Kiwi-style transport is pretty awesome don’t you think?

I sure do.

I feel that my sis and I achieved our good deed of the day, we paid special attention to feeding a seagull with only one leg and I’m sure he greatly appreciated it.

This was the picture of the seagull (I think?!) and I have no idea why it turned out like this. I am very confused.

In my excitement about feeding the seagull I unfortunately dropped my lolly cake in the sand, no worries though, I dusted that bad boy off and went to town. Has everyone heard about lolly cake before? It is awesome. Not particularly sophisticated, which at least is in alignment with most of my food choices.

My sis was teasing me about how nothing has changed with me since I was little- I would always choose lolly cake as my treat, I would be covered in sand within seconds of reaching the beach, and I would inevitably drop my treat in the sand too.

I actually went through a phase where every single time we went to the movies I would drop my popcorn, and every single time my sis would give me half of hers. Best big sister ever or what?

We spent the day swimming, lounging in our tent contraption, discussing every aspect of our lives, and eating amazing delicious beach picnic food.

At one point we were seriously traumatised by a massive wave- it rushed all the way up at us and I flung my bag up in the dunes LUCKILY saving my phone and garmin’s precious lives.

My jandals (what kiwis call flip flips) were taken out to sea but I did some hardcore interval training sprints and managed to rescue them. I was seriously shaken. One thing you should know about the sea in NZ- it is for realsies. The waves are so rough, and the undertow is so strong, you really don’t wanna mess around with it. When you come here to visit me and go running and do yoga I highly recommend you swim between the flags. Way safer. You have been warned 🙂

 (Photo from here: http://www.new-zealand-holidays.com/new-zealand-seasons.html )

After the tidal wave trauma I went for an incredible run along the beach and up the headland a little. Beyond gorgeous. Followed it up with a lovely yoga sesh on the beach- I might have mentioned this just a tiny bit ( 😉 ) but yoga on the beach is one of my fave places to do it. Especially NZ beaches, even in summer they are generally not overcrowded. Yay for a population of 4 million people.

Today I focused mainly on hip opening poses. I constantly get sore hip flexors from running and these make such a difference.

Pigeon Pose (Eka pada rajakapotasana):

Easy pose with forward fold (Adho mukha sukhasana):

And high lunge (Anjaneyasana):

Always feel incredible for me and my ol’ hip flexors.
The “easy” (not easy at all haha) pose with forward fold can be done cross legged, or with both knees on top of one another which makes it more challenging. In the picture you can see that both my knees are together, and this is amazing to me because I only started doing this pose last year and when I first did it, it was beyond uncomfortable for me and I was only just touching the ground with my fingertips. I didn’t even realize that slowly it was getting easier for me until I looked at this photo of me doing the pose today. Yoga is nifty like that- keep practicing and the changes just come without you having to really overthink it.

Who gets tight hip flexors from running? What do you do to stretch them out? 

Fave treat as a child? – I have always loved lolly cake, goody gum drops ice cream (green ice cream with lollies in it), and plain old lollies. I think I am seeing a theme here.