My Last Yoga Class and Ugh, I Washed My Shoes

Yesterday, was my last day as a yoga teacher in Sydney. I boarded the 6:15 train to the city, and was delighted to see the sunrise--the first time after days and days of endless rain.

It was a 7 AM Ashtanga class that went quite well. After class, I did my own practice in the beautiful city studio and then made my way home to start my day with Steven.

Steven took the day off work so we had planned to get our tourist jeans on and explore the city.

Our tourist jeans look a lot like our new skinny jeans by the way.

We took the bus to a quaint nearby neighbourhood called Neutral Bay. It has a small town feel on a heavily trafficked road. We had a morning coffee in the sunshine (oh how we have missed you, dear sunshine).

We strolled along Military Road to Mossman, a larger suburb in North Sydney. Boy, is Mossman ever POSH. Lining the streets were little boutique fashion stores, coffee shops, furniture stores, etc. Soccer moms pushing baby carriages walked along these streets as Porches drove by. And I'm NOT EVEN JOKING. All we needed were some Desperate Housewives running naked down the residential streets.

We found a busy little lane-way off the main strip, and decided to have lunch here. The restaurant is called The Mews, and was actually a bit disappointing. 

Most of the meals were pre-made in the display cabinets, which would be OK, except they didn't even heat my vegetarian lasagne through. It was so heavy and filling that I felt overly stuffed afterwards. Though The Mews is a beautifully presented restaurant, I was quite disappointed with its food.

We did a bit more wandering around the extremely beautiful Mossman area (some of the houses literally looked like CASTLES). Then, we hit up the Chatswood shopping mall to look for new shoes for me. After my beautiful hike on Monday, I was seriously considering scrapping my shoes completely and getting some new kicks. Unfortunately, the shopping malls really couldn't offer me anything I liked enough. 

So when I got home, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. 

Do you ever get that feeling of satisfaction when you suck every last bit of use out of something? The smug righteousness that happens when you've used these things really properly and well? Like you've wrung out every lasting ounce of value from a product, and you therefore win? Well, I'm clearly winning with these shoes.

I've had these Nikes for over 3 years now. They've journeyed with me to several countries, often multiple times, and hiked and walked and ran so many miles I can't even begin to estimate. These puppies sitting out in the sun now, and I'm excited to bring them back on the road.

You and me, babe, we'll go far.

Give love: Boston Marathon and Why I Run

I read a lot of running blogs.

Sometimes I even pretend this blog is a running blog (...is it? I still can't tell.).

So, waking up to news about the Boston Marathon was heart-breaking. I emailed my sister to make sure our friend in Boston was safe. He had been cheering at the finish line and thankfully left 2:30 into the race. I am so, so, so grateful that he is safe.

Then, I get this message:

In my anger and disgust, I said some very non-yogi non-ahimsa things in our chat ("ahimsa" means non-harming, so not + "non-harming"= harming. Very, very harming). It was probably good that I wasn't on that train, because I doubt I would have held my tongue.

Luckily, Facebook was there to buoy me.

My hat off to you, random stranger on Facebook who is extremely eloquent and smart!

There's no point in being angry at some random stranger my boyfriend overheard on his way to work. In the words of the Facebook quote above, "The good outnumber you, you insensitive idiot on the train, and we always will."

The fact that this tragedy took place at a marathon hits so close to home. No, I've never run one--heck I've only run one race! Yet I still count myself as a runner, and one of those "white blood cells" that would flock to help. I am proud to be a runner.

"Running hard only because I'm being chased is not good enough. I need to run hard because I can, because I should. Not all the time, of course, but often enough that I don't forget what it feels like to burn. I can apply the same concept intellectually, spiritually, emotionally...where ordinary times of life are the workroom, the classroom, the track. We need to practice our work here. We need to study, learn, run the drills over and over again so that when the moment of crisis comes (and it always does), we do what needs to be done automatically. In the moment of crisis it's too late to train."

 -from Kristin Armstrong's Mile Markers: The 26.2 Most Important Reason Why Women Run

Anyway, I'll leave you with this song by MC Yogi, lip-dubbed by the Queen Street Yoga community.