Exercise bike!

After 2 frustrating weeks of running, I am officially giving up on running as my main source of cardio exercise.  I can’t run more than about a mile and a half without my abs and back hurting.  I’m so used to running through healthy discomfort, but I think this is my body saying no more than that distance.  Sometimes I’ve been able to walk some and then get in another mile, but walking ruins any cardio aspect to the run.  It’s so hard not to just grit through it, and so humbling to be hurting after only a mile and a half.

This is very sad for me!  Sad because I love running and sad because I really expected my body to handle running better till the end.  It just goes to show that no matter what kind of shape you are in pre-pregnancy, the body has a mind of its own. 

So, after sulking about it and being cranky for days, I had a breakthrough.  We have a listserv of Capitol Hill families, and I decided to see if anyone in the neighborhood had an exercise bike they would be willing to loan us.  I didn’t really have high hopes, but it couldn’t hurt. Well, I am now looking at the lovely exercise bike that will be living in our house for the next two months!  And they wouldn’t even let me give them anything to “rent” it!  I’m feeling pretty good about people today and looking forward to the nice bike ride and some uninterrupted cardio that I’m about to have! 

If I can’t force my body to run, I can at least keep up some cardio endurance for the post childbirth return to real running!  Thanks to the wonderful Megan, who has agreed to run with me this fall, I can start planning for my fall marathon as a way to keep myself sane.

Feeling irritable and dejected…

It seems the last month has been a downward slide of athletic ability, and I find this very frustrating.  I scaled back to nothing longer than 6 miles in December, with the hope that that at least was something I could keep up for a while.  Now, I am not even sure about a 6 mile run being possible over the next few months and that is just depressing.   

I don’t know if it was getting to 30 weeks or a tipping point in weight gain, but I feel like this week even compared to last week was very different.  This week has been full of bad runs with none of them more than 4 miles.  Even those 4 mile runs included a stop to pee or walk because of a leg or side cramp.  It’s almost more frustrating to run, than not run because of how little I can do.  I know that’s the wrong attitude; that I should run, or run/walk, what I can and be happy I’m active…but I just can’t get my head there. 

Today brought a new source of irritation.  I had bought one of the maternity support belts earlier in the week, and it arrived today.  Several people have recommended that I get one for running and told me how helpful it was.  I checked reviews from runners, and there were a lot of positive comments.  I tried it out today, and it didn’t really help much at all.  It wasn’t comfortable, and I think actually made my back feel worse.  It might have helped my lower abs a bit, but I still felt like my lower part of my rib cage was irritating my upper abs as I moved my body.  I’ll give it a second chance on Sunday I guess…

I’m so frustrated with this lack of activity.  Sadly, I don’t have a gym membership so that is really limiting my options for other types of exercise.  We have a public indoor pool near me, but I’ve never been good at sharing swimming lanes with other people.  People keep telling me to walk, but even putting the treadmill on an incline, I can’t get much of a workout unless I walk so fast that I’m having the same type of discomfort as I have while running.  I guess this is what comes from being in too good of shape before getting pregnant, but not being one of those people whose body allows them to maintain a quality level of mileage.  It’s really irritating that my level of fitness and mental discipline can’t force my body to let me keep going at a level I want.  I really need to find a free spinning bike to use between now and March to fill in what running can’t do for me…next