Going to rewind back a bit to after my run on Saturday… we ended up doing just over 13K in 2 hours. The temps were great and Melanie and I chatted up a storm so the time passed quickly. I was absolutely freezing though, sweaty but chilled to the bone once I got back into my car and started to cool down. That is probably the worst thing about Winter running. I had a few errands to do and then decided to go to Just Us to warm up with a coffee and have a quick bite of lunch before heading to my yoga class.
I ordered my fav french roast to go and then headed upstairs. This location (Spring Garden) is pretty cool, it’s two levels of an old building with various types of tables & chairs through out.
For lunch, I packed an ezekiel tortilla with a smear of almond butter, organic banana and a drizzled with Nova Scotia honey. So yummy and very filling. I had a bit of time to kill so I relaxed in one of the comfy chairs and played on the crackberry. 😉
I headed down to the Brewery (where 108 Yoga is located) in hopes of finding a decent parking space. LOL, what was I thinking? Saturdays are when the Farmers Market is open and the parking was sparse. I found a spot further up and enjoyed the walk in the beautiful sunshine.
I know you guys are probably wondering, yoga? What’s she talking about? I hadn’t really mentioned it before but one of the awesome benefits of being a Team Myles member is that 108 Yoga offered us a 2 hour intro class and then a weekly class of our choice for the next 16 weeks. Sweet!
As you all know, I’ve found that yoga and running go hand in hand. I love stretching out after I’ve hit the pavement, especially after the LSDs. I’ve never really had an formal instruction though (other than the warm yoga), just what I’ve learned from DVDs/Yogadownload, so I was really excited to have this opportunity.
Yoga 108 is a fairly new studio, they opened last Spring at a beautiful location in the Brewery Market. Thought it would be fun to give you all a little tour and talk about my experience.
Turns out we actually had to use the back entrance.
The studio is very open; you walk right into the main area….
There are coaches to relax on before hand. I love the color schemes!
Changing area, which was hard to capture on my camera due to the narrow hallway.
Our class was taught by the owner, Dorothy.
In total there 6 six of us in the class; she welcomed us and gave us a tour of the studio. We picked up our blocks & blankets and went back into the main room.
I had brought my own yoga mat but turns out that all the equipment was provided for us. The idea is that you can come in before or after work and not have to lug all kinds of gear around. The mats are sanitized after every class.
Back out on the floor we sat down and Dorothy gave us lots of really interesting information over the next 30 mins. We learned about the history of yoga, the purpose and the health benefits of incorporating it into our lifestyle. She also explained how yoga changed her life – going from a busy, stressed out corporate life to owning the studio.
I love how the sunshine streams in the windows.
We began our 90 min practice by starting with basic breathing techniques. Yoga is about breathing through your nose. She had as lay out and began be simply closing our eyes and listening to our breathing. Placing our hands on our lower stomach to actually feel the inhale/exhale process. Once relaxed, we practiced breathing in 3 steps. Inhale all the way down to the pelvic area, exhale up to the belly, exhale again to the chest and the let it all out. I wish I could remember all the technical terms for this and have tried googling them but there are so many, I don’t want to give you the wrong ones.
She eased us into the session with some Sun Salutation poses. I got these pictures from various yogadownload.com pose guides. I think they’re fairly close to what we were doing. We did multiple sets of each.
Then we got into poses that really helped to stretch out our hip and legs. My calves were really tight after the run and this felt sooo good!
We ended the session with very basic poses to help relax your mind and body completely.
It was an awesome class! Dorothy took the time to go over all the poses in great detail and demonstrated variations of the more difficult. She also went around and adjusted us if we weren’t holding the pose correctly. I loved all the details and really learned a lot in the 2 hours.
A few group shots. 
For all you local readers, classes are booked online. It only takes a minute to register and then you login and select the session you want to attend. Easy peasy. A schedule and full description of each class can be found here.
I’m looking forward to the next 16 weeks of classes! Thanks again Dorothy. 🙂
