Race Report: Seattle Marathon

In 2010, I ran my first marathon. It was the Seattle Rock & Roll Marathon. I ran it just 11 days after my 40th birthday and when I was done, I declared that I would never run another marathon… in Seattle. That’s right, I didn’t swear off the marathon as a one-and-done adventure - quite the opposite in fact. I decided I’d run a marathon every year after, for as long as my knees would let me. But Seattle… the hill factory that it is… well thank you, but no, I’ll count my miles and earn my medal somewhere else.

Yet somehow, 2011 saw me eating those words as I returned to Seattle in November to run the Amica Seattle Marathon. On a wet and windy day befitting November in the Pacific Northwest, on a much hillier (but also more scenic) course than the RnR event, I cranked out my second marathon. Shivering cold and mentally apologizing to my knees, I said it again, this time with feeling: I will never run another marathon in Seattle.

So how is it that I came to find myself yesterday, at the start line of the Amica Seattle Marathon, on another typical PNW November day, ready to roll through 26.2 miles of a new and improved, 25-30% hillier, Seattle marathon course? Well, recall that declaration that I’d run a marathon a year every year from my 40th onward? At the start of the year, I had decided that for my 47th year, I’d run the Honolulu Marathon, but then subsequent to that I made the decision to race Challenge Aruba with my TRS Racing - Baucco Squad teammates and well, I couldn’t justify Aruba and Honolulu trips in the same year, and so …hello Seattle.

I knew going in to the race that there was no PB on the line. I’m only about 6 months out of an 18 month period that featured 7 calf strains, the last one occurring in the Spring of this year, and so I have been slowly, cautiously, (nervously) building the distance that I can run through mostly flat, easy paced runs. I added a bit of rolling hills and a couple of track sessions in the early Fall, but I have a long way to go to regain my previous version of fast, let alone aim for faster. So with the pressure off to be fast, I was feeling pretty relaxed for race day.

My chill attitude about the day had me not trying to control everything quite so much as I normally would. The night before the race, we had dinner with a couple of friends, at a cool downtown Seattle restaurant that has no set menu but just asks what you like and what you don’t, and then serves up a multi-course meal to suit your tastes and dietary needs - wine included! Happy vegan, right here. Check out Pasta Freska next time you’re in Seattle and looking for a tasty Italian meal.

The weather forecast was calling for non-stop rain and so I found myself at the Oiselle store, yes, cue the angels singing, looking for a rain jacket that would breathe, but trying on [almost] all the items I’ve ever eyed online but wondered about fit. Everything new on race day? Not quite, but almost. No, I’m not kidding - I raced #flystyle in brand new Oiselle pocket jogger tights, wazzie wool base layer and vim jacket.

Yes, I was breaking all the pre-race rules, and feeling no pressure for time. I was a little concerned about my unconventional build for this. I did most of my build in August & September, before tapering for Aruba. The weekend after we got back from Aruba, 2 weeks after the half ironman, and 5 weeks after my previous distance building long run (29K) I did my longest training run for Seattle (32K), and then began to taper. So, I knew this marathon wouldn’t be fast, and that it was going to be a tough day, but I felt like I had enough miles in me to go the distance, as long as my calves held up through the up & down of Seattle’s hills. Honestly, I hit that start line just feeling so grateful to be able to tackle a long run like this again. With no need for speed, my goal was to follow Devon Yanko’s lead from Leadville and be the happiest person out there, running with joy and a spirit of gratitude. 

And what do you know… it worked! When it was rainy & windy at the start and through the first few

miles, I reminded myself how lucky I was to be able to do this (again). When the rain stopped and the sun came out, and I got to really enjoy the beautiful sights of Seattle, the gratitude came easy. When runners cut me off at aid stations or threw their half full cups of water behind them towards trash cans without looking to see if anyone was there, I had to work a little harder at it. When the skies opened up and the rain came bucketing down so hard that the cops manning the road closures scrambled for their cars, and I struggled to get my jacket back on while the wind was whipping it and threatening to blow it right out of my hands, I laughed and reminded myself that racing in ideal weather conditions hasn’t really been my “thing” the last couple of years. Ironman Canada 2015, I’m looking at you. When the hills before and in the Arboretum were kicking my ass, I thought of a very good friend who is sidelined from 2 planned marathons next month as she recovers from a serious illness, and appreciated how lucky I was to be there, no matter what my glutes and hips were telling me.

