If you've ever been to a yoga class, you probably know what a sun salutation is. If you haven't, it's a series of movements with accompanied breaths that allows you to stretch and strengthen your body. Yoga also includes a spiritual component and most of you who know me well know that I have a pretty hard time with anything spiritual. I can't put blind faith in things that don't make sense to me. (Hence the irony of the Mary in the Bathtub that remains in our back yard to this day)

So today I went to yoga class and in celebration of spring, we did 108 sun salutations in one hour and 20 minutes. I have never done more than 15 sun salutations in a row. I was the youngest one in the class so I did every single one of those salutations without any pose modifications. I was not about to be out done. Let me just say, for the record, I don't think there was any competitive component to the class so I'm not sure why I had this point to prove. Well, there was snow on the ground this morning and it was cloudy and gloomy when I left for class. After the hour and 20 minutes, the sun was brightly shining. The real me believes this had something to do with jet streams or air quality or any other scientific method of observing weather. But the me who did 108 sun salutations would like to believe that somehow the sun gods or Mother Nature or Mary in my backyard or the Dali Lama or SOMEONE greater than Pete Petoniak (the meteorologist on Fox 11) witnessed our efforts and rewarded us with the sunshine on this first day of spring. Now if that same higher power would make my pain disappear, she would surely make me a believer.

As I take on the next week, I will be starting with a call to a doctor's office. Yes, after 3 weeks, I have decided this pain is not healing on its own and I may need the help of a physical therapist or sports medicine doctor who can help me get back on my feet and start training again. I dread the paper gown and the foreign hands touching my hip (that is not well toned to say it as nicely as possible). But the time has come. No amount of yoga has helped. I've pretty much acheived frost bite from the amount of ice I've been using. And I think all the ibuprofen has created an ulcer in my stomach. For the next two days, I am not going to sit here and dread making this call. I think instead I'll go out in the back yard sunshine with a cup of coffee and ask Mary what she thinks I should do.

Have a great week everyone.