Comparables

Since my reference levels of "normal" and "fit" have been somewhat distorted lately, I have made up my own definitions. And by my standards, I've been feeling pretty good fitness-wise. I do realize I'm only three quarters of the way into this pregnancy.

Side note: It occurred to me that I only started getting a real belly at 20ish weeks, which was 10 weeks ago, and have expanded rapidly since then. With 10 more weeks to go, I'm expecting at least that much more expansion. I'm religiously applying the Burt's Bees honey flavored scented belly balm, even if there is no evidence for it. It makes me crave baklava.

So back to feeling good about myself. I was chatting with a guy who told me about his friend's wife who got third in a major metropolis's marathon 3 DAYS after giving birth. Yeah yeah, so you say she is an elite runner and was running 10 miles a day through pregnancy, but THREE DAYS? Did you get "days" confused with "weeks" or even "months"? Still impressive, but really, does she not have a sane and caring husband that prohibited her from this? No doubt she went against any reasonable medical advice. I guess that pregnancy brain + postpartum hormonal thing really did her in.

Then of course there was the woman who ran/walked a marathon then gave birth that night, at 38 weeks. she says she ran about half, walked the other half, and finished in around 6:30. I obviously have no issues about running while pregnant. I just can't imagine doing something that boring. I've spent over 6 hours on a marathon course (at least Coeur d'Alene is beautiful), and I wonder why you'd want to do it on purpose? I don't need to prove that I can do 26 miles during these 9 months; I'm pretty sure I could if I wanted to. But why?

I read of women back in the '70s from the Eastern Bloc countries who competed in the Olympics in their first trimesters. I couldn't find any good proof of this. All I can think is, that combined with the drugs they were supposedly forcing on these athletes makes me scared for those poor babies. Recently, though, there was another better documented pregnant Olympian. A Canadian curler was 5 1/2 months pregnant when she was to be an alternate on the team. I don't claim to know much about curling, but it doesn't appear to be affected by extra weight, a larger waistband, or fatigue that could alter the speed, endurance, or balance of other types of athletes. The article says she is the third known competitor at the Games, preceded by a figure skater 90 years ago, and a skeleton rider(?) sledder(?) a few years ago. The latter must've been early in pregnancy, lying on her stomach on a hard surface while speeding headfirst through icy chutes.

Despite stories like these, I'm still feeling fit with my 25 miles a week of running with some spinning a swimming and maybe a little weight lifting thrown in. While my abdominals are getting nice and loose and stretchy, my leg muscles may even be seeing some strength gains from just running under these extra pounds. I'm using my weight and the extra drag all to my benefit. I'll be lighter, stronger, and faster by summer. It's almost guaranteed.

My pool buoy. The lifeguard told me that I don't need the one between my knees anymore. My rear end floats just fine.

One more hobby to occupy my time

I keep starting to write blogs, then think of other things I need to be doing, like cooking something edible for Jeremy, or finally doing my 3 weeks worth of laundry (it's amazing how infrequently I can get away with it when I'm not outside sweating all the time), or maybe vacuuming the pounds of cat hair out of the carpet, curtains, rugs, etc. There's a lot of stuff on my pre-baby to do list as well, but I keep putting it off since I have 10 more weeks. At least I hope I do.

The cat hair has become more prominent in my mind due to all the lying on the floor. This is caused in part by my discomfort in sitting too long in any position. The baby keeps curling up under my ribs on the right, and I get stitches while doing nothing at all. But I am also lying on the floor taking pictures. I got a new camera for Christmas (my first DSLR!, a Canon Rebel T2i), and while I still stink at photography, it's been a lot of fun. My roommate hairballs (the cats, not Jeremy) have suffered through hundreds of pictures this month, but they should know that when this baby is born, I may forget they exist and wonder who keeps leaving little mounds of partially digested cat food on the floor every so often. So enjoy it while it lasts, kitties. Instead of actually writing any more about this, I'm going to share some pictures of the last 11 days of my life.

My favorite new ornament. It's for the baby, made by his cousins!

Hairy Roommate #1, Sammy. She's always dirty due to a daily rolling on the porch floor.

 

I interrupt Sally's nap once again.

The Lady of the Mountain. With 2 week old snow in her hair.

I made Jeremy ride around the neighborhood with me at sunset

I'm trying to take a picture a day, as long as I can keep it up. They may start to get a little redundant.

Base Training

It's really 2012 already? My pregnant brain is slipping away and I had to ask Jeremy yesterday if it was New Year's Eve. I didn't mean to wait until a whole new year to blog again. The past few weeks just got so darn busy with Christmas shopping, Christmas present-making, and traveling back to the southeast. It was a great holiday to conclude a great 2011.

