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…