Little Rock 10k & 22 weeks

The tiniest baby girl Harwood and I were registered for the Little Rock 10k this year, since I can't not participate in the city's biggest race. Plus Damie was coming in town for the half marathon and I wanted to run a race "with" her. So at 22 and 1/2 weeks, we set out Sunday morning for the race. Surely the weather wouldn't be as bad as last year's half marathon, and it wasn't. Instead of a 40 degree temperature drop, it was just cold and rainy. So we parked, went to a hotel next door, and Damie charmed a breakfast guy into giving us two floor-length, heavy duty garbage bags.

 

How can you say no to us? :)

The rain slowed enough for a nice mile-ish warm up and it actually felt pretty good out. I decided to overdress due to the fact that I was not going to be running at top 10k speed, heavy rain was possible, and as they say, you should be able to be uncomfortable long enough for a 10k, right? I include being a bit too warm in the uncomfortable category, but as it turned out, I felt perfectly comfortable.

I am wearing my support belt for every run now, in addition to a new "belly sports bra" under it. Basically the latter is a spandex material tube with not nearly enough support, even in an XS size, so I use it just to keep my belt comfortable and in place. I don't recommend it, at least at this point in my pregnancy, unless you can score a free one.

I was absolutely not allowed in Corral B, since I had to prove a 10k time of under 40 minutes within the last year for that, and I don't tend to run many races of that distance or speed lately. Damie and I had to part ways so I could go back a quarter mile to the correct starting line, after the security guy spotted my bib and yelled, "She's a C!!" I was caught red-handed. I moved forward significantly within C and tried to find Damie, but it didn't happen before the race began.

Going out at a nice steady slow pace was my plan, but I didn't look at my garmin except for the mile marks. I hit my first mile in 7:48, faster than I had expected. A sub-8 minute pace didn't seem possible beforehand based on my daily runs, and I was expecting to average maybe a little under 8:30 for the whole thing.

Small rolling hills kept me constantly checking in on my effort level, since as soon as I ran a few meters uphill, my breathing got heavier and I backed off. If the little one would carry a bit of her own weight instead of just sharing my oxygen, maybe these little speed bumps wouldn't be so bad. I was near a pace group for a while, but let them go as my pace slowed on the hills. Surprisingly, miles 2-5 were very steady, all between 7:39 and 7:44. It was a nice change to run at a lower effort level in a big race, since I could look around and chat and listen in on conversations...and call out the 3:30 pacer woman who was in the process of destroying her own race by going out way too fast. But that's a rant for another post. 

Thankfully those small rollers were the only elevation changes, nothing like the hills in my neighborhood that I nearly have to walk now, and the last mile was downhill. I ran it in 7:20, still not looking at my pace but just going by feel. I let a woman pass me around the 6 mile mark, because, well, the street leveled out and I just wasn't racing.

I'm apparently really bad at running tangents, because I came up a little long on the course. It seems I won the "5 months pregnant" division, and also my age group, since to be honest, most of the runners were doing the half or full marathon. And the little one and I got 4th (and 5th) overall female(s). Not terrible for being 22+ weeks, but it's no overall win like Hunter and I scored a couple times together. :)

These pictures just don't do justice to the largeness of my belly, whose muscles have all but given up completely. I find myself unintentionally holding them in, not quite ready to let this little one bounce all over the place. 

Besides my satisfactory "race" Sunday, I found a little confidence in my sudden jump in bike wattage this week. Of course then I thought about the per kilo calculations and realized that since I'm about 5 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight now, I've essentially negated any power increase. Ah you take what you can get. 

And since you asked, an update on the almost 3-year-old! He's so smart and inquisitive and the sweetest thing, but he has much stronger muscles than he realizes when he's pile driving me. He wants to be involved in everything I do, and needs details! While cooking with olive oil he said to me, "Mommy. Talk to me about oil. What are the ingredients?" Don't we all need to know things?

We may have more of this today! I promise he was having a great time :)

First Trimester Training

Thank goodness you get away with calling the 14 week mark the End of the First Trimester, when really you got out of two weeks of it due to not actually being pregnant yet. Just like last time, the first trimester was particularly rough for me, and if this one continues like last time, I won't be enjoying food until baby girl makes her appearance.

