A regular yoga practice can provide massive support to runners, improving both strength and flexibility. triyoga teacher Laura Gate Eastley shares more about the benefits of complementing your running practice with yoga. Her upcoming workshop ‘yoga for runners’ takes place two days before the 2019 London Marathon, making this an ideal event for runners to show their body a bit of TLC before the big race. It’s also a great place to start for those wanting to begin a running programme.
I’ve been practising yoga since the late 90s. I explored it as a way to try and de-stress from a demanding career in the music industry and became quite quickly hooked on the Ashtanga system. My morning practice grew longer as I progressed through the primary and second series and I would be on the mat six days a week for around two hours a day.
I lived and breathed yoga and did nothing else physically, which was not at all unusual. All my yoga buddies were the same. After qualifying to teach, my first workplaces were gym classes, so I tentatively tried out a treadmill one day and was shocked by my shaking, purple-faced reflection after the longest ten minutes of heart-thumping agony.
I felt slightly ashamed, after all I was a yoga teacher!! Being tested on my nephews Wii-fit a couple of years later and having it report my fitness age as older than my sister in law (10 years my senior) was another little prod to my ego, but more importantly a seed sown to look into my cardiovascular health. I had enjoyed running outdoors in my younger years, so I decided to try and renew that (the treadmill really doesn’t do it for me).
Well, it was a humbling and confusing journey. My knees sounded like I was walking through crunchy snow and I could only walk downstairs comfortably if I moved sideways like a crab!
I had a couple of injuries and finally a breakthrough after an Alexander Technique for running workshop. My love for running outdoors blossomed slowly, as I progressed through 5k parkruns, to a charity 10k to my first half marathon this year. Through lots of refining certain yoga poses (for example, I don’t think lotus and running are compatible) I feel that I have first hand experience of what does and doesn’t work on fusing these two wonderful disciplines, and that’s the reason I’m sharing it at my 26th April workshop. Yogi’s these days are, in general, much more open to cross training than when I was starting out, and yoga has of course grown exponentially so most sporty types are open to weaving some yoga classes into their week. Whether it’s to help prevent injury, develop lung capacity or find some stillness in an ever fast paced lifestyle it builds blocks for a healthy future.
I have worked specifically with private clients that run (including a middle distance competition runner who successfully lengthened her stride to win many races) to taking retreat students out for morning runs after our a.m. practice and I hope I’ve inspired many of my regulars class students to get out in nature and get their hearts pumping.
If you have a friend who is running the London marathon on 28th April bring them along for some pre-race TLC. If I’ve sparked your interest in getting off the mat and popping your trainers on to begin a couch to 5k programme, come along. There will be some useful tips and methods for all including a lovely, unhurried, deep guided relaxation at the end.
