Running goals

I had 4 goals to accomplish before going back to work.  Happily, I accomplished 3 of them and was very close on the 4^th.

1.       Run a 10 mile long run.  I actually got in 2

2.       Reach a weekly mileage of 30 miles.  I did this the week before going back to work

3.       Hold a plank for 90 seconds.  I also snuck this in the week before going back to work

4.       Be within 3lbs of my prepregnancy weight.  I did not manage this one, but I did get within 4lbs so not bad. 

Welcome back summer running…

Yesterday was hot and humid!  Eleisha and I planned to run 8 miles together.  Knowing that it was going to be very summer like, we thought we’d run on the early side and meet at 7:30.  Wow did we both under estimate our lack of adjustment to summer running.  It was miserable!

Both of us have been running inside a lot lately, and somehow I remembered more shade on the Mt. Vernon trail.  These facts combined to a not so fun run of just over 7 miles.  It’s amazing how the weather can make a distance that should be very manageable into miles of torture!  We were both so hot by the end we wanted to die.  Oh and there was definitely some walking thrown in to the mix…  It was definitely a day that I missed having my inhaler to take before I run, as I was definitely wheezing.  It showed me though, by how little I was wheezing, how far my fitness has come over the past few years, even in my less than ideal fit state at the moment. 

At the same time, Bennett took Ian for his first walk in the stroller.  He doesn’t have the head control yet for running, but we thought it would be nice for Bennett to get some exercise and Ian to get use to his stroller while I ran.  Apparently they had lots of fun, and Ian liked watching the cars go by on the road.  One thing we will have to figure out is how to keep the sun off his legs without overheating him because the sun shade on the stroller only blocks the sun from part of him. 

A good running week

This has been a good week for running, probably the best in a while.  I’m starting to feel like a competent runner again. 

The first highlight of the week came from breaking in two new pairs of running shoes.  New running shoes always make me happy, and since these shoes were mostly funded by a mother’s day gift from my mother-in-law, they made me extra happy! J  I got the Brooks Pure Flow 2 and the Nike Pegasus some number or another.  I’ve run in versions of both these shoes before and look forward to training in the new versions.

After weeks of all my runs being easy paced miles, trying to get my legs re-used to the impact, I felt like I could start including some quality training runs.  So one of my weekday runs was a hill repeat run.  It felt great to push that hard, but it was sad how hard the hills were. 

I also did a long run of 8 miles and ended up with 25 miles for the week!  I’m pretty sure it’s been since December for both of those mileages.

Best of all, this morning I got to run outside with Elisha.  This was my first opportunity for an outside run since late last fall when I decided that the treadmill was a better place for a pregnant me to run.  I was so tired of only running on the treadmill that even a rainy run outside felt amazing!  Plus it’s always great to catch up with a fun running buddy I haven’t seen in way too long.

Running with a baby in the house

Running these days is such an interesting challenge.  First there’s the exhaustion to overcome. I’ve never done well with less than adequate amounts of sleep, and finally the weeks of being woken up every hour or two is starting to show.  It’s a good thing I’ve trained myself to run when I’m tired from all the morning running during marathon training because I’ve definitely been relying on that mental push to get myself going.  Of course once I’m running it feels great.

Then there’s the trickiness of timing.  I have to balance when I’ve last eaten with when Ian has last eaten and is likely to sleep or play with my mom long enough for me to get in a run.  This is not an easy thing to manage because Ian isn’t on any sort of eating or sleeping schedule.  Sometimes he’ll eat, fall asleep, and it looks like a good time to run, but I’ll be really hungry or full.  Then by the time I am ready to run, Ian is ready to eat again. 

Right now I am just trying to regain fitness and build up miles so interruptions and changing my runs around are not as big of a deal.  Hopefully when I start getting more serious about training, Ian will have settled more into a schedule I can work around. 

Hello blog

Written yesterday…                                                              

 I have been debating whether or not to pick back up my blog.  It’s been so long since I had the time or energy to write.  I was too exhausted in the last 2 months of pregnancy to write and then having a new born hasn’t left me with much time or interest in blogging.  Bennett suggested that I might find it helpful to write about Ian’s birth, and I spent the morning doing that.  It reminded me that I usually enjoy my blogging so I’ve decided to see how it goes.  I’m still deciding if I want to post my write up from this morning or maybe an edited shortened version, but for now, post-partum running…

I had a checkup 2 weeks after Ian was born and of course one of the first things I asked was how soon can I run.  I had a post baby plan all thought through and honestly it didn’t involve getting a doctor’s permission to run or not run.  I know my body well enough to judge myself under normal circumstances.  But that was when the birth was going to go as planned, with little to no interventions.  Since we ended up with a C-section, I thought it would be smarter to actually check with the doctor.  I was healing well so he told me at 4 weeks to go for a power walk, and if it felt ok, I could start running.  But if I had any pain in the incision…well I shouldn’t so listen to my body and that would mean I was doing too much.  I cheated a bit and started lifting at week 3 since I felt good.  I had managed to continue lifting until the week before Ian was born.  With only a few weeks off it wasn’t too hard to ease back into it.

At exactly 4 weeks post-partum I was on the treadmill.  Not only did I not have anyone to run with outside, but running on the treadmill meant if it hurt, I could just stop.  I was afraid I wouldn’t even make it through the 5k run I had planned since I hadn’t run at all since late January.  Happily, I got through 5k without hurting or needing to stop!  It was pretty slow though and the next day I was sore…kind of humbling…

A successful first run made me immediately jump to the question of how fast I can build back up my distance and weekly mileage without hurting myself.   I’m still playing around with that question 3 weeks later.

4 weeks Post-partum running week 1: 2 5k runs and a 4 mile run

5 weeks postpartum running week 2: 2 3 mile runs and a 5 mile run

6 weeks post-partum running week 3: a 3 mile run, a 4 mile run, a 5 mile run, and a 6 mile run

I’ve been pretty happy with my progress, although all treadmill running gets a little boring.  Several of my runs had to be interrupted for emergency baby tending, definitely showing me that running seriously with a baby is going to be a whole different experience. 

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