I painted two pages from the future classic Little Blue Truck  for Megan

I made a big photo monogram for Jenny

 

Now it's time to recap the year and focus on goals for the new one. Except that there's not much for me to sum up in the triathlon world. Maybe a couple of overall wins while pregnant to be excited about. I didn't even muster up enough long distance motivation to do a half Ironman this year, for the first time in 10 years. Instead, I did what I felt like doing at the time, which was riding my bike in the mountains and learning to really like running again. And I guess I started learning a little about pregnancy.

The first three months of 2012 I have covered as far as goals are concerned. This specific training leads to a culmination in the form of an ultra-endurance event, the likes of which I've never experienced before. The fun part is that I don't even know the exact date. How do you taper for that?

For now it's all about the base training. I'm not using a heart rate monitor for exercise these days. Dr. Clapp says it's pretty much useless; your HR will vary tremendously just given the stage of pregnancy. I have considered using it just because I'm curious what my heart rate is while panting up a small incline at a 10+ minute pace. Plus, one extra strap cutting off my lung flow shouldn't matter when my sports bra is squeezing my poor expanded rib cage while the belly band is mashing my bladder. It's really comfortable.

As soon as I hit publish on my last post, my running pace took a drastic turn for the worse. I have a hard time keeping a 9 min average now, even though I still warm up and start feeling pretty good about 25 minutes in. Returning to sea level for 11 days made me feel super fast, despite the Little Rock inclines and the stomach bug I picked up from the family (Jeremy got it too, as did about 14 other people to date). I didn't gain as much weight as I had thought I would thanks to the late night puking, but I continue to reach new highs on the scale. I'm up about 13-14 pounds from my low point now.

So it's all about the slow and steady. I really like zone 2, which I've determined, based on my RPE, I spend most of my exercise time in, and when I get a little antsy to go faster or harder, I get a quick reminder from my poor rectus abdominus why that is a bad idea.

Never before have I seen ripped abs in a magazine and been envious. I'm not sure I've even really noticed them before, but suddenly I find my attention caught by those damn Victoria's Secret commercials with their flat (and in comparison to mine, super defined) abs, and I wonder if mine will ever again resemble anything other than their current bowl full of jelly. No really, my stomach jiggles like Jello when the baby starts doing his flips.

Honestly I'm really enjoying the base training. I love not worrying about time and knowing that I'll get even slower yet. Plus I figure with a good 8 or 9 months of it, followed by a slow return to normal exercise, I should be ready to race some long stuff in the fall. I hope I'm not overly optimistic in thinking I'll be ready for a half Ironman in September, because I'm getting the fever.

 I did some recruiting for my 27 week picture

Happy New Year!

Pregnant Performance Ponderings

I'm going to use the term "performance" loosely for the next, oh, 6 months at least. But it is all relative, and I'm trying to keep tabs on what I'm doing and how I'm feeling while pregnant just in case I find myself in this position again.

There are a lot of general guidelines about pregnancy involving exercise, weight gain, nutrition, and whatnot, but I really went into this unsure of what exactly to expect. The general population probably doesn't exercise even as much as my slacker self has the past couple of years, so I feel like I have to come up with my own averages for pregnant athletic types based on articles, books, and blogs. I've had a lot of help from one book in particular, Dr. James Clapp's Exercising Through Your Pregnancy. I can't recommend this book highly enough. More on it later. (I love the 80s clothing.)

The first few weeks of being pregnant, before I knew, I won a small triathlon but felt a bit slow and out of breath. My training was just starting to pick up for the summer since I had an Ironman scheduled for November. I found out I was pregnant just before going to Italy, where morning sickness hit and travel interfered with training; I kept running as best I could those 2 weeks. Until about 16 weeks along, I was sick and losing weight. So it was rough for a while.

But since then, I've felt good and have been keeping track of what's going on in my "athletic" life. I'll be 25 weeks tomorrow, and things are changing quickly. But so far:

Swimming: The first thing I noticed at a few months was the feeling that I had this bobbly floating buoy in my belly. I instantly looked more pregnant standing shoulder deep in the pool, not that anybody could see me. Obviously, I also look more pregnant just wearing a swimsuit. While not looking at my times or doing many intervals, I know I'm slower. It's probably more a lack of swim fitness than anything, but hey, it's a potential excuse. My feet cramp a lot, in the pool as well as at night. Must be my lack of potassium (haha, kidding). So far I have a couple of swimsuits that still fit, but I keep threatening the lifeguard that I'll be breaking out the 2-piece soon. And doing lots of backstroke.

