pregnancy & running update from the 3rd trimester

pregnancy & running update from the 3rd trimester

Pregnancy and parenthood can both be so very baffling. I distinctly remember being pregnant the first time around and hearing from already-parents little nuggets of warning joy like “enjoy the time you’re pregnant because once the kid comes, life will never be the same” or “the days are long, but the years are short. Before you know it, your newborn will be walking, running, in school, and then leaving for college, getting married, and having kids of their own.”

Obviously, the connecting theme here is that during both these hugely, exponentially, profoundly life-altering changes in our lives — both being pregnant and subsequently having a child — time often can and does become something that seems to defy all logic and expectation. We know that, barring catastrophe, we’ll (probably) be pregnant for 40 weeks, give or take, and at the end of those +/- 40 weeks, we’ll have a baby in our arms, and life will forever be different as we know it. What exactly will happen in those 40 weeks, as well as all those other little moments in time thereafter, we can never predict.

In a way that’s perhaps a bit tenuous  of a connection — but hey, this is a running blog, after all — it’s all kinda like marathon training; you have a plan, you more or less follow the plan, you envision what the big day will be like, but everything that happens between point A (starting) and point Z (the race) kinda remains to be seen. You can envision and daydream how you want things to go, but only so much of it is actually in your control. All you know, all you hope for, is that you get to the starting line healthy and finish the thing with a smile on your face, anticipating that your life will be changed in some way (though I can assure you that having a kid is just a tad more life-altering than running 26.2) 😛

Maybe the funny thing, however, is that we know life goes on and that changes will soon be a-coming, with marathons or with kids … yet somehow, when they do, as they do, we’re (I’m) suddenly taken aback and wondering: gee– how’d we get here already?! Where has the time gone?!

My rambling ruminations above are a bit unnecessarily and unduly histrionic, yet as I write this, I can’t help but chuckle to myself as I think about how surprised? entertained? baffled? I am that we are now in the third trimester — 28 weeks and change, baby! I guess in my head, despite all evidence and logic to the contrary, I thought I’d forever be stuck in the first trimester, feeling like ass, or the second trimester, feeling pretty much like myself but not really feeling I looked anything more than very bloated or very full. Nope, nope, and nope — this is the real deal. We are homestretchin’ our way to a life-altering finish line, kids.

As we’ve entered the third trimester and have since begun the final countdown (cue the air guitars), and as I’ve written before, I have been seriously blown away and enormously grateful by how well I’ve been feeling as I’ve been posting these “for the hell of it” miles. Of course, some days feel better than others — much as days do for non-pregnant runners — but by and large, my runs recently haven’t been reminding me that I’m pregnant and 20+? 30+? pounds heavier than normal. My pace often isn’t that far off from my usual training runs (something in the low 8s), my cadence has been fairly high (180+), and holy crap, I just feel wonderful. It fucking RULES, and man, am I grateful.

Here’s how everything has shaken out:

Gestational Week Mileage Notes
0-1 75.35 peak of 50k training
1-2 53.1
2-3 36.5
3-4 44.87 50k race unknowingly pregnant, though I had a hunch…
4-5 27.51
5-6 0 feeling like ass – hi, first trimester!
6-7 0 feeling like ass/family in town
7-8 0 feeling like ass/in the Caribbean with my family
8-9 16.8
9-10 0 feeling like ass
10-11 5.1
11-12 11.32
12-13 20.61
13-14 19.8
14-15 20.8
15-16 13.58 408k race
16-17 0 feeling like ass
17-18 25.41
18-19 21.27 5k s.i.b. race win pushing A!
19-20 28.36 5k wildflower race running/pushing A
20-21 9.1
21-22 31.51
22-23 12.3 in Disneyland most of the week with family
23-24 33.15 San Luis Obispo half marathon with a bunch of super awesome people!
 24-25 22.91
25-26 40.53 13+ mi Long Run with RA in Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Sunnyvale — first time running with the gang since the autumn!
26-27 11.1  forced down week for some recovery
27-28 25.86 in Disneyland for Memorial Day
28-29* 32.16
total: 639 (ish) miles!

