVD doesn't list the time of each individual segment—information that's useful when you are pressed for time and trying to fit in a short practice.

The night before Saturday's race, I walked my athletes through the complicated logistics of the day, from what to put in which bags to where to turn to what to expect out on the run course. The last turn of the course, 50 yards from the finish, was onto grass, and just after the turn there were a number of thick roots sticking from the dirt like the backs of thick sea creatures emerging from the water. I told folks that toward the end of the race, they'd get tunnel vision, with the area of their focus shrinking further and further until it was very narrow. The end of the tunnel is the finish line, and when you can literally see the finish, you aren't looking at the rooty ground under your feet. I passed through the tunnel in April: it was wide in Hopkinton and narrowed over 26 miles so that it obscured all of Boylston Street.

There's a nice introduction for athletes on how to get into yoga—appropriate for both women and men—in November's issue of Her Sports magazine. (Apparently, it's also the last issue under the Her Sports name; the periodical has been rebranded as Women's Running.) It's also available online here.

Vivi and Wes strike catalog poses at the Washington Monument, overlooking the Lincoln Memorial

This week in my yoga classes for athletes, we're working moon salutations. You'll find many different flows labeled moon salutations—I don't claim that this is the original, the only, or the "right" way to do them; it's just a great routine for athletes, especially those who are still a few weeks from their peak fall competitions (such as runners prepping for a fall/early winter marathon). I learned this sequence from a handout I received in teacher training, and from a version taught by my colleague Ann Archer, and I've put a few spins on it for symmetry.

I spent a very busy day (with major gratitude for my wonderful husband) working. All morning, I worked on my athletes' training plans. At 1:30, I met the Carolina football team for recovery yoga; at 3:00, I led a two-hour clinic for the Ramblin' Rose women's only triathlon to be held next weekend. While posting to my Twitter page, I realized that not only does the yang of working with the football team (in their locker room, no less, as hypermasculine an environment as I've ever been in) balance with the yin of working with a group of rookie triathletes. There's also the yin of yoga versus the yang of triathlon. So the balance was in place: the heat of football is tempered by the cool of yoga; the silver light of women trying a new thing is toned by the golden light of physical exertion.

Here are the participants in last weekend's yoga and running retreat at ZAP Fitness near Blowing Rock, NC. What a perfect weekend we had: we enjoyed yoga nidra, a long run, a long afternoon of practice, a yin yoga session combined with a book discussion, a recovery run with yoga included, great food, and wonderful company.

Yesterday I found myself at the pool at an odd hour, 1:30–2:30. It was a different sensory experience: I was cold from sitting around in a sweaty top for a few hours; I had the memory of lunch still on my palate; since there was no water aerobics class at that hour, there was no layer of perfume hanging over the water; the angle of the light was different.

My training plan for a 5K using yoga as a complement has just gone online at Athleta Chi. Let me know what you think and how it works!

While it's been a little over a year since I posted a new podcast episode, I haven't forgotten about Sage Yoga Training. In August, my mother shot some pictures for a backbending episode (thanks, WalkerRuns, for the request). I was waiting for a rainy day to work on production, and this was it. Along the way, I remembered how much fun these episodes are to make. My six years in public radio weren't for naught!

I managed to eke out my PhD in twentieth-century English literature without reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest. Heck, I never read all of Ulysses, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I have, though, read (or at least run my eyes over the words) all of Thomas Wolfe's novels, none of which I really liked, and all of which are very, very long.

I smiled to see this Dilbert cartoon after my time trials this week. (The relevant frames should appear above, but here's a précis: Asok tells his boss that he's accomplished the work of ten people, then catches himself: "Did I just establish a new baseline expectation that will turn my job into a tragic death march?" Boss's reply: "It's time to set some stretch goals.")

It's been a while since I've had preworkout nerves, but I had them in full force before last week's four-hour solo ride. I think of them as a good thing, priming me for the work to come. My sympathetic nervous system was certainly ramped up: by the time I had my bike ready to roll, my heart rate was already at 122. My legs were shaky even twenty minutes into the ride, but I knew that after an hour I'd be feeling steadier.

