Once again, our lovely little Olive has proven her stardom by gracing the front page of the Daily Camera in a pretty black and white polka dot dress, doing her infamous down dog. If she was a human (which she thinks she is…shhh…don’t say anything), she’d be be walking the red carpet with stars like Scarlett Johansson, Kristin Stewart, Angelina Jolie, and Sandra Bullock. 

While Olive knows how cute she is (we’re not kidding…she really does), she also is well aware that true beauty is found on the inside. That’s why she not only does yoga with her mom Oakley on a weekly basis, but she also makes sure to eat a healthy diet, consisting of free-range chicken and organic, pesticide-free carrots, apples, tomatoes and potatoes for dinner almost every day.

Read more: Boulder-area pet bowls filling up with natural food – Boulder Daily Camera http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_15469469#ixzz0tV9LxqpF

THE BEST PART OF IT ALL? Both settings are intimate and offer the opportunity for more personalized, focused attention to help you reach ALL OF your health and fitness goals.

New address:
2747 Iris Avenue
Boulder, CO 80301
(NW corner of 28th & Iris)
Map it!

P: 303.588.4257
E: oakley@oakada.com

Short Skirt in Reef

As its website indicates, Skqurt the business is centered around an ideal: to engage in and encourage practices that nurture positive life experience.  Why not look fabulous and feel confident doing the things we love, like yoga, running, cycling, skiing, drinking margaritas by the pool, or just strolling around town with friends and family? We think it is the perfect blend of function and fashion and are thrilled to be carrying it in our retail shop.

Stop by the studio and check them out. We guarantee you’ll leave with at least one Skqurt, if not one of each color! We are located at 1750 30th Street #37, Boulder, CO.

This invitation to mindfulness a prominent force behind Oakley’s success at the Nueces race several weeks ago. Before she raced, she made the decision to dedicate the race to her cousin Steven, who is battling cancer. As she told me after returning home, the course was technical enough that she could barely afford a second or two of distraction between navigating Texas rocks. Yet in those free seconds, she found her mind invariably turned to Steven—as well as the other teachers in her life that that inspire her. Each step was doubly significant—possible because of her devotion to excellence through training but in intention, a dedication to those she loves. In this way, although she placed a fabulous second among the women and ninth overall, she found that the honor she gave each moment made the experience even more significant than just the placing on the results sheet.

My day job is as a different sort of endurance athlete. I am a professional cyclist- www.marakatherine.com.  With the example of people like Shannon and Oakley, I have begun to find myself thinking, “The significance is not THAT you win a bike race, but HOW…” As a professional racer, my paid purpose IS to cross the line first whenever possible. But as Oakley found on in Nueces, not all victories are equal—and the technically less prestigious ones are even sometimes those that come to mean the most.

I currently have the women’s record up Sunshine Canyon—a fabulous climb in the town where I grew up. The hill climb is a small, local race and is by no means my most important victory for a resume, but it is a result that I care about deeply because of the pride that I have in my roots. I won a stage up a famous climb in Italy, the Monteserra, but the best part of the experience was not simply standing on the podium, but rather when I could throw my arms in gratitude around my teammate Linda’s legs. I was in awe of everything she had done during the stage, so proud to be her teammate, and too exhausted to stand up. I have noticed that I can win the same race on the same course in successive years and yet have entirely different emotional reactions. Ultimately, the value of a race lies not just in the result achieved but in the attention and importance given to the moments of the experience.

The concept of mindfulness is not only applicable to ultramarathon or elite level stage racing. The high of intimate awareness and precision in physical movement exists in any athletic pursuit. Remember: it is not THAT you move that is significant, but HOW. Are you moving for joy? Or are you quantifying heartbeats and calories the entire time? Are you sprinting with gratitude for movement and freedom, or are you dissatisfied with the performance of your legs on that particular day? Do you adventure outdoors and then return invigorated to hug your family…. Or do you return with anger because no one made you dinner while you were gone? Do you move because you WANT to, or because you HAVE to? And to what degree do you believe the answers to these questions are under your control?

Some days will by nature be better than others—some days we will be stronger, other days our minds will be full of distractions. Upon returning from her race, Oakley was forced to admit that she would actually have to rest in order to return to full strength. It might seem obvious, but knowing that her body was capable of lifting great weights and deftly running for eleven hours straight, it was hard to admit that she could not compare as she normally did on her Tele ski’s the following weekend. For someone who practices yoga and goes to the gym, in addition to running 5 days a week—not out of obligation but because she is truly intrinsically driven to become her most efficient and capable self—this is one of the hardest lessons to learn. For a true endurance athlete to rest requires great patience, great maturity, and above all… great self-awareness. It is astonishingly difficult to realize and to admit that you are tired.

