A little note about Bikram yoga...new practitioners or people considering starting...take heed

First off I want to post a disclaimer that says that I am not a Bikram instructor, this is not about anyone specific in class or any specific Bikram studio and these opinions are my own as a practitioner (which I’ve been for going no 3 years now). Ok, now that’s out of the way we can get down to business.

I know that as the new year dawns, most people will look to new activities to get in shape and Bikram Yoga seems to be getting ever more popular. That’s great! As a Bikram practitioner I can tell you that Bikram Yoga is a fantastic way to keep your body in shape with no impact on the joints and a great way to lose weight too! An average session can burn anywhere from 700-1000 calories depending on the person!!! But…if you’re going to start doing Bikram there’s a few thing you need to know and be prepared for…

The room is hot, 105 degrees with a humidity of 40%...and the room smells…GET OVER IT!!! I get so tired of people complaining about the heat and smell. It’s a hot room and you sweat..it is a WORKOUT after all. If you can’t deal with that, please stay home and do your “Carmen Electra Does Stripper Yoga” DVD. And...YES, its the SAME 26 postures every session.

Bikram says (yes, Bikram Yoga is named after the man that created it, Bikram Choudhury) you bring the best “you” you can to the practice. That best “you” is to try the best you can during the practice. If you’re gonna half-ass your effort, then stay home. In my opinion you disrespect Bikram, the teacher and the rest of us busting our butts in class.

Now, a couple things to keep in mind:

- Eat during the day before class. You wouldn’t go for 90 minute run without fueling would you? Well, this is the same thing.

- Drink during the day before class. See above! Drinking during class and after will not help you DURING the class. Make sure you’re drinking all day and remember to drink after. You did just sweat for 90 minutes! There is one “official” drink break but you’re welcome to drink water throughout the class.

- If you are new to Bikram DO NOT sit at the front of class, in front of the mirror. Why? Because no one is going to hand hold you through the poses and/or tell you how to do them. The onus is on you to LISTEN to the instructor and WATCH your fellow practitioners to see how the poses are done. You can’t do that from the front of the room and all you’ll be is a distraction to the rest of the class.

- The teacher will talk the entire time (a great teacher will be engaging and funny not just recite the Bikram “script”)! That is on purpose. It’s meant for you to not “think” and just “listen” and execute the poses to the best of your abilities

- Quit moving around or fidgeting. Bikram Yoga is all about your focus. Moving around is an easy way to break your focus and meditation and more importantly…EVERYONE else’s. If you can’t do a pose or need to take a break, lay down on your mat in dead body pose or “savasna”. THAT is the acceptable thing to do…pacing around your mat or talking to the person beside you is not.

- Speaking of talking, you may like to chat on a run or at the gym between sets but proper etiquette during your practice is the teacher is the only one talking. And…how can you focus on doing the postures if you’re talking.

- Along the same lines…DO NOT leave the room (unless it’s an emergency). If you need to take a break, lay down on your mat. Your coming and going in and out of the room is poor etiquette and rude but very distracting to the teacher and your fellow students. Who can find their center and focus with someone walking out of the room every 10 minutes?!

My Yogi Maria...she's awesomesauce!

- This is a pet peeve of mine...you will hear the term “cobra tail” during your practice. That refers to your legs being together from the hips to the knees to the ankles to the toes…get it?! So your lower body looks like a snake. If they are not, then you’re doing it wrong. There is nothing worse than me trying to focus on keeping my legs solid and look up to see the person in front of me spread eagle (the same annoyance applies to hands not intertwined correctly, bent knees and bent arms)!
- Don't get disheartened if you cant do the postures like they're "supposed" to look. Your workout comes from trying to make your postures better each and every practice. You'll get there eventually...I promise.

- At the end of the practice, don’t just hop right up and run out of the room. The purpose of the last Savasna is to allow you to recover from the practice, compose yourself and center your focus. Supposedly Bikram has been known to say “that if you don’t relax for 2 minutes after final breathing, it’s like taking a poop and not wiping your butt”. Graphic? Yes, but couldn’t be more true!

These points aren’t meant to scare you off from Bikram Yoga or make you think you’re not welcome at a practice. It’s meant for you to be informed and not show up to class and be known as “that guy/girl” who is the distraction. A little thought before you walk in the door will pay you dividends subsequently help the people who are practicing around you. Namaste.

A good day...

