Day 60 -- Done!

I woke up feeling emotional and a bit disoriented. I'd been working on the Challenge for so long that I couldn't believe it was ending. I even got a little weepy when I thought about it, but pulled myself together and headed to the 9am class once my morning routine was complete.

It was fitting that Val was leading the class, I thought. She owns the studio and taught the very first class I attended. Class was pretty full, so I set up close to the door.

As we began, I realized it was just another class. I wasn't going to magically be able to extend my leg in Standing Head to Knee or touch my forehead to my knee in Standing Separate Leg Stretch. I was maybe a micrometer more advanced than I'd been the day before, that's all.

And that was fine. I was just happy to be there.

Lying in savasana after the Standing Series, I felt my emotions well up a bit--and then the dam threatened to break when Val started talking about me to the class. How impressed and inspired she was that I'd completed the challenge despite all the kids and my schedule and just having started, etc. People started whooping and clapping spontaneously, and I will confess that a few tears mingled with the sweat running down my face.

And then, 35 minutes later, it was over. I hung around a little longer than usual to congratulate other Challenge finishers, and I wanted it just to sink in that I was done. And then I went home, like always.

A little later, the doorbell rang. I answered the door to find a delivery man from my favorite florist standing there with a lavish floral arrangement.

The card read, "Congrats on 60! You are Hot Yoga. Love, Patrick."

Best. Husband. In the world. Again with the weepiness.

I wonder if this is how people feel after their first marathons: the disbelief, the gradual realization that it's OVER. But then again, as my yoga Yoda Bruce wrote in his congratulatory text, "This is just the beginning."

He's absolutely right.