Bike: I was still riding regularly, from an hour all the way up to the mountainous metric century, while the weather was nice, but now it is quite a bit colder, and I realized that two waistbands that both hit at an awkward spot is just not worth it. There are fears in the back of my mind of falling or getting hit by a car and the potential placental abruption following, so combined with discomfort, moving indoors was the logical solution. Teaching a few spin classes when a sub is needed, or just taking the class has kept me feeling somewhat comfortable on the bike. I wear super old, stretchy shorts that I can move up and down, and have only had a few pains in my abs when going hard. Probably not coincidentally, I had this same pain the last few times I was outside on my bike, while climbing a small hill. My doctors and I attribute it to round ligament pain. I tend to get really out of breath early on in spin class, but my HR settles later; I really should start getting to class early to warm up when I'm teaching so my huffs and puffs aren't broadcast through a microphone.

Run:  Most surprisingly to me, running has been pretty enjoyable, with just a few adaptations I've had to make. The first was having to pee every mile or two. Luckily the route I almost always take goes through a pretty undeveloped neighborhood with tall bushes, and as a bonus, they're recently closed one main entrance to all traffic. Aha, privacy to squat. It's amazing the feeling of having to go right now so badly, then finding that it was approximately one tablespoon's worth of urgency.

I've kept up my "long" run, trying to do an 8.25 mile loop every week. Thanksgiving week, I actually hit the 35 mile mark, which is definitely more than the average winter week for me. Back in town and adding spinning and swimming in, I do 5-6 miles every other day or so, hitting 20-25 miles/wk. It's slow, but steady. Going the usual out and back route takes me uphill for over 2.5 miles, which means I'm crawling, especially since it takes 25 minutes for me to feel good lately. But a few times I've negative split a 6 mile run by 3 or 4 minutes. The extra weight + gravity can help sometimes I suppose. I can average a 9:00-9:10 pace for most of my runs. While in flat, closer-to-sea-level Tempe, I ran part of the IM course several times. one day I decided to do a few 1 minute pickups, while wearing my Garmin, and was really surprised to see my fast minutes peak in the low 6 min pace range. I was sure the Garmin was malfunctioning, but it was so consistent. I'll take it.

The last couple of weeks, as my ab muscles continue to s-t-r-e-t-c-h, I've felt more stitch-like pains, especially in the lower abdomen. The baby tends to settle low when I first start running, so I've started faithfully wearing a belly band. It seemed a little early to me to start wearing it, but the difference in comfort is amazing. Plus I look super cute.

Strength Training: It's been on and off, with the main difference being my weakened, separating rectus abdominus. It really limits pushups and pullups, and I try not to stress it or encourage any future herniation.

General: With my last set of labs I found out my hematocrit was low, and immediately felt tired the rest of the day. :) But honestly I haven't been very fatigued, even in the 1st trimester. Some days I sleep a bit more or less (which not having a job helps me accomplish).

Weight gain is an interesting topic for me. Having never faced an inevitable,  somewhat uncontrollable, imminent gain in my future, it was a scary thought at first. I've never been overly concerned about my weight, since Ironman training has always kept it pretty regulated for me. I was at a normal summer weight when morning sickness first hit me upside the head. From there I lost somewhere around 4 pounds. After about 16 weeks I leveled off and started the uphill gain. From that low sickly point, I am currently up about 10 pounds--mostly in the belly and butt, of course. Normally in the winter off season I tend to put on a few pounds, so this weight is only about a pound more than where I often am. I know the next 15 weeks could add up to another 15 pounds+, but I feel more prepared now, especially knowing that I won't just wake up one morning 8 pounds heavier (well, fingers crossed). I am running out of running and gym shirts that cover the entire expanse of my stomach. Luckily the shorts and tights are just fine. Now if my feet will stay the same length and still fit into my 8.5s.

Back to my Clapp book. The first time through, I skimmed it. I'm not sure what I was looking for exactly, but I didn't find it very specific, much like many reviewers. No, it doesn't say "do this, not that." So I started at the beginning and read every word. Really it takes some common sense and putting together concepts.

