In the run-up to this year's Cherry Blossom Festival pageant, newly crowned queen Richelle Nakata found herself struggling to keep up with her regular fitness regimen of yoga, swimming, biking and surfing.

Unlike most pageant contestants who start fierce diet and exercise programs in their bid to be queen, "for me, it was kind of the opposite," the 26-year-old pharmacist said.

"I was trying to do more Bikram yoga, like three times a week. But when I was going into Cherry Blossom, it actually decreased to once a week. Then toward the pageant, it was like once a month. It was really bad," Nakata said.

For six months, she had a hectic festival schedule of weekly taiko, ikebana and other cultural classes. Now that all her preparatory work is over, Nakata is back to her high-voltage exercise routine.

Nakata has always been physically active — her parents enrolled her in swimming lessons when she was 2 years old. Today, Nakata, who nicknamed herself "Waterbaby," is constantly in the ocean. She swims and surfs (her favorite spot is "Concessions" at Ala Moana Beach).

As a student at Punahou, she played basketball, softball and volleyball.

"Then when I went to UC-Davis, I actually played volleyball there for two years," she said.

But of all her physical activities, her favorite is Bikram yoga — a method of yoga that consists of 26 poses repeated twice in a room heated to a sweltering 105 degrees.

"You're just sweating the whole time. You're doing all these poses that pretty much work your whole body from the inside out. You're working your organs internally and everything else externally, down to your skin," Nakata said.

She finds Bikram yoga so "hot" that "I would one day like to be a Bikram yoga instructor."

Reach Loren Moreno at lmoreno@honoluluadvertiser.com.