Here's the latest edition of my newsletter, detailing my fall workshop and clinic schedule. You can sign up from the newsletter page or by using the form to the right.

In working on a new project, I realized that I allowed a silly, if obviously Freudian in its yogic description, typo into the bibliography of The Athlete's Guide to Yoga. Instead of calling my yoga-for-runners hero Jean Couch by her real name, I inserted an r, yielding Crouch. The egg is spread thicker on my face because as someone with a missing letter in her last name (Rountree, no d—no relation to Richard Roundtree, as awesome as that might be), I should know better. Sorry, Jean!

I've begun teaching short yoga sessions to the UNC football team. It's a fascinating experience and a refreshing difference from working with my usual, familiar endurance athletes. The players aren't shy about reacting to the poses—they groan as they ease into pigeon, they crack up as they roll to balance on their sitting bones or fall out of crow. Stoic distance runners aren't nearly so eager to admit to discomfort or difficulty.

Yoga teaches us that there is enough—enough strength to hold a pose, enough room to breathe in a twist, enough time to relax into the present. Following the principle of nongrasping (aparigraha), we are assured that there is enough. Learning to accept this avoids a lot of unnecessary clutching, making us more efficient (and that's the goal in endurance sports).

Registration is now available for my weekend workshop at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox, Massachusetts, February 6–8, 2009. The off-season is the perfect time of year to learn how to incorporate yoga in your training. I hope you'll join me! Kripalu is the world's flagship yoga center, and I'm very excited to be one of the faculty members. One of my running buddies just returned from a weekend there, and she reports the food and running were both wonderful!

The crape myrtles are spectacular in central North Carolina this year. They remind me of fireworks, the tips of each branch bursting into jewel-toned color. I never really noticed them before, but this week they are everywhere, and beautiful. It's like the phenomenon where you buy a new car and suddenly see the same model everywhere; I am attuned to the crape myrtle.

The Search Inside feature for my book is now online at Amazon.com. You can (virtually) page through it there. If you weren't sure whether you wanted to buy it, just have a look and now you'll know you should! The design won an award, and rightfully so; it's really beautiful.

In class, I'm constantly exhorting my students to breathe. Sometimes I feel like it's simply filler, something I say to fill the space as students linger in a pose. Sometimes it feels like a game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey, with my reminder to breathe hitting the mark about half the time. Still, it's a worthwhile mantra for a teacher. The tricker a pose, especially in balance work, the more likely we are to hold our breath. Without breathing, we won't be able to stay long in any pose!

I am lazy. My running partners laugh when I say that, but my husband wouldn't. I like to get by with the minimum effort, to avoid big work. So when I woke up yesterday, I thought I'd defer doing the 1000-yard swim test I'd planned.

There's a nice list of online yoga resources, including my long-neglected podcast, here. What better nudge to get me working on the next planned episode of my podcast? It'll be a routine for dynamic warmup before a workout. Let's call it an August episode; I'm swamped with work as I start writing on my second book!

I found a great yoga studio, Jiva Yoga Center, here on Hilton Head, where I enjoyed two very different classes, both expertly taught.

Last night, I enjoyed a Krishna Das kirtan, or chanting concert. Das is, as my mother-in-law says, the Bruce Springsteen of yoga music. What a pleasure to see a virtuoso in his element. His voice and band were great, but better still was watching his easy banter between the chants.

While I hadn't previously participated in a yoga mala—a practice of 108 sun salutations, in this case to celebrate the solstice—I found it was a very familiar endurance experience. I felt great once we got up to speed, rhythmically repeating the pattern of asana (inhale, up; exhale, down . . . ); I rationed my energy, particularly in the third set; I repeatedly returned to form and breath; I kept up my electrolytes; I joyfully opened the throttle in the fourth and final set, abandoning the modifications I'd implemented in the first three rounds of 27, moving deeply into the poses, closing my eyes to see how it felt on the inside. (OK, I don't do that last bit in a race!) I happily sunk into savasana at the end, briefly noticing that it felt like lying on the grass in the sunshine after a well-run race.