The week of New Year's was a rough one for me. I don’t know if I was run down, my body gave out because I was finally able to slow down after all the crap I was dealing with in 2012 or if I picked it up a the gym…but the flu knocked me out cold! I started feeling a bit off after a 5 mile run on the treadmill on Saturday the 29^th of December and then it was all downhill from there. The next 6 days I averaged 16-18 hours a day sleeping only to wake up to eat, take medicine (it was the flu so there was lots of Nyquil involved as I had to “fight” through it) and shower. Sad that one of the few full weeks I took off from work had me dog sick and not able to enjoy the time off. Friday rolled around and I finally started to feel human. Saturday morning came and I was dying to get back to training. Opting for a slow, progressive build to my way back…instead of jumping in with both feet and running the risk of getting sick again (or as I call it, the normal way I do things)…I started with abs and yoga for the first few days with Monday the 7^th of January to be my first “training” of 2013. I honestly don't know if it was the Saucony Kinvaras, the FRS Energy drink I’m trying, my comfy lululemon shorts, the Zensah sleeves, glancing down at the pace on my Polar RC3GPS or the week layoff being sick...but that first run felt good! That 5.36 mile run was on a 7:20, 7:18, 7:17, 7:32 (I figured I could slow down a bit, it was my first run back after all) and 7:23 min/mile pace respectively. Not bad for an 8 day layoff from running. Sure I’m a little bit sore today but sore in a good way. Now...I can get serious about training and getting ready for a 20 plus race season (including 2 half Ironman events)!

Diet-to-Go…eating can really be this easy

I don’t know about you but one of the hardest things I struggle with as a multisport athlete is eating. Getting to the gym and squeezing in workouts is easy but making healthy meals and eating enough and often enough is one of my biggest hurdles. I’m all about “feeding”, where I just try to get quick and easy food in my face for calories. My default meal is normally a homemade egg/Canadian bacon/cheese English muffin sandwich and a bowl of cereal. That meal can come at ANY time of day and I’ve been known to eat it for multiple meals in the day. Ya…I need some meal help.

I was lucky enough to have Diet-to-Go “diet delivery” arrived at my door to help me get a handle on my eating and start the year out right. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Diet-to-Go (http://diettogo.com) and their “diet delivery” (I’ll be honest and say I hadn’t up until now) there’s a few things worth mentioning:

- It’s the most inexpensive fresh diet delivery service on the market. 

- There are zero cancellation fees, NO gimmick pricing and even more important NO commitments or contracts. 

- Diet-to-Go offers a range of three unique menus to choose from: low-fat, vegetarian, and low-carb and has 20 plans to choose from

- They were recently rated #1 diet delivery company by Epicurious

- And…MOST importantly…100% satisfaction guaranteed

I was ecstatic to see 9 meals (3 breakfast, 3 lunch and 3 dinner) came in a large Styrofoam cooler. The meals came individually packaged and so easy to prepare; either eat them as is right out of the fridge or a few minutes in the microwave and you’re ready to chow down! As I mentioned earlier, monotony is my spice of life when it comes to meals so I was very surprised to see the variety of meals provided. Some included commercially available products (yogurts, juices) but most had a homemade look and taste. One of the things I was struck by was that each meal had its ingredients plainly labeled and the calories and caloric content was broken down and easy to read. That’s HUGE for someone like me when I’m trying to balance protein and carbohydrate intake in order to fuel long or multiple workouts. And…look…I’m a guy…the included packaging made for a ready to go plate to eat off of/out of so no need to worry about dishes clean up when I’m done with the meal. Another added bonus? EVERYTHING went right into the recycle bin!!! I’m desperately trying to be more green in 2013 and I was excited that everything that had to do with the meals was recyclable!

You can go over to my Instagram (http://instagram.com/rangerdutch/) or Twitter (https://twitter.com/RangerDutch) feeds to see each of the meals up close but the meals had a great variety and ranged from mushroom strata-chicken sausage, V8 and a yogurt (yes, you read right…a Strata! I had to Google it in order to find out exactly what it was – a layered breakfast casserole that has cheese eggs and other items. I’m eating well AND learning new things) for breakfast, bistro chicken salad with sesame bread sticks for lunch to baked spaghetti with parmesan cheese, seasoned cauliflower and bread sticks for dinner!

You know what? While eating these meals I never thought I was eating a “diet” or “prepared” meal. There wasn’t that “no taste” or “cardboard taste” we normally associate with prepared meals. I felt full but not weighed down and NEVER felt like I was cutting calories. Interested in trying out Diet-to-Go for yourself?  Well, Diet-to-Go is currently hosting a Facebook giveaway of 1,000 meals.  If you are interested, head over to their Facebook page (http:diettogo.com/1000meals) and enter for your chance to win 1 month or 1 week of free meals (there will be numerous chances to win). Or if you want to quickly hop to it, you can get Diet-to-Go meals now and save get 25% off first order by January 8th by using the code: "newyear2013".

Now, if I could just get them to send me more meals to fuel my 2013 race season...

FitFluential LLC compensated me for this Campaign. All opinions are my own…and so are my taste buds...and I LOVED these meals!

Meeting a champion, in every sense of the word

I admire the athletes at the top of our sport but have always been hesitant to actually approach them and say anything other than the obligatory “have a great race today” or “good luck”. I have always thought why in the world would they want to talk to a lowly age grouper like myself when they are titans in the sport? Well, the first person to change my opinion was Cait Snow. I had the pleasure of meeting her at a talk she gave and she’s remembered me ever since (I hope that’s a good thing). She is a sweet, personable, down to earth pro who has taken time out of HER schedule at races to come say hello to me. At one point coming over after a race and hanging out by my truck to ask me how my race went, how I was feeling and what my upcoming schedule looked like. Talk about making me feel like a cool kid!