And so 4 hours and 51 minutes after starting, I cruised across that finish line, feeling joyful, grateful and more than a little bit soggy. Not my fastest (by a long shot), not my slowest (by an even longer shot) but still one to smile about. Isn’t every finish line? OK, maybe not those sub-2-half quests that I kept missing by seconds (seconds!), but we don’t talk about those. In the warm indoor finish area after (yes Seattle, you do that right!), they were selling finisher gear and "vintage" race shirts. I always wondered who would buy a race shirt from a previous year, no matter how good the bargain? Wondered until yesterday when I saw the 2011 finisher shirts for $2. When I ran this race in 2011, I had to squeeze into an XL. It's um, maybe a little too big now?  I still wear it, as pyjamas (hella sexy no?) but yesterday I thought it was a good opportunity to "downgrade" to the S. And hey look, my boobs magically got bigger!

Thanks for marathon #6 Seattle. Now don’t stop me if you’ve heard this before, because I really mean it this time: I will NEVER run another marathon in Seattle! It’s not me, it’s you. You’re just so damn hilly! And does every step need to be on pavement?

Next marathon? The run at IMC in 2018. Next open marathon? I signed up for Portland less than 24 hours after hitting the Seattle start line. Hoping to find a little more speed for that one, but just as much gratitude.

Happy new year! The Goal Post. 2017 Edition.

I’ve written before about my goals. So when I sat down tonight to articulate in black and white the goals for 2017 that had been forming in my mind as 2016 came to a close, I took a moment to revisit my previous goal declarations. Some of them are still out there waiting for me… like swimming 2000m “unassisted” in the pool in 50 minutes. Some are goals I’ve achieved and set year-in and year-out …like that marathon-a-year thing. And some I look back on fondly as I remember how hard-fought they were… like that sub-2 hour half. Oh yes, I finally crushed that goal. It was in the 18-month blog silence, after missing three times by seconds… yes, SECONDS…  I knocked that monkey off my back with a 1:57:39 at the Vancouver Rock’n’Roll Half in October 2015. I should have posted about it… about the emotional turmoil race morning where I ducked between two buildings on the way to the start, to cry, sobbing to the hub “I keep telling myself that my worth as a person isn’t dependent on whether I can run this under 2 hours but… but… but I just don’t believe it!” Oh yeah… I was in fine form. Anyhoo…

The 2017 List

1.      Post on the blog at least once a week, every week. An intention declared in my last post, when I turned the lights back on here. I’m going to stop writing them in my head. I’m not promising that they’ll be interesting, funny, or insightful… but there will be something!

2.      #17in17.  17 new experiences in 2017. I’ve set a similar goal before, focused on new experiences in the year, but never this many. Last year, a good friend was pursuing a goal of 50 new experiences before her 50^th birthday. I joined her for many of these… some terrifying & crazy… like trapeze school. Yes, I’m serious.

3.      Ride >= 8000 km

No, not in one go! Normally I set a run mileage goal but after an injury plagued last year, I’m inclined to set myself up for success by focusing on bike mileage instead… something maybe a little less likely to land me on the injured list right out of the gate. Last year I rode 6144 km, which was a big jump over 2015 (4530 km). Well, this girl’s got a new bike and she’s not afraid to get out on the road with it! Just kidding… that was tough talk. It’s snowy and cold outside. But between the road and my Kickr, 8000 km is the goal.

4.      Read 25 books. According to Goodreads, I read 11 books in 2014, 17 in 2015 and 22 books last year (short of my 30-book goal). You can follow what I’m reading on Goodreads… currently Siri Lindley’s book “Surfacing”. If you’ve got any must-read recommendations, I’d love to hear them. My favourite read of 2016: The Choices we Make (Karma Brown).

5.      Continue my streak of running a marathon at each age of my post-40 life. If this is going to be a 2017 goal, then I’ll need to run that baby between June and December of 2017. I’ve got my eyes on the Honolulu Marathon in December. (On an unrelated note, I’m also hoping for a visit from the money fairy.)

6.      100 hours of yoga. 55 hours of yoga in 2015. 82 in 2016. I think 100 hours is totally doable, especially without the time burden of Ironman training this year. Shout out to Believe, my epically fantastic yoga studio. A beautiful space and wonderful teachers with enough yoga variety to host you on your mat, no matter what you’re needing.

