Scaling back

I have come to a few realizations this week about running during this pregnancy… 

The first being that it is officially time to stop running in my lighter weight shoes.  Every time I do, my feet, ankles, and calves/shins really are uncomfortable.  It’s like the whole lower half of my leg is rebelling against the extra weight.  Even on a 3 mile run it doesn’t feel good.  I’m still surprised though that it’s not my knees causing me problems…

So, it’s time to only run in my pair of more supportive cushioned shoes.  When I wear my Nike Pegasus, only my lower abdomen and lower back are uncomfortable.  This is considerably better. 

The second is it might be time to scale back on the distance of my long run.  I had in my head that I wanted to keep up a 10 mile long run as long as possible.  Why you might ask?  Well I have no idea.  It’s just what I got in my head.  However, the last 2 miles of my 8 mile run this week felt considerably worse than the first 6 miles.  Perhaps it is time to give up on that 10 mile goal.  I might try another 8 mile run next week to see how it feels, but it might be time to not run more than 6 miles.  It’s so hard to tell because any given run can feel very different than the next run.  With my body constantly changing, my comfort levels are definitely not stagnant. 

I’ve settled on a more realistic goal.  For as long as possible, I’d like to run at least 20 miles a week. I can get to 20 miles a week with so many combinations of run distances with nothing needing to be over 6 miles.  If 6 miles starts to feel bad, as long as I can run 4 miles I can still easily get to 20.  I don’t realistically see myself running more than 5 days a week so if I can’t run 4 miles then it’s time to give up on mileage goals and just try and run walk.  I’ll just hope I don’t get to that point though…

Pregnancy goods and bads...

First, I will confess to not getting my run in today.  It’s sad to finish a really good active week by skipping my run, but this was more a necessity than laziness as yesterday’s painting prep errands took longer than expected making there be more cleaning/painting prep for this morning.  The main goal of the weekend was getting the baby room painted, which we did thanks to help from Erinn and Mike!  But now, for a less running oriented post…

Each week in prenatal yoga we go around the room and do introductions: our name; how far along in pregnancy we are; and where we are giving birth.  There’s also some sort of question we all answer to share with each other.  Yesterday’s question was what is the best and worst thing about this pregnancy so far?  The whole way around the room, I was pondering different options.  I could think of lots of good things and lots of bad things, but deciding on the best and worst was really hard for me. 

Some of the thoughts I had for the worst things were…

I am already ready to have my body back to myself.  I know my intention to breastfeed means that pregnancy won’t be the end of sharing my body with this baby, and the thought of that extra chest encumbrance during marathon training worries me (currently struggling to find new sports bras).  Even so, I’m still ready to have my body move like it is supposed to.  I’m ready to have a glass of wine, and at least less of a concern about caffeine intake.  I’m ready to go for a good long run without extra weight.  I’m ready to sleep on my stomach and my back if I want to. 

Another bad/annoying thing is people’s reactions to comments about changes in my body shape.  Lately, every time I say anything about feeling big or some pregnancy change getting in the way of normal movement, I hear something along the lines of “you aren’t big yet” and “if you think you feel big now” and just “your’s still small.”  All of which are annoying because  what  I am referring to has more to do with body awareness and the spatial orientation of my body to the things around me.  Since I can’t see everything around me, my own sense of body and spatial orientation is much more important to me than to the average person.  Years of running have focused that body awareness in additional ways.  My coworkers, especially, like to react as though I’m complaining about aesthetics. 

Some of the good things I thought about…

Well I’m now 6 months along which means about 2/3 of the way through!!!  I enjoy (most of the time) feeling little squiggle baby move around in there, although its level of energy concerns me somewhat for when it’s in the real world.  I think the most fun thing is actually Bennett’s reactions to everything…from feeling squiggle baby move to things we learn in our childbirth class to hearing the heart beat at each midwife appointment.  All those things are great to experience myself, but somehow it’s more fun to see Bennett react to them. J