On Saturday, to honor the summer solstice, I'll follow along as my colleague Allison Dennis leads a yoga mala, or series of 108 sun salutations. It's a yoga endurance event! Broken into four sets of 27 salutations, the practice takes between two and two and a half hours. I'm showing up with PowerBar products to share, and I'll post an "event report" afterward.

I've started writing meditation into my athletes' training plans. The instructions are very simple: find a comfortable seat, be still, and notice what comes up. We start with short periods, five minutes or so, then build to 15 or 20 on a regular basis, three or more times a week. This is helpful not only for endurance, but also for equanimity. In fact, there's a story in the New York Times today about mindfulness meditation as a therapeutic tool.

Last night I dreamed that John Grisham insulted my book in print, writing something like:

As part of the local authors showcase at the Southpoint Barnes and Noble in Durham, NC, tomorrow (Thursday, May 15), I'll be talking about my book and the intersections between yoga and endurance sports. If I were a novelist, I'd read from the book, but unless I were to read from the preface, I don't see a pithy section to choose. Perhaps the one on the eight limbs . . . anyone have suggestions?

I enjoyed a full-day immersion with Baron Baptiste on Saturday. (Thanks to Lori Burgwyn of Franklin Street Yoga, a Baptiste affiliate studio, for the picture of Baron signing his book for me.) He's a great presenter and a fabulous teacher, and he has given me both a great interview and a nice blurb for my book.

It's my month of national exposure. The June issue of Runner's World has some quotes from me on page 50. I am pleased to report that I wasn't just planning to run the Boston Marathon, I did it.

If you look in the June 2008 issue of Yoga Journal, on pages 90 and 91 you'll see the result of an interview I gave on yoga for runners. The model (not me) beautifully demonstrates three poses of use to runners (my students this week were treated to ardha chandrasana with eight different approaches and flavors). My only quibble with the piece is that the hip rotators and IT band work to hold us in line so that we can move forward—they aren't the mover there. But hey, they spelled my name right, and my sound bites came through nicely.

If you vote in the Webby Awards (and why not? you're using the Web right now!), please cast a vote for Yoga Journal in the Best Magazine category. You'll need to log in, but it's quick and easy, and you can also choose from a number of other fun categories.

If you're in the Triangle or Triad of North Carolina, come on out to Fitness Playground in Mebane this Saturday morning. From 10 until noon, I'll be giving a workshop on yoga to complement the base period of training. We'll focus on strength-building poses, generating some heat. (If you're already deep into a build for a spring race, no worries; I'll show modifications!)

In the final session of our class explorations of the yamas, we focused on ishvara pranidhana, surrender to the divine ("Thy will be done"). The practice was bracketed with metta mediations, a dedication of loving kindness and recognition that our yoga is about something bigger than the physical activities that go on.

Sunday, we took off the training wheels on Lily's bike. She and I began the lesson with learning how to fall (tuck arms to chest and roll), first on the grass with no bike, then on the grass with the bike. Next we went up and down the bike path until she had mastered the art of stopping, steering, and starting, in that order. (Think what foot you want to put down before you stop, I advised her, admitting that sometimes I forget to do that and wind up tipping over, feet still clipped in!)

The Yoga for Strength (Base Period) workshop at Fitness Playground in Mebane has been postponed until Saturday, April 12. I trust that those of you who were registered have been notified by Annie. It's good news for those who had a conflict today, so please plan to be there in a few weeks!

I've been following the debate on stretching that's detailed in Gina Kolata's latest piece for the New York Times. The science on this is contradictory and the studies are few and far between; what has been done has little real-world applicability. It's a question that deserves a lot more attention: does stretching aid or detract from athletic performance?