From the first time I made this table (at the 20 week mark) to now, I learned that I had been wrong about my due date, so things are off just a little here on the weeks — just by a few days — but I’m lazy and don’t want to adjust everything. All this stuff is more for my own historical recordkeeping than anything else.

What really blows me away is how much better I have been feeling as time has gone on (and the bigger that I’ve gotten). During the second part of my first trimester, even the mere thought of running a mile or two was nauseating and tiring. I would have never guessed that I’d be able to comfortably throw down a dozen or go “fun” a half marathon late in my second tri or even in my third. It goes to show that pregnancy can be — and is — often pretty unpredictable. As much as I can remember from my first pregnancy, I topped out at about 12 very slow miles at about the 6 month mark; I wouldn’t have guessed that I’d be able to go longer, and faster, later my second time around. Again: pregnancy is unpredictable.

My strategy has been to just take each day in stride and run (or not run) accordingly. So far, it has worked out swimmingly, and I’ve closed out the month of May (and the beginning of the third tri) with my highest monthly mileage yet in pregnancy. I’ll take it.

good times at SLO with this gang
good times at SLO with this gang at about 24 weeks preg

 

reppin' ZOOMA at A Runner's Mind in Burlingame a few weeks ago with Tricia (in the gray zip-up)
reppin’ ZOOMA Napa Valley at A Runner’s Mind in Burlingame the week after SLO with Tricia, in the gray zip-up [PC: Tricia]

 

a 6am 13+ run over Mother's Day weekend with my RA buddies along the Bayshore Trail, through Mountain View, Palo Alto, and Sunnyvale -- I hadn't run with them since my 50k training! (PC: RA)
a 6am 13+ run over Mother’s Day weekend with my RA buddies along the Bayshore Trail; I hadn’t run with them since my 50k training last autumn. I think this was about 6 1/2 months preg (PC: RA)

 

always a rad time going in circles
always a rad time going in circles with this one 🙂

 

my map from my dozen run on Saturday -- I was always within about 2.5 miles of home!
my map from my dozen run on Saturday; I was always within about 2.5 miles of home. This run felt incredible, like I wasn’t even trying — an 8:22 average, 180+ cadence, for 12.11 miles, ascending and descending a bunch of little hills. no idea… but man! that was awesome!!

 

sat stats

from Sunday's 7.5 mi recovery run -- this time, always within about 1.5 miles of home. My new challenge: make elaborate run maps
from Sunday’s 7.5 mi recovery run — this time, always within about 1.5 miles of home. My new challenge for the third trimester: make elaborate run maps.

 

Here we go, final 12 (ish) weeks! (and next stop, ZOOMA!)

‘for the hell of it’ miles

‘for the hell of it’ miles

There are many things I like about running, and probably one of its biggest attributes — one of the things that has kept me coming back for more, day after day, month after month, year after year — is its versatility. You don’t necessarily have to have a race on the calendar to run, nor do you necessarily have to be “training” for some sort of timed event, like a time trial, to commit to the sport. Sure, sometimes having these obligations commitments opportunities on our calendars can nudge us out the door when it’s inconvenient to go for a run — when we’d rather be sleeping or being lazy or staying away from shitty weather, for example — but at the end of the day, I think one of the best things about running is that if you run, if you put one foot in front of the other and, generally speaking, propel yourself in a forward motion, you’re a runner. You don’t need to run a timed race (or hell, a watch or running clothes, or running shoes, or running *anything*) to make it as part of your identity. You can run for the hell of it, and that’s a-okay.

Of course, if you like to write about your running, as I do, and you’re *not* actively in training mode, it can make for some pretty long absences in your blog … or some dull reading of the stuff that you do write (and publish).   o_0

The pregnancy is moving right along, and as of now, I’ve got just two races left on my calendar before my August due date — ZOOMA’s Napa Valley half marathon in late June, when I’ll be about 31+ weeks, and the 5k during The San Francisco Marathon’s weekend in late July, when I’ll be 36+ weeks (!), though obviously both will be races in name only and not in, uh, reality, I guess. At this stage in my life, I can say that I’ve run two marathons, a 50k, and 2 5ks pregnant, but never that late in the game, so we’ll see how it all shakes out over the final trimester. It should be fun … “should” being the operative word here. 🙂 Time will tell.