7.      Master crow pose. I’ve been wanting this for a while. Not enough to actually do the work and be intentional. But that’s probably just because it was waiting to help round out my 2017 list at 10 goals, right? #Believe.

8.      Crack 25 minutes in a 5K. I wanted to avoid focusing on outcome goals (and yes I know mastering crow pose is an outcome goal) because man, they can really eat at me. I don’t want to find myself crying before every start line because I think I’m going to fail and make my own “people who suck” list, but… I also want to push myself. To feel hungry for something. And this something means I have to get back to the run shape I was in before the 5-calf-injury-year (yeah I didn’t write about that either) and find 12 seconds over 5K. I’m up for it. And I’ve got 6 5K races already signed up and waiting. Oh, and just in case you’re on the edge of your seat, this is more likely to happen at the 6^th than the 1^st race. You might want to get a snack.

9.      Really, actually train, with focus and see where that takes me. I’m not sure I’m articulating this very well. I’m really good at following my training plan and checking the boxes next to the workouts. Yup, did it all. I have not been so awesome at listening to my body. If it tells me it doesn’t want to do something, I will usually tell it to stop trying to be a slacker, and I do the workout anyway. Even if it means running on a calf that was torn that morning. Hashtag stupid. And I have shied away from sessions where I feel “less than”… like coached swim workouts, where I felt self-conscious for being the slowest person in the pool, electing to swim on my own, without the watchful eye and needed instruction of a swim-coach on deck. This year, I will listen to my body and try to train smart (I’m experimenting with an app called HRV Training which I’ll post about another time), to avail myself of opportunities that can make me a better athlete (no matter how scary), and to make the hard workouts HARD and the easy workouts easy. And then there’s the whole sport fueling thing. I’m going to pay attention to that too.

10.   Give meditation a go: at least once/week for 20 minutes. I’ve tried meditation a time or two and honestly have joked that for me, it’s facilitated napping. But there’s so much out there espousing the benefits of meditation that I’m going to be approach it this year with an open mind and a willing heart. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Another 17 hours of sleep this year? Not a terrible thing.

Well there they are. I’ll check in throughout the year to update you on my progress. And with this post, I’ve got #1 well in hand. 51 to go. I hope you’ll still be here!

Marathon Number 6 & Olympic Dreams

OK settle down. It’s not what you think. Before you consider an intervention, or perhaps recommend some medication, hear me out…

Probably the best of the medals. Coffee cup & glitter.

Back when I was a young lass of 39, I had this crazy idea that I would push back against turning 40 by running a marathon. Because really, there is no better way to feel young and sprightly than by subjecting yourself to a physically and mentally punishing ordeal that will leave you shuffling like an octogenarian for days afterward. (So just in case you are again thinking about interventions and medication, let me just mention that I now celebrate my birthday with a day at the spa with two women I covet as sisters.) But crazy ideas are a specialty of mine and so the Seattle Rock’n’Roll Marathon (2010), falling within a couple of weeks of my 40th birthday, became the Bucket List & Birthday Big Idea. I talked my bestie into doing it with me and after months of training together, off we went, and ta da: a few hours (way too many) later, we were marathon finishers. I took an eternity to finish (6:56), finishing just ahead (barely) of the sweeper vehicle, and really getting my money’s worth out of that race fee. Actually not really, because by the time I finished, all the bands had gone home and they were packing up the water and other finish line stuff. Rock-and-roll, not so much. And I swore I’d never run another marathon... in Seattle. And high on endorphins and post-race-afterglow (probably dehydration), I declared I would run a marathon every year thereafter.

Despite my hate-on for Seattle marathons, for “41”, in 2011, I went back to Seattle and ran the “regular” Seattle Marathon. Because if you don’t love Seattle hills, interstates, and 40-million out & backs on a sunny June day, you’re probably going to feel much better running a hillier Seattle route on a rainy, windy, November day. I know. Rain. In November. In Seattle. Who could have predicted that? I had manipulated convinced my bestie to run this one too, waiting for the right time (read: emotionally vulnerable) to pop the question: Wanna run another marathon? We both ran big PBs (6:11 this time for me) and declared our Seattle Marathon days were over.

