The benefits of Yoga on distance running – Rachel Walsh

After a realisation that the dreams she had chased were not feeding her soul, Rachel embarked on a journey with Yoga, teaching others through the practice that had helped her since she was nineteen years old.  Leaving her job in publishing during her mid-twenties Rachel Walsh pursued a new career in teaching yoga.

Later, partnered with the phenomenal ultra-distance runner, Ellis Bland, Rachel saw the correlation between the two sports and identified how Yoga could benefit the Ultrarunner. Rachel stopped by to share her thoughts and tips with Ultrarunner Magazine!

“Though it may not be obvious at a first glance there is a correlation between Yoga and Ultrarunning. Being in the solitude of the fells, with yourself and your breath, placing one foot in front of the other as you travel through the landscapes, it mirrors the experience on the mat. The missing component is that ultrarunner’s do not necessarily link the experience with the esoteric, while a Yoga practitioner knows that it is because that is how we understand this ancient spiritual practice”.

Yoga originates from Hindu philosophies, rather than being based on any religion, Yoga is an idea, a concept. Often, people are quite surprised to learn that Yoga is a spiritual practice as it is sometimes misunderstood as a ‘stretching exercise’, which it is not! In fact, Yoga is quite a poor form of stretching.

Yoga is about following the breath. We start by concentrating on the inhale and the exhale for a 60-minute session, and with consistent practise, we can form much more than a habit of conscious breathing, and there we drop from concentration to meditation.