Her mind always focused on excellence, Oakley is already training for her next race, the Squaw Peak 50 on June 5th in Utah. There she will not only have the opportunity to put the lessons of her first race to the test, she will do so with the backing of her new sponsor, Skqurt (www.skqurt.com)! Her performance at Nueces demonstrated that she was actually able to hold her form through hour after hour of racing. She attributed this to her yoga practice and the well-rounded approach she takes to training, but the experience also made her realize that the 50-mile distance is actually a discipline in which she has the power to create great beauty and perfection—in which she can truly excel. Oakley will never be satisfied with anything less than perfection, and I can hardly wait for June 5th to see what unfolds as she takes to the trails of Utah.

(Once Oakley sleeps for a few days and can walk again, she’ll fill us in on all the details of the race. So stay posted!!)

SO, WHAT’S NEW?

Well, Oakley is headed to Rocksprings, Texas this weekend to do the Neuces 50 mile Endurance Trail Race.

Neuces Trail Race, Texas

Why? Because she’s a stud muffin (author’s biased opinion) and always up for a challenge, but she’s also dedicating the race to her cousin Steven, who has cancer and is her inspiration for TRUE endurance.

And one of the only reasons she can maintain the grueling training day in and day out, all determination aside, is largely due to her daily yoga practice. Seriously. In fact, I’ve had several of my students openly admit that without a weekly yoga practice, they’d never be able to ride, run, ski, or climb as long or hard as they do. It’s becoming a common theme for even the most elite athletes. Take Olympic Freestyle Skier Emily Cook, for example. Yoga is a key component of her training regimen, and while the frequency of her practice varies with her training schedule, she always incorporates some element of yoga into her 30 minute warmup sessions. Research shows that a dynamic warmup is more effective than simple static stretching for athletes, and I would go further to say anyone for that matter.

SO WHY DOES IT WORK SO WELL?

On a purely physical level, our body is constantly subjected by gravity and movement, bringing our skeletal and muscular systems out of alignment and making us more susceptible to injury. Yoga teaches you to lengthen your spine, stack your joints, and hug your muscles to your bones, which encourages our bodies to return to a neutral setting and creates space for our nervous system to flow freely. And why is that important? Because if your brain has unobstructed communication with the rest of your body, it can provide your body with everything it needs to heal and nourish itself.

On a mental note, yoga connects our breath to our movements, thus drawing our focus inward and raising awareness of what is happening in our bodies as we put them through various postures. This heightened awareness, in my opinion, awakens our minds and brings more clarity around our emotions and life’s challenges. It teaches us that sometimes you can go to your edge and surpass it while other days you must surrender to where you are in the present moment and try again another day.

And even more importantly, yoga gives us the opportunity to laugh at ourselves and take life a little less seriously. Every day is different. Some days we feel great, perfectly balanced and aligned, and other days we can’t stand on two feet without falling over. The takeaway: Practice. Practice. Practice. That’s all it is. And the more you can pick yourself up, smile, and do it again, the more you will grow and succeed.

So….GOOD LUCK, OAKLEY!!! We’ll all be rooting for you back home and can’t wait to hear all about it when you return.

Oakley.

Thanks to yet another fabulous online resource BNET, I was inspired this morning by the concept that raising the bar just one more notch or putting in just a little more effort can mean the difference between being good enough and being on fire! Here’s the deal, according to GiveMore.com: 15 extra minutes each day creates over 90 hours each year for what most important to you. 15 minutes! That’s nothing, right? So, although these sites are mainly focused on being more productive and happy in the workplace, we can translate it to our health.

If you’re struggling to get going on your goal of getting back in shape in the new year, just think…15 minutes. Start there. Go for a walk. Push away from your desk and do some stretches. Jump in the pool and do a few laps. Meditate in the morning before you start your day. 15 minutes. That’s all it takes to create a habit of being good to yourself and ultimately being more satisfied with your life.

HOT AGAIN IN 2010!

Let this be your mantra.

Of course, as the article points out, be careful about being too forgiving and going to the opposite extreme of laziness and ignorance. It’s good to worry about your health a little bit…at least enough to make a habit out of eating well and exercising on a daily basis. Dr. Susan M. Love, the author of the book Live a Little! Breaking the Rules Won’t Break Your Health, puts it perfectly when she says, “The point of this is to use your common sense, and if you feel good, then you’re fine. The goal is not to get to heaven and say, ‘I’m perfect.’ It’s to use your body, have some fun and to live a little.”