Last week, my classes focused on svadhyaya, or self-study. Using a familiar template—sun salutations—I encouraged my students to freestyle, choosing poses or variations as they found appropriate. I was delighted to see some beautiful, spontaneous yoga in response to this prompt.

My full-length DVD is now shipping! It's available through Endurance Films. (While you're there, check out their many other fine products, especially the DVD on triathlon transitions. It will shave many seconds off your next race.)

Last week's classes focused on the niyama of tapas—internal heat, passion, austerity. We moved through three beautiful yang sequences that generate plenty of heat. (These are available on Paul Grilley's wonderful Yin Yoga DVD.) Then we experienced the austerity of long holds in the yin style. This practice is so fruitful for athletes; it requires strong mental focus and using the breath to remain centered in the face of intensity.

Last week's pedagogical theme was samtosa, contentment. My students smiled when they heard that. Who wouldn't want to do a yoga class with the stated goal of finding contentment? As we learned, though, contentment is a state of mind. When we learn to approach each pose with equanimity—be it side crow, square lotus, or corpse—accept what is, and feel each pose from the inside, we find contentment, no matter how the pose looks.

Last week's classes focused on the first niyama, saucha, or cleanliness. It made me smile to show up at my 11:30 postrun class covered in trail mud! But saucha obviously means more than physical cleanliness. It's honoring the space of the yoga mat, by trying to be clean in both the body and the mind. The trick is leaving all your junk outside the yoga room. If it's still important, it'll be waiting for you in the lobby of your consciousness after your session. But most of the time, you find that the virtual trash collectors have come and picked up that ratty old couch (to torture this metaphor) you left at the curb. 

There's a nice story in today's Chapel Hill News about what I do. One thing it underscores is the caliber of the running talent training here in Chapel Hill. We have Olympic hopefuls, we have a healthy age-group scene, a fabulous trail running group, and we have a great support structure for beginning athletes, between the No Boundaries program offered through Fleet Feet and the multisport clubs at the UNC Wellness Center (hollah!) and, to our north, Triangle Sportsplex.

We enjoyed a family vacation to New York City—Vivi's first time on a plane—last weekend. The girls enjoyed the uptown sights (some cell-phone pictures here), and Wes and I had a great meal at Aix, a Provencal-influenced restaurant with Chapel Hill ties. The short list—only four items sold—at Una Pizza Napoletana (pizza with sauce, pizza without sauce; pizza with cheese, pizza without cheese) thawed my usual choice paralysis. The girls' favorite thing, apart from the Central Park Zoo: riding in a taxi (Viv) and a "service car" (car service, Lily), sans child seats or even seatbelts. Taking a cue from triathlon body marking, we wrote our cell numbers and the address of our apartment on the girls' arms using a Sharpie!

Last week's classes focused on brahmacharya—sexual chastity. It doesn't seem like the best topic for a yoga class, beyond the obvious, but we interpreted it to mean appropriate use of energy. Our poses focused on staying within our limits and our lower chakras, while cultivating core strength.

I have a post on yoga up on Joe Friel's blog today. When I first considered writing a book on yoga and training, I wondered where to pitch it. I looked on my shelf at Joe's books, which pointed me to my wonderful publisher, Velo Press. His authority is unparalleled—they don't call his books the Training Bibles for nothing!

Some housekeeping items:

Third of the yamas is asteya, nonstealing. While its applicability to life is obvious, it's less easy to see where we are tempted to steal on the mat. We worked on poses in class this week, though, with an intention of not trying to steal our way into a position that doesn't work for us. This aligns with the fifth yama, aparigraha, nongrasping.

If you're in the Triad or Triangle of North Carolina, please join me for a two-hour workshop on yoga for athletes at the Fitness Playground in Mebane, Saturday, February 2, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. (Note the new time, moved from afternoon to midmorning.) Details at the Fitness Playground site, and soon at my Web site (I'm revising it this week, to incorporate my gorgeous new logo).