Then Sunday I got to attend a Q&A session and book signing for 70.3 and 140.6 World Champion Craig “Crowie” Alexander. Now I’ve been to PLENTY of book signings/questions and answer sessions for authors/stars/athletes and they are normally very canned, to the minute, you have very little “real” interaction with the person and then you’re off. Well Crowie smashed that mold Sunday tonight. He milled around the crowd before the event “officially” began in a simple black button up shirt and jeans, soft spoken and chatting with everyone on the way in. When he took the stage he thanked everyone for being there and spent the first 30 minutes or so talking about some photos in his new book “As the Crow flies: My Journey to Ironman World Champion”. Self deprecating and humorous, it felt less like a book event and more like Crowie was opening a scrapbook for us to see. After going through the imagery, he opened up the floor to questions and those questions spanned far and wide. There were a few points he talked about that I learned from and a couple topics I was surprised he commented on but all were jewels that I put in my brain for later.

- When asked what if any “mantra” he recites over and over in his head while racing (ie I can do this I’m gonna win), his simple answer was he says “relax” over and over in his head. You’ve done all the training, you’re ready so there’s no need to waste extra energy…remind yourself to just relax and race (ya, I’ll be saying that over and over in my head at my next race!)

- When asked about nutrition and how much and of what, he responded that you should focus on easily broken down (by the stomach) nutrition and that it’s easier to come back from being under fueled (light headed, hungry and in a state where your body wants to take in calories) than to overload the system and shut your stomach down, effectively ending your race day.

 -When asked about his thoughts on Lance and whether he would’ve been a success in Ironman he responded with a resounding “yes”, ”it isn’t an if but a when as to Lance standing on the podium at Kona. He wouldn’t be another person piling on Lance because he doesn’t know the details. He said “there was doping in cycling way before Lance ever showed up and there still is” and “I love that triathlete want to point the finger at Lance but will draft and cut corners at races…in my eyes cheating is cheating” and “don’t hate the player, hate the game”. He also revealed that one of the reason he wanted to race Kona in 2012 was because Lance was going to be there and he wanted to be part of that. 

- When asked about this year’s race at Kona, Crowie said he felt that although he wasn’t having a good day and he knew it wasn't going to end the way he'd planned, he felt an obligation to all his sponsors, family and those that had sacrificed so much for him to be there, that he owed it to them to finish. And Lastly, when asked about his relationship with Chris “Macca” McCormick, he responded with “I haven’t had a relationship with Chris for over 10 years”, “I see his dad often”, “I see his wife at the school drop off every morning” and “Chris’s brother was the first person to congratulate me when I won in ‘11”. He went on to say “Chris has always been Chris, I just got to a point in my life where I don’t want that type of atmosphere or energy around me, I want to focus on the positive”. Amen Crowie, Amen!

That Q&A session lasted almost 2 hours followed by a drawing for prizes from his sponsors while we stood the hour in line for him to autograph our copies of the book. Like I said, I’ve done lots of book signings and signings in general so I'm prepping J and our friends...getting their books and cameras ready for a quick snapshot and signature. To my surprise, when we actually got to Crowie, he was relaxed and drinking a beer (Sam Adams of course) and taking all the time in the world chatting to folks as he signed the book and stood up for pictures. No "handlers" pushing people through or saying you only had "x" amount of time. 

When it was my turn I told him how much it meant to me that he finished Kona even though it wasn’t his day and that is a great example for us age groupers and aspiring pro’s alike that unless you’re hurt…you HAVE to finish. I also told him that I know he has a family and that he has a life but I hope he continues to race for the next few years because he’s an example that you can be fit and competitive in the sport as you age and for old guys like me…it means a lot. In my haste to take care of everyone else and excitement to meet him I totally forgot to tell him about my broken back and all my injuries and how triathlon, in my opinion, has saved my life. I was just so excited to actually be talking to him like a “normal person” that I totally forgot! And…and…and…I asked him if he was doing Eagleman this year because I will be and part of the reason I picked that for my first 70.3 was because I read how much he loved the course. Its flat, and we cyclists LOVE flat! He said that I’d love the course, especially the bike leg and although he wants to do it, he needs to firm up his schedule for the year still. He told us during the Q&A session that he’d built his 2013 race calendar a few days after Kona but had yet to share/discuss it with his wife and sponsors yet. I know I would be nowhere near the time Crowie crossed the line but it would be awesome if I got to see him at the finish?! And then…I got to take a photo with the him. That smile (which has been pointed out as only the second picture of 2012 to have me smiling) was of pure joy. Crowie is a genuine, down to earth, caring and engaging person as well as triathlete and we couldn’t ask for a better champion and ambassador for our sport!!!