Yoga on the Run: Post-Run Poses

By Paige Greenfield

Kris Nardini
Age: 33
Job: 9th Grade Biology Teacher
Home: Liberty, Mo.

Get his post-run workout

Though he’d been active all his life, high jumping and playing basketball through high school and college, Nardini needed something else that would keep him fit in his post-collegiate years. At the time his wife was taking a college course that trained non-runners; their final exam was completing a marathon. He decided to train alongside his wife and went on to finish the Omaha marathon. “I finished it, but I felt horrible,” he says. “The last five miles were torture. Two weeks before the marathon my IT Band started to hurt, and it killed me those last five miles. I grinned and bared it, but I could barely walk for a week.”

That was six years ago. Soon thereafter his sister Sadie, a yoga instructor in New York City, stepped in. “Sadie showed me a few poses and said that doing them right after my runs could really improve my running and my injury.” She wasn’t making it up: When Kris ran his second marathon one year later, he finished pain free—and shaved more than 30 minutes off his time. Today, Kris is sold, and still yoga-cizes after each training session. “My IT band used to hurt within the first 5 or 6 miles, but the more I stretched, 10, 12, 14 mile runs no longer hurt.”

Sadie also taught her brother the importance of tuning into his breath. While running, Nardini reminds himself to take deep breaths and he falls into a rhythm where his breathing matches his pace. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. “It energizes me,” he says.
 “I don’t follow any rules, but I am much more aware of my breathing now. When I breathe deeper I don’t breathe as much, so I don’t get out of breath as easily.”

“I used to make fun of people who did yoga, saying it wasn’t a real workout,’’ Nardini says. “Now I look forward to doing my poses after running. It’s relaxing. Even after a game of pick-up basketball I come home and do some yoga. I don’t want to be sore!”

Get his post-run workout

More Yoga on the Run :
Monica Rempel: Poses to avoid cramps
Damian Stoy: Knee injury recovery

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