Very Minimalist Running

This weekend, the Tampa Lululemon showroom turned 3 years old and the “Bare it All Birthday Bash” was held in celebration.  The event included a 5K run with bootcamp stations followed by yoga in the park across the street.  The whole event was billed as clothing optional.  Although nobody came totally naked, there was certainly a lot of skin there to be seen and a few other creative takes on the idea of “nude”.  Raffi wore a nude cami with Lululemon logo “nipples”.  I was boring and just wore my normal racing clothes, but I was ready to take it all off if everyone else did (yeah, nothing like a little peer pressure).

We set off at a slow jog and headed to scenic Bayshore Drive.  As we ran along, many people were wearing party hats and blowing on party favors.  We got some fun looks from other joggers along Bayshore, especially since we were being led by Patrick of Very Little Clothing (pictured above), who took to playfully grabbing light posts and dancing around them like Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain.  Unfortunately, Bridget’s birthday bow wasn’t behaving and she was getting over bronchitis so she turned around and went back to the store.   At the one mile mark, we stopped, waited for the entire group to arrive, then proceeded to do 33 push ups and 33 second planks.  The strange number of reps signifies the 3rd birthday of the store.  Doing 3 reps just seemed like too few.  After another quarter mile of running, we ran right into the Tampa Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.  Thankfully, we weren’t all naked because there were more than enough police officers to arrest us all.  When we hit the turnaround, we all stopped again and did 33 burpees before heading back to the one mile mark.

Once we arrived back at the one mile mark, we waited again for everyone to arrive and then the race was on.  The first male and female participants to arrive back at the store were promised a free technical top or a 1 hour massage.  Two ladies jumped out into the lead and I pulled right behind the first place man.  After about 10 seconds, I realized he was running at around 8 minute mile pace, so I passed him and pulled even with the lead lady (Laura).  We easily pulled away from everyone else at a 7:30 pace and chatted most of the way back to the store.  She had already run 10 miles that morning and I had a lot of Irish Whiskey the night before, so neither of us were really in the mood to race it out for bragging rights.  I’m pretty sure she would have beaten me if we did.

None of that mattered, though because we both got the prize!  After we got back to the store, we waited for everyone to arrive, had some water, and then participated in about 30 minutes of Yoga in the park across the street.  After playing the part of Studly Studmuffin in the run portion of the event, I was quickly humbled in the yoga segment.  Fortunately, I now know that my shoulders are quite weak and my core could use more work than I like to think as well.  I was definitely dropping to my knees in some of the plank and push-up positions.

After yoga, I got to pick out my new shirt.  I scored a nice long sleeve (with thumb-holes) shirt that contains silver for its anti smell properties.  It’s also super soft.  In fact, when I tried it on, several ladies came over and felt me up.  Just another added bonus of winning the race!  The icing on the cake was that they gave me the massage certificate in addition to the shirt.

Thanks to Nathan Bangs of Yoga Tampa Bay for shooting the photos (except the one of the shirt…that’s my own crumby photography)!