I’ve written it before, earlier in this pregnancy, but I cannot thank my lucky stars enough that I have been feeling sufficiently healthy and strong and well enough, more often than not, to be able to continue to run through my pregnancy. I’m not breaking any records, my volume is maaaaaybe a third of what it usually is, I haven’t done a legit speed workout in forever, but despite all of this, I seriously cannot express how stupid happy-excited-elated I am at the end of nearly every.single.run I can post while pregnant. Seriously. I’m usually pretty happy after a run, but these days, it doesn’t matter if I go run 3, 5, 12 miles, whatever, because by the time I finish, I am so stupid-giddy about it that I feel like I’m doing all of this stuff for the first time again.

It’s endlessly amusing.

always with the cheesy smile during these 'running for the hell of it' miles. admittedly, I haven't been to my home hills of AR since mid-March and really need to get back before the pregnancy makes me waaaaaay too imbalanced for some good climbing action, even if only for a few miles.
always with the cheesy smile during these ‘running for the hell of it’ miles, even during a solo Sierra 11-mile summit. admittedly, I haven’t been to my home hills of AR since mid-March and really need to get back before the pregnancy makes me waaaaaay too imbalanced for some good climbing action  … even if I only go and post a few very, very slow trail miles.

 

Most of the time, pregnant or not, I don’t look at my watch while I run and instead go exclusively on feel (and by terrain — I’m a fan of working with gravity and can’t recommend it enough), and even on the days where the run is initially uncomfortable because Kiddo Dos is seemingly straight chillin’ entirely on my right side (ahem, today, hi in there! I feel you!), I’m still so happy to be out there, doing what I love, that I’m sure that the shiteating-grin on my face only distracts passersby momentarily from my ever-growing midsection that, uh, attractively, more often than not, is hanging out between the tops of my shorts and the bottom of my top because I refuse to buy running clothes that I’ll only wear when I’m pregnant.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel like I already look like a tank (ah, the joys of subsequent pregnancies and getting huger earlier), and I’m to the point in my pregnancy where my belly actually gets in the way when I try to bend over to pick things up off the floor … as well as the point when random strangers on the street either look at me like I’m crazy when they see me running [PSA: don’t be that person] or, conversely, offer me some solid fistbumps and congratulatory shouts [PSA: be that person] …  but dammit if you don’t see me running without a smile on my face because I *get* to do this stuff, still.

All these pregnant miles, these “running just for the hell of it” miles have been so good to me and for me and so mentally refreshing that I would falter more than I would be able to adequately convey my appreciation of them. I’m fortunate to not have much of an injury history, but I imagine that pregnancy miles are kinda like the coming-back-from-injury miles, when you’re just so happy to be out there that you really don’t give a damn about your pace or distance or any other metric that you’d usually obsess over. If you want to run .5 mile, 1 mile, 5 miles, 10 miles, whatever, and you feel well, you do; so it is with pregnancy running.

Each day is a new adventure, each mile some potential new opportunity, and being able to partake in new adventures and opportunities each week — regardless if it’s twice a week, seven times in a week, significantly slower or just about the same pace as my non-pregnant running — it all just effing rules. Scratch that; it’s fucking fantastic, my friends.

running on Mother's Day with my girl -- pretty awesome stuff. the best type of "running for the hell of it" miles.
running on Mother’s Day with my girl — pretty awesome stuff. the best type of “running for the hell of it” miles.

 

I don’t coach, and I try not to be too didactic with the stuff that I write on here, but I will say this — I cannot recommend having some periods of “for the hell of it” miles in your running career. I won’t prescribe if it should be every year, so many times in a given month, between seasons — all that stuff you can decide for yourself — but I will say that having this period in my running career at least twice now, during both of my pregnancies, has been deeply gratifying, refreshing and just plain fun.

It’s easy to get into nothing but grind mode and hammer-hammer-hammer every single run, every single week, and usually, that’s how I roll, too, but sometimes, slowing down, running less frequently, maybe running fewer miles, can be good for the soul. This is a concept that might sound sacrilege, and I get it — I have thought this way before, too — but truly. Consider it.

If nothing else, I imagine that it’ll give you a good reminder of why and how you became enamored with this sport in the first place and why you keep returning, running back, for more.