I was scheduled to run the St. Jude half marathon in December and I was going to be 10 weeks along. Compared to the first pregnancy, I was running a bit better but training overall much less when I first became pregnant. Five weeks before the race I had a decent ten miler and was on track to actually make the distance running. It wouldn't be any PR, but that's ok. A few days later, the sight of some French fries made my stomach do a little flop and I thought, uh oh. Sure enough, the nausea hit and I spent the next 5 weeks losing weight rapidly, and I bailed out of the race. One of the worst parts of it was the fall CSA box we got weekly. All that disgusting fresh produce like tomatoes and squash. Bleh.

At first I couldn't quite understand how anyone with the slightest degree of morning sickness can manage to not lose weight in the first trimester. Then after pondering this I realized that besides running and cycling and consuming vast quantities of food (including copious amount of ice cream daily), I was also nursing a large two and a half year old quite frequently. Sadly the milk dried up a lot when I lost weight, or possibly in part due to the pregnancy hormones. It's coming back some now but our nursing frequency has completely changed. But in the meantime, I was still trying to run, nursing, and just not getting any nourishment. 

I was pitiful for a while. Part of the difficulty this time around was most likely having the demands of a toddler to answer to all day. It was definitely different than working in an office teaching a few classes here and there. When Jeremy would get home from work, I'd essentially collapse into a pile on the couch. In two weeks-- 6 and 7-- I ran a total of 13 miles and did about 3 additional hours of trainer rides. It was all I could manage, and those miles were at a pace about a minute per mile slower than I had been running a couple weeks before. I slowly started consuming a few calories here and there, and I wondered how crash dieters can ever exercise. It's exhausting. 

My runs started picking up and speeding up again after a few weeks, and I got back on the trainer. My average wattage has been a sad number for quite a while, so I just keep the computer covered up and focus my attention on the streaming videos in front of me. At least it is better than lying on the couch watching TV. But not much.

I realized during this time period that our society is obsessed with food. It is everywhere, from toddler books about construction workers' lunch breaks, to literally every other pin on pinterest. Facebook is loaded with food pictures, magazines all have recipes and ads for food. Come on people! I'm dying over here. Then the toddler pretends to be making food of all nauseating varieties constantly. It's really so unpleasant. I asked if Jeremy could just bring home some IV fluid for me and never make me eat again. I force fed myself things that didn't sound completely repulsive, only to determine them solidly placed forever in that category post-meal. 

The aversions had slightly subsided by the end if the first trimester and the nausea was definitely better. My weight crept up a bit and I was at just 3 pounds under my starting weight at 14 weeks. The belly expansion has happened a lot more rapidly this time around. It's as if my abs realized what was happening and just gave in. I started wearing my support belt for running much earlier to try to reduce the ab separation and muscle strain. 

Now that I'm past the halfway mark, I'm doing even better, and except for the icy streets, my running is going just fine. I'm planning on running in the city's biggest race on Sunday, but I'll be limiting it to the 10k instead of half marathon this time. So no triathlons while carrying this baby; it's just not the season for it!

February Surprises

Mid-February is usually so boring. My birthday is over, it is still winter, and I'm probably tired of it. I did meet Jeremy in mid-Feb 6 years ago, so 2009 was exciting. And this February has turned out to be more interesting too.

I, and the baby, had our 20 week ultrasound on Wednesday, and unlike in my last pregnancy, I have only had one other scan this time, so there was no "it sure looks like a boy, but I'm not 100%" guesses from the doctor. Closing my eyes at the end so I would be just as surprised as everyone else was tough, but I knew it would be more fun. After leaving the doctor's office, I went immediately to a bakery to drop off the results. The cake was scheduled for Saturday, and it was HARD to wait that long! Jeremy's mom and aunt came in town, and the cousins all trekked up the hill to find out what we are having.

There are so many gender prediction "tools" out there, and we found as many as we could before cutting the cake. It was swaying just slightly toward girl, but so many of them were wrong for Hunter that I was still firmly believing it was a boy. I felt the whole time that I was carrying another boy. The votes were in, and we should have believed the young kids (although Hunter went back and forth each time we asked him), and the grandma and great-aunt!