A lot of the research is pretty exciting (wish I could've been in on something like this in grad school). Exercise and pregnancy adaptations do compliment each other. Increased blood volume, improved oxygen transfer, better thermoregulation, and an increase in maximal oxygen uptake by a small amount are some of the additive and overlapping effects of exercise in pregnancy. There are definitely some risk factors, especially for abnormal pregnancy, but in general Dr. Clapp is very liberal in his approach to exercise. I am careful to check that the baby is moving within a half hour of my exercise, and I try to keep fueled at appropriate times. While I don't believe it would have been ok for me to do Ironman Arizona, (sorry "coach" dude who told me it was too bad I withdrew since I have so many performance enhancing adaptations-- yeah that may be part of the story, but I also have extra weight, two people to supply oxygen to, stretched muscles, the works, not to mention the potential negative effects on the baby from raising his HR for 11 or 12 hours), I do feel good about the exercise I am doing, and I hope that like Clapp says, I'm helping make him a stronger baby.

So where my exercise goes from here is just a guess, but for now I'm sticking to my loose schedule as best baby lets me.

IMAZ: the spectator's report

I have been so slow in getting around to reporting MY experience, you know, the important one, in Tempe. Jeremy stole the show, as well as all my fabulous pictures (just kidding, I really fell down on the job).

I'm just so excited for him. He did (most of) the training, he stuck to his plan (except for some of the nutrition part), and had an overall great first Ironman. But since you can read the firsthand report from him, I'll just go over my day.

In the days leading up to the race, there was no worry of resting, eating the wrong foods, stressing about gear or how much it was going to hurt. I was totally relaxed; I knew he'd be fine and have fun. We ate sushi (cooked for me) and a few In and Out Burgers. All the fit athletes walking around outdoing each other in their compression socks and tri suits made me feel more happy that I was not competing. Or racing. :)

My friend Rob, a longtime coach and amazing athlete, who has done over 250 triathlons, was there to spectate as well, and I was lucky enough to get some swimming form tips from him on Saturday. We met up at the Arizona State pool, a huge, outdoor, Olympic-sized, clean, clear paradise. I'd swim every day if I had something like that (and the weather to match). I took my mountain bike along to get around easier and realized that I was crazy for not  having attended ASU at some point in my life. I left the pool and rode along a palm-lined pedestrian path right through campus to get to our favorite pizza place.

Race morning was the usual crowded, crazy, cold madness, still with a certain calmness and seriousness among the racers. After watching him do his last preparations, I bid Jeremy farewell for the day, took the bike pump back to the car that was parked ridiculously close to the finish line, and headed up to the bridge over the lake to squeeze in front of 3 rows of people, next to Rob and his friend Tom, who had been up there 45 minutes. I've never seen an Ironman start from such a vantage point, and it was impressive.

We made it to the swim-T1 chute, and I was ecstatic to see Jeremy out running the chute, already stripped, in just over 1:08 (officially in the 1:07s).  The next stop was the bike out/turnaround, and we spent several hours there with me picking Rob's and Tom's brains about coaching theory (Tom is a good friend of the Friels), trying to sweep some glass out of the road (big football games the night before do not help the cleaning crews), and tracking  racers from our phones as best we could. There was a coffee break in there at some point, some attempted pictures, and some worry over Jeremy looking what we thought to be distressed (turns out he was pissed).

We headed back down to the lake to watch the runners come out after our friends had all  headed out on loop 3 of the bike, and we ended up spending hours there. After losing Tom for a bit, we respotted him, wearing a volunteer t-shirt, directing traffic around the run out/start of loop 2. He was much needed! I snapped a few pics of Jeremy, we got some fast food, and I ran back to the car to paint my belly with a Go Daddy for Jeremy's last loop.

Rob kept me entertained throughout the race. He's had so much experience and was around way back when this whole sport started, so he has a great point of view on what's necessary, what's ridiculous, and when you're just being really stupid. I laughed for hours.

Jeremy wasn't doing so well in the middle of the marathon due to stomach issues, and I just really hoped he wouldn't be too disappointed. But when I saw him come around that last turn to the finish line, he was all smiles and running on air. It was either my happiness for him or pregnancy hormones that almost had me crying.

"Dr. Jeremy Harwood, you are an Ironman!"

Vicariously

It's only 3 days until IMAZ and I'm getting nervous and excited for it. I'm pulling up my IM playlist that has been compiling for the last, oh, 10 years. Some of those songs are going to take me back to the afternoon before IMFL 08 when Nancy and I were relaxing in our room at the Ironman house in Panama City. I can vividly remember it. Some songs calmed me and some got me excited (side note: will these same songs work as "birth music"? hmmm).

I've gone over and over the packing list, worked on taping up the tubular and fitting it snugly under the seat, and tried to remember every last item that could possibly be needed. I've gone through race day in my head, and I've even dreamed about getting to the race late, as usual. This time it was Laura who we were taking to race, but luckily she didn't care that she was starting behind everyone. 