Have you ever had a massage that began with the therapist requesting feedback on pressure, but quickly devolved into you barely hanging on while saying nothing about the intensity? You probably just moved the tension around your body—from, say, your quads to your jaw—and worked against your intention in getting a massage.

In January and February, I teach the yamas and niyamas—the first two limbs of yoga—in my yoga class. Using a new idea each week is a great pedagogical tool, and it meshes with January's sense of newness and resolution.

Logistics are much of the battle in multisport training. We have to figure out how to fit in workouts in at least three disciplines (let's include yoga as one of those); we have to have all our gear and fuel in place for each workout; we have to manage the placement of equipment before,  during, and after each race. (This is part of why I think parents do so well at multisport: management is half the battle, and we're used to lugging around bags full of juice and towels.)

I'll stop the overt self-promotion soon—really I will—but I see that my book is now shipping from Amazon. (Barnes and Noble, too.) That means that reviews could be posted . . .  

Some phrases have been rattling around in my head. One comes from a yoga teacher of mine who uses the best mundane analogies (she once nicely compared the process of warming up to cooking a noodle—consider how brittle a strand of spaghetti is out of the box). She said, "Sometimes a yoga practice is like washing your windshield: you don't notice how dirty it is until you clean it off." The analogy extends to meditation. A good run can clear up the windshield nicely, too; mine did today.

My long-winded answers to the great questions raised by readers of the CBC Web site are up here. Thanks to everyone for their interest—it makes me excited for next week's book release!

This week, the Canadian Broadcasting Co. is hosting an Internet interview with yours truly. Readers can submit questions, which I'll answer at the end of the week. It's all online here. (Can you guess which question my father submitted?)

I couldn't have asked for a better race in Kiawah. Everything went as it should, and I hit not only my stated goal of qualifying for Boston, but also my radical goal of beating the qualifying time for women 34 and under (of which I am no longer one, since August). I squeaked in with a chip time of 3:39:44. (According to the logic of our friend Chad, I'd need to drink 16 beers to celebrate. When he called after my first marathon, he suggested I have 19 beers, one for each second I finished under 4:00.)

On the same weekend as my book event at Cadence in New York, I'll be giving a 2.5-hour workshop at the YogaWorks studio downtown. Both events are described on my classes page. Please tell your New York–area friends, or plan to come yourself.

I was all set to make a catty statement about how it's great to be on this Hot New Releases list, right behind The Yoga Face: Eliminate Wrinkles with the Ultimate Natural Facelift. Then I read the first chapter of that book online, and it was actually quite good. There's a yoga lesson in that, obviously, as well as a more subtle lesson of publishing: the author rarely chooses the subtitle.

It's a ways off, but in February I'll be in New York for some book-related events.

There's a lot of conflicting information about the benefits of stretching (and therefore, in part, yoga). Here's an article describing a study that showed big gains in both flexibility and strength after sedentary subjects began a stretching regimen.

I'm delighted that a lululemon athletica store is opening in Charlotte. The models and I wore lululemon clothes for the photos in my book—they are high quality clothes suitable for yoga and workouts, in fabulous colors and flattering fits.

I'll be giving a clinic at the Charlotte lululemon storeroom on Saturday, November 10. (It's in Twin Oaks shopping center in Dilworth, 1419 East Blvd., Unit J.) We'll start at 9 a.m. with a brief yoga warmup, then head out for an easy four-mile run (probably Freedom Park or the Booty Loop, suggestions welcome). At 10, I'll lead a short yoga class appropriate for athletes, then we'll have a discussion of yoga's benefits for athletes. It's all free, and the store will provide mats. Please come for part or all of the clinic!

I've just added a page to my site with details on my book and where to order it (including overseas). The marketing engine is starting up; the book is receiving endorsements (blurbs—feel free to send me one of your own!) and review copies are being sent out to magazines. When someone asks me if I'll sign a copy for them, I'm almost able to answer with a straight face.

