If you are training for the full marathon and getting into longer runs now AND you haven't tried yoga, get yourself to a studio. Whether or not you've tried yoga, you've certainly heard the buzz lately. As a former teacher of mine -- hey Cheryl at Family Yoga, I miss you -- used to tell me, yoga is the perfect antidote to distance running. Cheryl used to look for me in class ("where's my runner? this is for you") whenever we did positions that worked the hips, hamstrings, and glutes. Running, as she put it, makes you strong but tightens and shortens your muscles. Yoga stretches them, lengthens them.
One great warm-up: Cheryl would bring a bag of tennis balls so we could sit first on one cheek, then the other, and roll around on the little ball. It got right to the spot where your overworked hamstring connects to the glute, or butt, muscles. My left one chronically tightens up on any run longer than six miles, and sitting on that ball gets right to the trouble and massages the knotted up stuff.
Iliotibial band trouble, anyone? Cheryl nursed me through my worst bout of ITB. The pain is in the knee, but the trouble starts in tight hip flexors, which runners desperately need to stretch.
Yoga rookies may be intimidated to walk into a class where everyone -- typically a bunch of way-too flexible women -- seems to know what they're doing. Try to catch the teacher before the class starts, let her or him know that you're a runner and new to yoga, and then he or she will fully expect you to struggle a bit and suspect your hamstrings are tight. The teacher can often suggest modifications as you start out. The great part, as I can attest, is that with some regular practice, maybe even just once a week, those "damn dog" stretches will start to feel like good "down dogs." Happy training.
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