Chicago Marathon Val

This morning in yoga I did the unthinkable – I was able to stay up in crane pose for up to 10 seconds at a time!!! Ok, ok, I know for many of you this is not a big accomplishment (and I know that I need to straighten my arms to be in the full expression of the pose), but I felt very pleased with myself.  I haven’t felt this proud since this time!

It’s amazing to me how far I’ve come with my yoga practice over the past 7 months or so.  Back in college, I signed up for a yoga class since it was a credited class – sweet, or so I thought – only to find that I was so impatient that I absolutely hated it and dreaded going to class. Fast forwad a few years later to the summer of 2009, when I started going to the occasional yoga class since the word on the street was that it would improve my breathing and strengthen my core, which thus would be beneficial to my marathon training.

While I wasn’t going to a fancy yoga studio but instead was simply attending the free yoga classes at my neighborhood gym, I realized that I liked the instructors and style much better than I did back in that college class.   It’s too bad that I wasted so many years of my life thinking that I didn’t like yoga, when really I just didn’t realize that there are about 5000 different types of yoga out there, and I just needed to find the right fit!

I first began falling in love with yoga when I realized how AMAZING it was from a strength training perspective.  I started to see more toning results than I had ever seen before – quicker – and I loved feeling so challenged each week.  While I continued to attend classes for this physical benefit, over time I found that I also really enjoyed the mental clarity that it provides.  I used to hate Sundays, but now I actually look forward to them because I love, love, love my Sunday morning yoga class.  There’s nothing like going to a near-empty, quiet gym for an hourlong workout that – *bonus!* – also offers personal reflection time.

If you practice yoga, did it take you a while to get into it as well?  Or were you hooked right away?

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Oops, almost forgot to remind you to enter my Chia Seeds giveaway! The contest will be open until Thursday and, unlike some giveaways, does not require you to follow 8 different steps that involve commenting + emailing all of your friends and family + doing headstands in order to win one entry.  It’s super easy, so check it out!

Last week my cousin Liane sent me the Epicurious recipe for an African stew, and it looked so good to me since it contained many of my favorite ingredients – namely chickpeas, tomatoes, and coconut milk! I tried my hand at it (plus a few modifications), and then just realized that it was almost exactly like my Morrocan Quinoa and Sweet Potato Stew that I made almost four months ago! I think Epicurious stole my recipe

In an a nutshell, the soup was a crockpot full of:

* 2 sauteed onions

* 1 clove chopped garlic

* more garlic powder, to taste

* 1 c. quinoa

* 1/2 jar pasta sauce

* 2 cans diced tomatoes

* 1 can light coconut milk

* 1.5 cans chickpeas

* about 3 c. broccoli (I had frozen the stalks a while ago and defrosted and chopped them – this is a great way to use up the less-flavorful stalks!)

* 1 butternut squash, cubed

* 2 tsp. curry powder

* 2 tsp. paprika

* salt to taste

I threw everything together in the crockpot before leaving to work, and it was all set to eat when I returned home later that day. ( Technically I added the coconut milk and seasonings at the end, but it would be fine to add them at the beginning, as well!)

Please accept my apologies for this terrible (and not very appetizing) picture…. at the moment my flash wasn’t working and it wasn’t very light outside!

Time to go have a relaxing Sunday – hope you are doing the same!

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 12:40 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.