Day 274

Practice was quick and perfunctory today. I was running late so I rushed through the closing sequence at the end. I'm feeling a bit lethargic and unmotivated today. Whenever I get to feeling this way, I remind myself of where I was at this time last year: frustrated, heavy, somewhat directionless and floundering.

This is a very different year and I'm in a much better place in terms of my yoga and meditation practice. More and more, I'm finding that my sadhana (generic catch-all sanskrit term for personal yoga/meditaiton practice) has given me a strong foundation to make positive changes in other areas of my life. It has also given me the strength to weather life's storms with greater equanimity. For all that I've been frustrated and sad lately, I haven't been weepy. In fact, I don't think I cried once.

There has never been any doubt in my mind that this practice has also made me stronger, but yesterday, I put my theory to the test: I cycled out to the west end for the first time since last summer.

This route has a number of really atrocious hills. Last summer, these hills had me begging for mercy every single week. It took me months to get to the point where I could ride up all of them without stopping to walk my bike. I was ridiculously proud of this achievement. All the same, the very thought of those hills filled me with dread. It was a mental challenge as well as a physical one.

This year? I approached the hills with the same dread, but I flew up every single one with no effort at all! I started to wonder, illogically, if someone had 'flattened' the hills or something because they didn't even *look* as scary. I also made it to my destination in record time! I guess my legs really are stronger and it doesn't hurt that I'm about 40 lbs lighter (thank you, CRON)

I really am surprised by my new cardiovascular endurance though - I had expected to be out-of-breath and I wasn't. I can't believe that yoga did this!

All is coming. And it's riding a bicycle! ;-)