Neglected

Wednesday’s Pilates (9/08/10)

It’s starting to feel like a requirement that I show up with a picture or two to share here, but I have nothing that goes along with a post about Pilates.  Nothing!  I have no desire to show you pictures of my belly.  It’s not bad, but I’d feel like an overexposed navel-gazer—literally!—if I went down that path.  So my apologies, but no picture.  You can, however, visit my Flickr page if you’d rather look at pretty things than listen to me talk about doing abdominal twists.

With all the biking and yoga I’ve been doing, other body parts are being neglected.  One could argue that those activities require total body strength, and there might be some truth to that claim, but I used to be very devoted to Pilates, but lately, not so much.  It just doesn’t inspire me much any more.  But I’ll tell you what does inspire me: a 14-minute Pilates routine that uses lots of my favorite moves and, because it is so short, can be squeezed into the few minutes at night between watching a show, prepping for the next day, and bedtime.  One of the fabulous things about Pilates is that it is very effective—maybe too effective for its own good!  That might explain my long-lasting ambivalence toward an exercise routine that I used to love.  Whereas before I was shaping and toning my middle with Pilates, now I’m just maintaining what I have.  It’s not exciting any more.

At any rate, I’m making a half-hearted effort to spend a little more time doing Pilates so that I can have a strong core (and, to be vainly honest, a good-looking belly).  A strong core is essential for running faster, and the only way for me to run a sub-two-hour half-marathon is to run faster.