For “42”, I stayed home and ran the BMO Vancouver Marathon in 2013 (4:31). For “43”, it was Whidbey Island (4:21), my favourite (so far). And of course for “44”, if you’re not new here and have been paying attention… Napa Valley (4:11). But that was like weeks ago and within a few days of finishing, I started trying to pick #6. Something between June of 2015 and June of 2016. And something that would work timing-wise with IMC this year and whatever IM I might be thinking about next year. Because Coach says recovery is important. Sure.

So after working out a Plan A, B and C that all hinged on race lotteries, I ran these by my Coach and then scrapped all of them and went with Plan D: LA in March. Only guess what? LA moves to February next year. Why? Something to do with allowing time for recovery between the marathon and the Olympic 10K trials… yeah I think that’s it. I didn’t pay too much attention because (obviously), I’m not looking for a spot, lol. And speaking of the Olympics, LA is hosting the Olympic marathon trials the day before the LA Marathon.

So registration opened today – for 2 days only – and then it re-opens in September with a higher price tag. And I might have accidentally signed up. So number 6: LA Marathon, February 14, 2016. Sub 4 is the goal.

And speaking of the Olympics… Recall in my last post, I mentioned that my swims were sucky. Suckier than usual. So today, I was repeating one of last week’s workouts and feeling pretty good about it. This was my workout:

• 200 swim, 100 kicks 
• Main – on 15s rest: 
• 4x200 @ 70% 
• 4x100 @ 80% 
• 4x50 @ 90% 
• 4x25 @ 100% 
• 4x100 with pull buoy & paddles, on 10s rest. 
• 100 easy 

So I’m feeling good. Lane to myself, no rage, and I’m pretty sure I’m swimming it faster than the previous week (which I did, 2 minutes faster FWIW). And then I’m doing my 4x50s and I’m just finishing my 15s rest when an elderly Asian lady in the next lane, doing breast stroke and keeping her hair dry, comes swimming up. I head off for my next 50 and am just finishing my 15s rest at the wall when she comes swimming in again. WTF? Suddenly I’m not feeling so much like Ariel. As I head off, I think I catch a glimpse of flipper and I think “riiiight, of course… this is why her leisurely breast stroke is not much slower than my 50m @ 90%”. After I’m done my main set, before I head off with paddles, I duck my head under and have a look: no flippers. Damn it!

It’s so obvious what’s going on here. Clearly this woman is a former Olympic medalist. Next time I’m there, I might ask her to sign my swim cap.

Race Report: Napa Valley Marathon

Hey readers, guess what you have today? A choice… That’s right, you can choose door number 1: the short version of my Napa recap or… door number 2: every minute detail. Because I care.

Short version, a la my post race Facebook update:

"#5 is in the books, with a 10-minute PB on a gorgeous California day. Bring on the wine."

Long version… you might want to get a cold bevvy and a snack.

First things first: this race is so well organized. It’s clear that the Napa Valley Marathon folks love their racers and they take good care of them. While waiting for our flight to California, I was cruising the NVM Facebook page and watched a segment race organizers did for one of the CA local news shows. In the interview, they claimed their volunteer to racer ratio is 2:1. You know what? It showed! Every finisher has a “handler” just like at an Ironman race, to “catch” you (perhaps literally), suss out your medical needs, and walk you through the finish line gauntlet: medal, water, race photos. The pre-race Expo was small but very well done, and with free wine tastings! When I checked in at the Expo, I asked about the pasta options at dinner. I had purchased a ticket but was wondering whether anything would be vegan friendly. One of the volunteers disappeared to check and returned saying not to worry, just to announce myself at dinner, and they’d make me something special. And they did, asking what I wanted, and serving me a special pasta meal at my table. And although it was some 6 hours since I’d seen her earlier in the day, the volunteer from that morning was still “working”, and tracked me down at dinner to make sure I’d been looked after. Nice!

The food was delicious and they also offered unlimited beer & wine! Not something the serious racers wanted to over-indulge in but a nice treat for our long-suffering partners! It was also cool to be enjoying a meal with Bill Rodgers at the table to my right, and Dick Beardsley and JoeHenderson at the table directly across from me.

