It was a hot evening in Siem Reap, Cambodia when I first went to a yoga class that I enjoyed. I’d met a girl from Liverpool the day before in the middle of Ankor Wat. That evening we made a pilgrimage to ‘Pub Street’ where we drank cocktails imaginatively called Toomrader into the next morning. Sightseeing was off the agenda the next day, and being in such a spiritual setting, it felt like we needed to do something to redress the previous night’s activities. I pulled together a ‘yoga outfit’ made up of a pair of leggings, my newly-purchased Ankor Wat t-shirt and a scarf to cover up my arse for the walk through the town (I may have been drunk and shaking it in a bar hours earlier – but now I was sober and this was South East Asia). And so we went to yoga.

I’d never been a fan of yoga. To me there needs to be a separation of church and gym. Exercise and spirituality don’t go together and for some reason the yoga classes I’d been to seemed to be pushing some quasi spiritual mumbo jumbo that the teacher made up as they went along when all I wanted was to do a bit of stretching.

The Australian teacher of this class, thankfully, didn’t try to sign me up to a cult – I was too hungover and it was too hot for me to have been able to put up much of a fight. She did, however, advise that anyone who was menstruating shouldn’t attempt the headstand. I decided to lie – it seemed less embarrassing to shout out loudly “I’ve got the painters in innit!” and point towards my crotch than to attempt a headstand in polite company.

I went to yoga again a few weeks later in Thailand. I even knew the names of some of the moves now. I was all kinds of down with the downward dog. But the class was the exact opposite of the one I’d enjoyed in Cambodia. Our teacher was an American bloke who was impressively bendy but insistent on telling us a story he’d made up.

The low point for me was the Om-ing. He asked for 13 oms. “A see of Oms washing over us”. It’s difficult enough trying to hold in your yoga farts without some over enthusiastic Om-ing making you laugh. So that was it for me and yoga for about 18 months.

But now I’ve found a yoga class I like. It’s two minutes from my office and at a bargain basement no-frills gym. But importantly there’s no mumbo-jumbo and no Om-ing. Perhaps it costs extra for this sort of stuff?

Now, once a week I spend my lunchtime rolling around on my yoga mat making shapes. The first couple of times I went I threw on whatever running kit was hanging round my desk – kit is kit right? What’s good for yoga is good for running? Apparently not.

My famous orange shorts gave the guy behind me an eyeful of my lotus on more than one occasion. For that I’m truly sorry. Some running kit, however, does come in handy for yoga. I like to wear a marathon finishers t-shirt when I go to yoga by way of an excuse for why I’m not very bendy. These are best when teamed it with a nonplussed expression and a shrug.

If you like to run and do yoga minus the mumbo jumbo, I’ve got a place to give away at the Gloanna yoga run a 5k run followed by yoga and brunch. I’ll be there and if you’d like to join me Gloanna are giving one reader a free place. Just pop a comment in the box below or tweet me @lazygirlrunning telling me you want to win it. Enter by Wednesday 17 July.