Almost even again. I had tried to over-interpret everything the ultrasound tech had said after knowing herself, but she was not giving anything away. Jackson and I had tried to see through the outer layer of icing for any clues, but none were found. Finally time to cut the cake, I was almost nervous!

And I was truly surprised to find pink in the middle!

Even little H was excited.

But after lots of pictures and texts and facetime chats with the other cousins, he was just wanting to eat the cake. And it turned out delicious!

We are super excited to welcome a little girl. It'll even things up around here.

Our smaller surprise of February was the ice storm we got Monday that closed down the roads and Jeremy's clinic for two days. Mammo and Nanny got back home to Kentucky just in time to get snowed in themselves.

I'll take it as a sign that I should have an easy running week, since I'm not steady on my feet or interested in busting my ass again anytime soon. The trainer will work just fine for a few days. I'll update on my "training" these days soon.

Older, slower, and clumsier

I've been trucking along, despite having gained a new tick on my tally of years lived. No new age groups for a couple more of these birthdays, and I'm not really racing much lately anyway. The best female endurance athletes always seem to be mid-30s, which I'm still classifying myself as for now. 

I am slowing down a bit, but I have my good reasons for that, not the least of which is winter coldness and all the extra clothes that go along with outdoor activity. 

But the clumsiness! Now in just the past 6 weeks or so I've tripped and come home bloody after two different runs. The first was on a trail made mostly of smooth gravel, but with sections of broken asphalt I was picking out of my hands weeks later. If I had just worn the thick gloves that day! Instead, I had on my new touchscreen compatible ones, since it is obviously too much trouble to put the glove on after starting strava. It was cold and I was fully clothed, thankfully, but still tore a hole in one of my favorite shirts at the elbow. The best husband ever (mine) remembered my love for these two moth-eaten, hand-me-down-gifted wool shirts and gave me a brand new one for my birthday. Helly Hansen base layer shirts! Go stock up. They are really the best for 40F or less. And they can save some of your skin. 

Anyway! I assumed that my fall was just due to the way my mind and eyes wander while running (not to forget the time I ran my forehead smack into a tree branch, requiring lots of stitches). But then just last week, running on a sidewalk with maybe a centimeter lip, I did it again. Flat onto my belly, hands, and, somehow, shoulder I skidded. I stood there in pain, contemplating whether I should just call for a ride home, but then decided it wasn't really that far after all. 

When I got home, Hunter saw my wounds, said, "Awwww!" and came over to kiss then. After inquiring as to what surface I had been running on, he gave me some excellent words of toddler wisdom: 

"Mommy, if you run on the grass it won't hurt so bad when you fall." 

Quite true, and he should know, since he has fallen a lot more frequently in the past almost 3 years than I have. 

All kinds of remedies to this problem have run through my mind. Should I switch out of my Hokas? I really love them but do seem to scrape my feet more in them. I can blame my hip flexors, possibly, for not reacting quickly enough and getting a foot under me. Maybe it's time for some silver sneakers classes in balance training in my old age. 

Pondering the meaning of life. And running surface impact. 

Run Faster?

When I worked as an exercise physiologist on the Air Force base, one of my main jobs was teaching classes and advising the people who failed their fitness tests. There was a wide range of reasons and deficiencies, of course, but the 1.5 mile run test was a common source of concern. And "failure." I don't have the standards in front of me, but it seems for women in their 30s, a 9:30 pace (that means per mile) for that mile and a half was passing. Passing this test isn't just for the accolades; if they keep failing they can actually lose rank and eventually be kicked out of the military.

I asked a lot of questions of the people who failed, trying to figure out what was keeping them from reaching their goals. Sometimes it was simply motivation, which I had a hard time helping. If the threat of losing your job isn't enough, I'm not sure anything is. I actually went through 15 minutes of workouts with a woman who came to me asking how to improve. She then told me, "I'm probably not going to do any of that." Well ok then.

But for those who want to improve on their running, I have summed up ways that you might change what you are doing to increase speed and endurance. This mostly focuses on beginners, since achieving a 9:30 pace for 2400m isn't exactly what elite runners are working toward.