If I had the race to do over, I would probably stay in Calistoga instead of Napa. This beautiful point-to-point starts in Calistoga at 7 a.m. and runs you back to Napa. A convoy of buses leaves Vintage High School in Napa to transport runners to the start line… and they leave at 5:15 sharp. That’s a very early start to the day… a 3:45 alarm for me, reminiscent of Challenge! Fortunately, they let you remain on the buses until very close to the start – or until you need to join the porta-potty lines – which is a blessing because it’s COLD there in the morning… 1 degree Celsius race morning… but near 19 degrees by the time I finished. Yes, bring layers! Here I am (minus the long-sleeve throwaway I started the day in), ready to test drive the top from my A-race (IMC) Smashfest Queen kit  in my B-race. And glad I did because the race photos clearly highlight, I’ve got some fit issues to sort out!

There is not much crowd support owing to the fact that there's very little access (with parking) to the junctions along the Silverado trail. However on the upside, where the junctions do allow parking, you've got spectators as thick and vocal and encouraging as at the finish line. It’s a great boost. Here I am running a vanity fartlek with a fellow runner through one of these junctions. 1202's motivation was a giant bag of peanut M&Ms. I know this because whenever her family were on the side of the road, they waved it at her and she got a little surge of energy... I dropped her somewhere later in the course so M&Ms will clearly only get you so far.

The course itself is beautiful. It’s a net downhill course but definitely not a flat course. Rolling terrain with most of the challenge in the first third of the course, despite all the chatter you’ll hear about “the mile 20 hill”. I’d read race reports before heading down where people universally grumbled about the hill at mile 20. It was mentioned more than once by the speakers at the pre-race dinner. And during the race itself, as we approached the 19-mile marker, a racer with a little sign on his back announcing this was his 11th NVM, was holding court with fellow runners, telling them how the hill began at this mile marker and didn’t relent and was the worst part of the course. I was aware we were running on an incline, but kept waiting to reach this mythical hill when a spectator clapped and commended us for conquering “the hill”. Whaaaat? These people do not know hills. LOL. I’d expected to finish the race never wanting to drink Stag’s Leap wines after enduring the hill but… Cheers!

Homemade sorbet is offered at the 23-mile mark. I’d read about this in race reports from previous years… and the runners around me who indulged were confirming those favourable reports: amazing! I didn’t take any because I was trying – and failing – to snag a 4:10 finish. Yeah, so what happened there? Well, honestly in a rare moment of patting myself on the back, I will say: I executed this perfectly. I need a 5:55/km pace to get that 4:10 and that’s exactly what I ran. Coach told me to use the first couple of kms to warm up, and just ensure I got them covered in 14 minutes. Check. Then to hold a 5:50 pace until the half, then to settle in at 5:55. Check.  I was working on being incredibly disciplined and not trying to match the pace of people who I was chatting with if it seemed they were running faster (or slower) and not falling in to the temptation to pick up the pace if someone passed me who I thought looked like they should run slower than me. I hit the half mark at 2:05 according to my Garmin… "Now just do that again." I told myself. Coach said to hold steady at 5:55 until I hit the 32 km mark and then if I felt I could go harder, to go harder. Well I didn’t feel I could at that point, so I just held to 5:55. At least I did that until the last km or so when I realized I didn’t yet have the finish line in sight, but 4:10 was looming. So what happened? I ran long. About 400m long actually… Some guy in a lawn chair at the end of his driveway called encouragingly “just another ¼ of a mile”… I looked at my Garmin and thought “Noooooo. My Garmin says I’m done. I don’t have another lap of the track in me!!!” I attribute the extra distance to poorly cut corners and a tendency to move to the left side of the road when the camber was particularly bad. The road camber along Silverado is the only negative part of this course in my mind; it’s practically banked in some sections! But at the end of the day, it’s still a beautiful, well organized race that I’m glad I ran.

Official time: 4:11:48. A 10-minute PB over Whidbey last year. And Strava tells me that at the 42.2 km mark, I was at 4:09:24 so [unofficially] I guess my met my goal… But still… just like all those failed sub-2 half attempts, it comes down to asking “Could I have run every km just 2 seconds faster?” Because if I had, I’d have that 4:10, extra mileage or not!

NVM is definitely good value, and a race worth running. This beautiful course, wonderful volunteers, and your registration fee gets you a sports bag, a long-sleeve tech shirt, finisher’s medal, and a bag full of goodies & coupons you can use if you’re making a vacation of it (and you should!).