Yesterday I led a very hard workout with my indoor cycling students, three hard intervals of six, five, and four minutes, pretty much all out. With those long times, the brain really has to get involved in the effort, acknowledging that yes, it is hard, yes, the legs are tired, yes, I want to stop, and yes, I am going to keep moving my legs in circles. It's an approach to and embracing of the intensity of sensation Molly Bloom greets with, "yes I said yes I will Yes."

This is the mental shift that Matt Fitzgerald describes so well in his article "Man Up" (it's in the October issue of Triathlete, but not available online except to subscribers). It's something yoga teaches, too. Acknowledge what is going on—I am distracted; I am thinking about dinner, not my breath; I am afraid to try a handstand—say yes to it, then keep going. Practice nonattachment; don't get wrapped up in those thoughts.

Saying yes—accepting what is happening right now—keeps us in the present. It also works as a mantra. Thich Nhat Hanh recommends this as a walking meditation:

"Oui, oui, oui," as [you] breathe in, and, "Merci, merci, merci," as [you] breathe out. "Yes, yes, yes. Thanks, thanks, thanks."

An excerpt from my book, complete with pictures, appears on pages 52 and 53 of the October issue of Inside Triathlon. Check it out if you are in a bookstore—it should be on shelves soon.

There is even a headline on the front cover, alluding to yoga's dopey qualities!

Today we shot the video for the sampler DVD that will be included in my book. It's two short routines—a little like having a video version of the podcast. Filming took place against the exact same wall where I posed for the picture (below) for my first article in Endurance Magazine.

This was also a test run for the shoot of material for the full-length DVD, which will have two models alongside me and be produced by Endurance Films.

I'd wax philosophical, but I am on deadline on an editing job. Suffice it to say the full-circle location was a treat, thanks to Donia and the Carrboro Yoga Company.

I've just signed up for the Kiawah Marathon in December, with the goal of running a Boston qualifying time (3:45, since I'll be turning 35 soon). It's been a while since I ran that distance, and in the interim I've gotten faster and more comfortable with intensity. It's still a nerve-wracking idea. I'm planning to make a regular sitting meditation practice part of my training. The course will be flat, maybe windy, and at times barren, without many of the distractions of big-city races. Should be a great place to employ dharana, intense concentration, the keystone of any marathoner's mental training.

I had a taste of that on Saturday in one of my favorite triathlons, the Buckner Mission Man. Alone for most of the run, I couldn't do my usual dissociation. In fact, I found I could barely shout to my friends at that level of exertion (my attempt at "Lookin' good!" came out a feeble, gasping, "Look!"), and after a while I gave up trying. Fast running on trails takes complete presence and awareness in the moment. This step, this one, this one. So much work, but no time to realize how hard it is. To stay in the moment, I didn't use my watch. Seeing my run split later, I realized why it was so hard! A taste of what could be in December.

Last night I posted a new episode of the podcast, featuring repeated holds of challenging core poses, with some stretches interwoven. I've been doing this routine for a few weeks with my cycling students, and I think it's an efficient way to include core work in your workout. I'd love to hear what you think.

You can now preorder my book through Amazon. With their preorder price guarantee, this is a way to get a sizeable discount. I may be shooting myself in the foot, but all sales are good sales!

Eventually there will be a space on the Amazon page for reader reviews (cough, cough).

As I begin to formalize my work by uniting my different business under one umbrella entity, I'm looking to name my burgeoning coaching business. Sage Yoga Training will remain the name of the podcast. So what should he coaching business be? I'd like to use "Sage," obviously, but most of the obvious combinations are already in use: Sage Coaching, Sage Training. Sage Multisport? (I'm not sure I like the term.) Sage Editing was so obvious and easy. My parents did very well; my name has been prophetic! Whatever the name, I want to keep the catchphrase "train wisely," so ideally the name would complement the tagline.

Suggestions are most welcome.

I've been cagey about this for a while, and to those of you who know me this is old news, but it's starting to feel more real:

You can click on this link and preorder my book, The Athlete's Guide to Yoga: An Integrated Approach to Strength, Flexibility, and Focus, to be released by VeloPress in the late fall.

