Downward dog.

For the past month or so, Carrie and I have been working Yoga into our exercise regimine in an attempt to offset all of the running we've been doing. It's been a great way to keep us stretched out and refreshed for our long runs on the weekends, the only problem is that we've had a difficult time falling into a regular routine. Each week our days of running and cross training have been different, meaning we've had to jump around from class to class. This week was no exception. The only break between my training runs and weight workouts came last night and there was only one Yoga class on the schedule, a class titled "Power Yoga," which was down for an hour and 15 minutes. While this raised a couple of red flags for Carrie, I on the other hand, was undaunted.

Having arrived at our Yoga studio (the multipurpose room at the Y), I immediately started scoping out the competition (I know, I know, Yoga is "non-competitive" … what the hell ever, you obviously don't know me). Anyway, the first thing that jumped out at me was the fact that these didn't appear to be casual Yoga enthusiasts. Each one came with their own accrutements—professional Yoga mats, blocks, you name it. The next thing I noticed was that a woman, who appeared to be the instructor, was questioning a new member of the class on her Yoga prowess and telling her things like "listen to your body." All this while a guy with one of the most impressive comb-overs I have ever seen meticulously tightened his flesh-colored wrist braces.

Not a good sign.

A few minutes later, the instructor came to the back of the room where Carrie and I had placed our borrowed YMCA fungus mats and interrogated us a bit on our Yoga background, to which we feigned confidence in our overall pretzel-making abilities enough that she let us be.

And just like that, class was underway.

For the most part it wasn't too bad. In fact, I'll come right out and say I was pretty proud of how well we did—despite the fact that the combination of my profuse sweat and the slip 'n slide I was using as a mat made me just about do a face plant every 30 seconds. Sure, there were times our knees quivered and yes, Carrie started watching the clock 15 minutes into the class, but we hung in there, got a good workout and got to see our bodies from entirely new (not necessarily pleasing) perspectives.