What's so hot about hot yoga?

These are my companions this week, Ruby and Rafiki. I'm staying at their place until Thursday and have thrown the tennis ball more times with more weather variables than I can remember at this point. Ruby is Ms. Fetchy McFetchington and would chase a ball until her paws fell off if given the opportunity...she will beg to play in the dark, in the snow (when the ball is frozen and gets lost or she slips on the sidewalk and the deck), in the rain, in the mud, at 5:30 a.m., and most recently in crazy wind.

Other than throwing (and throwing and throwing) dog toys, I'm managing to find things to do in this last week of the llloonnnggg winter break. Yesterday I got in an almost 2 hour ride on my bike trainer, went to the gym, and met up with a friend I hadn't seen in years.

Today was my first day back to swim team at Seattle U...woo-hoo! As always, I'd missed it over the holidays and was psyched to be back in the water with my regular lane mates...the other good news is that we'll be able to have slightly longer workouts this year. Sweet.

After swimming, I went out to Preston and Redmond to sleuth out some route stuff for the Seattle Century this July...kind of wierd to be thinking about a summer ride in gray, rainy, windy winter, but I got some good work done.

I came back through Kirkland and went to The Ashram to try out a Bikram yoga class. I'd never done a "real" Bikram class and know a few people who rave about it, so I wanted to give it a try. Hot yoga does have some selling points...I love being warm, my hamstring stretched further in the warm conditions, I love being warm, it was challenging (OK, I'll admit it, it was hard), I love being warm (did I mention that?) and well, the instructor was nice to look at. Unfortunately, it did make me a little light headed at times and my hamstring/butt thing was killing me in the car on the way home (the drive in rush hour was over an hour, that was probably the problem). Also, Bikram yoga turns Nuun into something resembling hot cider which is not so appealing. Anyway, not sure I'll be doing it regularly, but it was definitely humbling/challenging and a good change of pace...I don't totally love it, but I certainly have respect for the practice...some of those human pretzels are damn impressive and strong!