This is The Trail to Nowhere, a weekly email which is part running diary, part business therapy, and part thoughts I probably should’ve kept to myself. It might not make you faster, but it might make you think and (occasionally) laugh...
It was during a sports massage that the concept of me doing yoga was first brought up. Shaun, my physio, who had the hands of God, said he thought it would help my various injuries.
But I said, “Yoga’s for girls, I go to the gym, lift weights and run.”
“How’s that going for you?” he said, with his fingers dug deep into my IT band.
Touché, I thought.
My gym already had yoga classes included in the membership, so I gave it a go. 60 minutes later, my clothes were drenched, and I was totally exhausted.
I was hooked instantly.
I’m about as flexible as a door. I want to be upfront about that. Seven years into yoga, and I still can’t touch my toes without bending my knees. My hamstrings are essentially ornamental at this point. In my first-ever class, an elderly woman next to me floated into a headstand as if it were the most natural thing in the world, while I was struggling to sit cross-legged without my knees pointing at the ceiling.
And yet I still do it. Every week. Because yoga has become one of the most important things I do as a runner.
Here’s the thing that gets me when I talk to other runners about yoga. The number one excuse, and I hear it constantly, is some version of: “I’d love to do yoga, but I’m not flexible enough.”
This is like saying you can’t go to the gym because you’re not already jacked. Or that you can’t start running because you’re not fast. The inflexibility is the point. That’s why you go.
Yoga’s actually a lot like running: you don’t need to be good at it. You just need to show up. Stay at your level and don’t compare yourself to the people around you.
I’ve never once tried to match what anyone else in the class was doing. I do the modified version of everything and feel zero shame about it. I am regularly the most inflexible person in the room.
In 2020, I actually got certified as a yoga teacher. Which still feels slightly absurd to say, given I can’t touch my toes. But the qualification taught me more about the body, how muscles, fascia and joints connect, than anything else I’ve done. If you’re serious about running and you’ve never looked at how yoga complements it, you’re leaving recovery on the table.
If you’ve been meaning to start and just haven’t, here are my two favourite YouTube channels for runners specifically:
-
A lot of people start with Yoga With Adriene, but she talks too much for my liking
One thing I genuinely haven’t cracked: finding a decent male yoga instructor on YouTube. Every time I search I end up back with the same few options and none of them have clicked for me. If you follow anyone good, male or female, app or YouTube, please let me know.