You can also see the "catalog cover"—the provisional front cover for the book. (Imagine it with a series comma introduced before the ampersand in the subtitle.) And you can read some great copy that makes me and the book sound very exciting. I hope to live up to the hype.

There's a new podcast episode on my Web site. This is a relatively long one for Sage Yoga Training: fifteen minutes. But just five poses. It's yin yoga, a style I have come to love for its affinity with endurance sports training and racing. (You can learn more about this approach at yinyoga.com, Paul Grilley's Web site, and Sarah Powers's Web site.)

The mind goes through a very similar process in, say, a five-minute pigeon fold and a thirty-minute tempo interval. First you feel just fine. Then you start to feel the intensity grow. Then you wonder why you're doing this to yourself, and how you're going to make it through. Breath and form are key here; if you can keep them together, you'll make it to the end, pause to observe the effects, and feel really good about your experience. Physically, the yin style helps work in the deeper structures of the connective tissue that binds our athletic hips, causing all sorts of implications for our swim and pedal strokes and our strides.

I finally noticed that two listeners had posted comments that the pictures weren't working on the "Balance and Bowing" episode. I reloaded it, and while it still wouldn't work in Safari, Firefox displayed them fine. If you have a look, you'll see Quince appear in one shot.

In the spirit of seva, or service, my mother-in-law has brought yoga to the Urban Ministry in Charlotte—yoga for the om-less, if you will. Her program was inspired by the one shown in this video.



The Community Yoga program is about to expand, including some classes for youth like the ones in the video. As Marty writes,

We are currently offering three classes a week at Urban Ministry and will be expanding to the Men's Shelter and Women's Shelter to continue to serve homeless adults. Additionally, we are addressing the needs of homeless, abused, and neglected children, youth, and young adults by expanding the program to Youth Homes, Alexander Children's Network, and the Relatives. We need donations of money and yoga supplies. Checks can be made out to Urban Ministry Center and sent to:

Community Yoga
c/o Martha Harbison
5501 Hardison Road
Charlotte, NC 28226

It's been fun to read Edith Chan's yoga makeover blog entries on the Yoga Journal Web site. Check them out here.

Speaking of yoga and endurance sports: the book title is almost set; the manuscript has been transmitted to production; the cover will be worked on soon. I'm in a lull where I don't have to do much on the book, which is convenient since I've had a lot of high-volume training and am trying to fit in a lot of work before the kids get out for the summer.

Struck by inspiration (mostly that of my "business manager," Wes, who said to wait on the plan to do a postrace routine and instead offer another strength-building episode), I've just shot, recorded, edited, and posted a short routine of standing hip openers. I think short is good for folks who would otherwise forgo stretching or yoga. Those with more time can repeat the sequence for another round, or a few more. It's also fruitful to play with the transitions between poses, moving from triangle to side angle and back again, and from side angle to exalted warrior and back again, using the breath as a cue.

I've just finished some stripping-down of the Web site, particularly the coaching section, with added content and a little raise in my pricing. Comments are very welcome. I'd especially like to know how it looks on a PC and using various browsers (I've seen it on a Mac in Safari, Firefox, and IE. The latter wouldn't load the photo credits, but whatever—if you're using IE, your loss.) I'm hoping the Leopard OS and iWeb 2.0 will let me do some drop-down menus, so I can farther compartmentalize everything at the next update.

I've finally posted a new podcast episode. It's a strength-building workout, with long holds of chair, chair with a twist, and the warrior poses. Strength and stretching at the same time, all good. I was glad I could hold the poses long enough for Wes to snap the pictures—we both ran a 20K (and both negative-split it, hooray!) that morning and my legs were feeling the pavement miles. This flow was his idea, as was the book whose writing explains the long stretch between podcast episodes. An idea man, and a dishwasher and laundryman to boot. What more could a gal ask for?

My friend Ruffin asked for yoga DVD recommendations. Here's an annotated list of ideas. Thank heavens for Netflix, which lets you try before you buy.

