6.00 am
Wake up. Think to how crazy you are that you’re actually getting up on a Saturday at six in the morning. Six in the morning! Make coffee, oatmeal, boil an egg and cut up some fruit. It’s going to be a long day and you’ll need your energy to last for hours. Remember that you’re actually up at this hour just so you have time to digest…

8.00 am
Get in car and drive 20 minutes  to gym where you’ve reserved the big room for three hours of YogaXRunners with Tite Togni. Stand out on the road waiting for people since the entry to the gym is hard to find and they might miss it. Curse participants because half are no-shows… only to find out ten minutes later that they’ve all entered through the back door. Silently kick yourself for having those bad thoughts about the innocent participants.

9.00am – 12.00pm
Approximately twenty asanas and three hours of yoga later, resolve to practice yoga every-single-day.  It’s been reconfirmed that your IT Band is really really tight, but you finally learned to do a proper headstand for one full minute. Walk away glowing. Thank you Tite!

Tite Togni and YogaXRunners

1.00 pm
Make lunch for four, wash the dishes, clean bathrooms, change sheets, prep dinner, answer emails, set up training schedule for a new client, change clothes and kiss husband as you fly out the door.

4.00 pm
Meet girlfriends in front of house and have all three of them pile in your car so that you can carpool it to the race. Thank goodness you’re all runners ’cause the car is European tiny…

5.00 pm
Pick up race packet and bib number. Lady at the desk doesn’t know how much you were supposed to give (free?) so you insist on paying for it rather than haggle and let her know you were invited by the organization to attend.

6.00 pm
Bang! The race is off! It’s only women and it’s supposed to be about 7km. We start running from a park and then we’re directed  to a highway underpass back into another park that looks more like an outback trail… No! Now we’re back on a street again and you actually have to stop and wait for traffic to pass (WTF??!!). It’s hot, this is weird, but hey, it’s only 7km so you keep plugging on… you play tether with another runner, she keeps passing you and then slowing down, and then speeding up. You let her pass and then stay hot on her heels. Catch your breath, get oxygen in lungs, play it cool and then you pass her for the last time. You always insist that you’re not competitive but everybody knows the truth.

6.42 pm
You pass the finish line and look for water. Lots of water. It must be 90 degrees out. You probably suck down half a gallon before you start to feel yourself like again. One by one the girls start crossing the finish line, ecstatic to have run the entire course… yes!

6.50 pm
Organization says they have something for you… and hand you a goodie bag with t-shirt saying they’d heard you had insisted on paying the fee. Huh? You invite me as a guest but don’t want to hand the t-shirt over unless I’m forking over money? Sigh sigh sigh. Note to yourself that it doesn’t pay to be cheap but that not everybody feels the same way as you.

8.30 pm
You walk in the door and announce to the family that tonight is officially Pizza Night because you don’t feel like cooking even though you already prepped in the afternoon.  Everybody cheers and all is well on the family front.

9.00 pm
With a belly full of pizza you look over your day and wish that you could have days like these more often. Running, yoga, friendship and pizza with the family. What could be better?

The girls after our 7km race