Post-race, we enjoyed truffle popcorn and champagne at Carpe Diem at Oxbow Public Market. And the day after, we checked out of our Napa digs and headed up to Calistoga for a couple of days of winery tours and tastings, mud baths and massages, and a teeny-tiny recovery ride. J Sorry Coach, I couldn’t resist!

Ironman Canada - 24 weeks out

	IMC: 24 weeks to go (Feb 9-15)	Challenge: 24 weeks to go (Mar 3-9)
Total training hours	12:31	15:28
Swim	3:06 / 6350m	2:49 / 5650m
Bike	1:00 (15.4 km on the trainer)	4:33 (trainer + spin class + 24.9 km outside)
Run	6:25 / 61 km	4:20 / 54.59 km
Strength training		1:45
Yoga	2:00	2:00
SBR Total	10:31	11:43

Since Monday was Family Day, I put in a request that it NOT be a rest day. Who wants to spend an extra weekend day laying around doing nothing? Yeah… not me! Coach made a comment about risk vs rest given the heavy previous week, and the particularly full previous day (Run. Bike. Run. Yoga.) but compromised with an easy swim and a light yoga class. CCAC was doing a ladies-only swim in the morning so I went thinking it would be less crowded. Half the genders, half the swimmers? Yeah, no. It started off weird seeing that they had hung curtains over the lobby windows so men couldn’t even see in to the pool… OK… and wow, once in the pool… a whole lot of diversity going on. I’ve never swum with people fully clothed in pants and long-sleeved shirts. Uh huh. Weird.

I came home, tired, and fighting a killer carb craving. The previous day, I’d been about 1500 calories under what I should have been taking in for my activity level which might have played in to what happened next… After 7 weeks or so of saintly eating, I succumbed to that killer carb craving and ate my body weight in tortilla chips and fresh salsa. Then promptly fell asleep on the couch. Who wants to spend an extra weekend day laying around doing nothing? Me, apparently.

Tuesday I had a great swim – I had 16 x 100 to do for my main set and decided to target 2:30.  I managed that for almost half, then slowed to 2:35 for a bit, a couple of 2:40, then I don’t even know – I was tired and the math got hard! The swim-high was tempered by a ridiculously boring zone 1 (zone 1!) 1 hour spin on the bike. To add insult to injury, I was watching what may be the most boring episode of the Breaking Bad series (let’s hope) where the entire hour was about killing a fly.

Wednesday I reluctantly dragged my ass to the track. Oh, how I hate track-work. It’s just so… hard. I had 6 x 600m hard assigned and I ran them at a faster clip than I was running the week before, running the first one at a 4:17/km pace. Yeah, I was pretty happy with that. However true to form, I ran the rest slower and inconsistent (4:23, 4:31, 4:27, 4:33, 4:35). BUT… I did them. Which [spoiler alert] is more than I will be able to say when I post the next week’s training!

Sunday was my last long run before Napa and far, far shorter than I usually take my long run to pre-marathon. For my previous 4 open marathons, my long run has peaked at 35-37 km. This week I peaked at 26 km. My overall mileage this time is much higher. In the 5 weeks up to and including Sunday, I’ve run 296 km. For my first marathon (Seattle Rock’n’Roll), my 5-week pre-taper mileage was just 117 km! For my last marathon (Whidbey Island), it was 216. I’m a little uneasy about having such a short long run but I trust my coach. In order to manage the inner gremlins, I’ve been doing some reading about accumulated fatigue in endurance training, as well as the notion that there’s not much fitness to be gained on the really long runs, and that the impacts to recovery and subsequent workouts hinder improvements in running performance.  I know I will need to keep returning to these sources over the week leading up to my race so that when I’m tiring on race day after that 26 km mark, I can counter those gremlins that may whisper I’m not prepared to run longer.

This is how the week played out:

Monday	1900m swim Hatha Yoga Class
Tuesday	2600m swim before work 1 hr zone 1 spin on the trainer after work
Wednesday	10 km run – speed work at the track after work
Thursday	SFA – and for once I was grateful for it!
Friday	8.4 km run at lunch
Saturday	1850m PRM swim 11.6 km run
Sunday	26 km run in the morning 5 km recovery shuffle late afternoon Gentle Hatha Yoga Class post-run