To Run or Not to Run

Last year when it got cold and the sidewalks got icy I joined the neighborhood gym for the winter. This year we are conserving money, and really running on a treadmill is like... running on a tread mill. It's practically a metaphor for it's own tedium. Instead I am doing yoga on days too cold to run, and consequently I haven't run in 2 weeks. It was the warmest day of the week today, which means hovering around 20 at running time. And gray. I rolled out my yoga mat again.

By some lovely serendipity, I had scheduled myself months ago to preach my first ever yoga sermon "Lessons learned on the Mat." I've got my stack of yoga books by the computer, and am finally finishing Iyengar's Light on Life. I was looking for a story to tell during the "Lesson for All Ages" and realized that we should just do a few asanas together. I am more nervous about this than the sermon. What poses will hold the interest of our elementary school kids and be accessible to our elders?

I am a little worried about how hard that first run will be when the temperatures get back up into the high 20s or even 30s. But living seasonally is something I believe in, so perhaps winter is the season of yoga. Maybe I just need to have faith that the sun will come back in the spring and I will burst out in my running shoes like those little crocuses bursting through the frozen ground.