Bryan Kest, Power Yoga
I bought this but have never watched it (loaned it to a friend), so I can't recommend it on experience, but I've heard it's a good workout.

Shiva Rea, Yoga Shakti and others
These offer a programmable menu, so you can choose how much or how little to play at once. Worth watching before following along. There is now a whole line of these DVDs.

Rodney Yee, Yoga Conditioning for Athletes
A nice, basic, Iyengar-style hour-long workout.

Paul Grilley, Yin Yoga
This is a DVD I actually use myself. It is absolutely worth buying up front, since it offers lecture, yin routines, the yang dragon flow that my students adore, and an option to practice the yin routines with minimal talking.

Sarah Powers, Insight Yoga
I haven't seen this one, but I can recommend it based on a workshop with Sarah and the quality of the Paul Grilley DVD, also on the Pranamaya label.

Kate Potter, Namaste (TV show)
The show runs on a high-definition channel and, I hear, on Fit TV as well. Beautifully filmed, if a little soft-core-porn in style, each episode has an opening (one of a series of four or five); a twelve-minute, progressive flow (each is different and wonderful); and the same useful cool-down.

I welcome comments with other suggestions!

Kelly asks about poses to address SI joint pain. The problem is, when you're dealing with SI instability, it's more about what not to do than what to do. My SI joint has been unhappy with twists ever since my inglorious, ironic balance-ball incident. Instead of rooting my pelvis when I twist, I let my sitting bones slide a little, so they become the first thing to move in the twist, and this helps a lot. This may be an instance of being too flexible, which is a laughable notion to most of my students, but is probably part of Kelly's problem. (Lucky for her, she has a hot tub on her deck, out in the woods!)

Some articles on the Yoga Journal Web site give good advice:

Roger Cole's "Protect the Sacroiliac Joints in Forward Bends, Twists, and Wide-Legged Poses"
and the accompanying piece, "Practice Tips for the Sacroiliac Joints."

On an unrelated note, regular readers will see I've got a new, slightly more current picture up. I've never looked so tan in my life—it's a far cry from my current midwinter pastiness. Whee! Racing is fun.

I dreamed last night that I was reading a review that described my book with the term "sport-utility yoga." When I woke up, that seemed pretty great, but after a cup of coffee, I wasn't so sure.

It's past time to record another podcast episode. The weather has been too cold to get the pictures done, but I'll aim for this weekend. First, though, I need a routine. Requests are welcome!

In a few lines that appeared first in an essay and were included in The Areas of My Expertise, John Hodgman notes, "Here is something true that I have observed regarding people who have written books: their clothes fit well. They seem relaxed and happy as if they are thinking, well, at least I got that done. At least I wrote a book."

My clothes are as unexceptional as ever, and I'm not yet relaxed and happy (perhaps some Champagne will help?), but I turned in my manuscript to the publisher today. It's been a strangely emotional process, with all the highs and lows of childbirth, to which a nurse friend compared it. It was simultaneously a lot of work and an organic, natural process to get to this stage. I want it to be healthy and successful and able to stand up to criticism. And it's both terrific and terrifying.

I am really feeling the love. My podcast is on the "Healthy Living" featured listings on iTunes this week, and just today it's gotten good reviews in tri discussion forums, both here and in the U.K. If you've gotten here through those channels, thank you! A big thanks to those (uncoerced) folks who first began the threads.

And (self-promotion) please look for my book on yoga for endurance athletes, which will be released in November.

I spent some of today wrapping up the manuscript, in fact. Actually, first I swam at 5:45 a.m., then I took Lily to school, then I ran with my girlfriends in the woods, then I worked on some editing, then I made some revisions to my own manuscript, then I picked up Vivi and we got Lily from chess club . . . what makes it work is the combination of activities for body, mind, and spirit. The swim and run (and the yoga class I'll teach later) are for the body and spirit, the work for the mind (and to feed the body), the girls engage all three. Or maybe they all do.