My runs have been feeling ok, but I'm having strange pains crop up, like today in my hip flexor. I'm feeling smooth while swimming, but I have been stressing over the water temperature (currently 65F, but was 62 a few days ago).

And all of this for the husband! It won't be my first time as a spectathlete, but I definitely have more invested in this race than ones from the past. Wish us luck!

10 years and 11 Ironmans

It's unbelievable to me that this weekend marks the 10 year anniversary of my first Ironman. It started in 2001 with Ironman Florida when I was just 24, and my 11th one was 2 years ago in Hawaii. To honor my big Ironiversary, I've gone back and looked at some numbers that I've compiled from these 11 races.

4 days, 21 hours, and 26 minutes I have spent racing Ironmans

26.4 miles of swimming in those races

1232 miles of cycling

288.2 miles of running (um, give or take; more on that later)

11:39 the average of those 11 times

244 approximate number of slices of Pizza Hut pan pizza that could fuel that many calories of exercise

I know a lot of people have much more impressive numbers, but I have a few other stats that may be a little more unique.

2 hours, 52 minutes the time difference between my best and worst IM marathons

30 approximate number of minutes spent lying in the grass on the side of the road in a cute Coeur d'Alene neighborhood (that makes up for some of the above stat)

22 minutes and 44 seconds how much slower my run split was than my bike split that year

10 times I have run that loop through St. Andrew's State Park (17 if you also count the Gulf Coast half)

12.52 miles per hour that I averaged in the last 22 miles of the Queen K in my first Kona, 2002. Proof here.

17:28 minutes and seconds I spent in T2 that year

17 approx number of times I was asked what the hell I was doing in there (answer: lying on a cot, eating chips, and getting my blood pressure taken)

1 the number of marathons I've run in the 4 hour range. I had seven 3's, three 5's, and one 6+.

 4 number of different bikes I have ridden in those 11 Ironmans

2 number of those bikes stolen since then (one didn't even last long enough to get me to an IM, see here for a better listing)

It's been such a fun 10 years, and I'm not done yet. I have a few race reports written here of Kona '07, IMFL '08, IMLou '09, and Kona '09. And now for some fun pictures.

IMFL 2001 My very first, and I'm all smiles. Must be first loop.

Notice the required reflective tape. I'm sure satellites could see me from space.

Sadly, I can't find pictures from my first Kona in 2002. I know they're around somewhere. They sure had plenty of time to take pictures of me.

Next was Coeur d'Alene 2003, the inaugural, infamous, 100F race (stats above). Proof that I actually ran at some point (this is before the nap). The guy next to me helped me along, even commandeering a chair from a spectator when I could no longer stand on my own two feet.

I was probably most proud of this finish. I'm even smiling. And no, this wasn't quite my worst time ever.

IMFL 2003 was 5 months later. Much better. Although it looks like this may be my worst run ever based on my shuffle, I actually had my best marathon so far. And look, it's St. Andrew's park!

I waited a whole year to race again. IMFL 2004. I was actually running hard for me, and had a 26 minute PR. Um, St. Andrew's again.

Went to Kona again in 2005 and improved a bit! It helped that Gary raced right next to me, and even waved at me, in the swim. He smoked me later.

But I did improve that year and "ran" under 5 hours.

2006 was back in Florida for a super cold year. This is when I got my "ironman jacket" from Walmart, and 2nd in my AG by 2 minutes. She passed me back in the run when I wasn't looking.

2007 I was back in Kona, and had my best race there so far. I actually ran. Truly. Even smiled on the bike!

2008 was my PR race back in Florida. We had calm winds, but the best part was the friends racing with me. Hey the sun is still up!

Apparently I'm very consistent with my run faces and postures. Check out these two from 2008 and 2004. There's the crooked hat, the arms, the frown. Ha!

IM Louisville was #10

And the final Ironman thus far was Kona in 2009. I'll just put a picture of one of the actual fun parts and just skip the rest.

And while going through pictures I noticed several that feature none other than  GaryIronman. My first one, 2 Konas, CdA, and Louisville, not to mention many other Floridas. We may be about equal in wins-losses to each other, but he's almost tripled my total number!


If only I could count the number of mistakes, hours of training, calories of Gu and Gatorade, meltdowns, blisters, tubes, salt tablets... Looking back has made me a little more nostalgic for the days of training for my old friend Ironman. I plan to get my fix through Jeremy in just two weeks (!!), again in June, and maybe next November in Florida when I go participate in Girls' Zone once again, baby in tow. My friendship with Ironman isn't over yet!