1. Run more. Doing 1.5 miles twice a week won't prepare you for a 1.5 mile race, for example. Add a few minutes here and there to your usual runs. Work up to 4 or 5 runs per week. Build slowly.

2. Don't run as fast as you can every run. Pace yourself. Lose the watch and Garmin sometimes (or often).

3. But on the other hand, run fast sometimes. It can be between light posts or mailboxes. Run to 3 mailboxes easy, then run to the next one hard. These are fartleks, and you can time them if you want to, but it's really not necessary.

4. Run with friends who are faster. Run with friends who are slower. Enjoy it a little.

5. Run hills.

6. Look at your body composition. On base, if a person failed the waist circumference, it made it easier to objectively correlate the run with weight. Look at your BMI for starters. If it is in the overweight range, you might think about losing a few pounds. BUT if you are of normal BMI and body fat percentage, maybe you  need to gain muscle.

7. Do strength training. Especially if you are female, over 40, or have an ectomorphic body type. Plyometrics are gold. Jump, climb, squat, press. Lift heavy weights quickly (and carefully).

8. Fuel yourself properly. You wouldn't pour Coke in your car's gas tank and expect it to run well, now would you?

9. Triathletes? Do bricks often. They can be short.

Now go enjoy yourself while you get faster.

New Year!

The year ended without so much as a peep from this blog. Oops! I am slowly realizing that we are one of the last houses in the neighborhood to still have decorations up, but that could be due to the variety of cultures here, some of which do not celebrate with lights and trees to begin with. While it is still so dark outside so early in the evening, I use every ray of the twinkling lights on the tree for ambiance and warmth. The cloudiness that I should be accustomed to during the winter months in the southeast is still a little surprising to me after three years of daily, bright sunshine, literally about 360 days of the year. If it weren't for the noticeably growing daylight hours, and the fact that Target already has miniature pots of strawberry seeds and bikinis out on display, I would be more inclined to believe that winter is going to last forever. I can't get on facebook without the local weatherman's page telling me more about the arctic blast that will leave us all frozen after a few weeks. It starts tomorrow. Keep telling me that running in freezing temps is not so bad, ok?

So Christmas came! We had a cozy Christmas Eve and Day with the three of us celebrating by first going to a candlelight service, through which we made it approximately 10 minutes. Hunter hadn't napped, and all the excitement and darkness and music was putting him to sleep at 6 pm (most likely to wake around 8 pm for many hours), which would not have aligned well with Santa's plans. Instead we booked it  back home to feed the reindeer and put Santa's cookies out.

Two and a half is just the right age to start to understand how exciting Christmas can be, but I still think I was more excited than Hunter was. That sweet boy didn't tear through presents, but would find one and open it and play with it so long that we had to convince him to look at others.

New BFF

 

The joy

And then we can cook soup, and baked potatoes, and ....

 

Rescue cars? Cool!

 

They actually fit?

 

You got measuring cups? Perfect, because I got food.

Just before New Year's Eve, we drove to Germantown to see my family and celebrate with them: Christmas Part 2. It was cold, so there was no horsebackriding this time, but seeing the cousins and Nana and Granddaddy of course, was plenty of entertainment for Hunter.

We are missing Ethelyn and Ethan and Austin, and most of Jeremy, and I'm a little shaky with my panoramas, but you get the idea.

H and I started to develop a nasty cold on New Year's Eve, which thankfully explained his crankiness from the day. Unfortunately it is probably the worst one he has ever had, and we are both still sick almost a week later. Happy New Year!

Next up for us is a weekend trip to Kentucky to see Jeremy's family: Christmas Part 3. I am more than a little thankful that the toddler and I will be flying while Jeremy drives the 6 or so hours. No carseat! 

A kiss for the angel

We are looking forward to an exciting 2015! Happy New Year!

Oh Winter Training

How hard is winter training? I know some people love this time of year, and I do love the Christmas season, but not in relation to exercise. We can't complain that Jeremy only works at the daytime clinic 4 days a week, which leaves three days (on non-call weekends) of daylight hours in which to train. He has been getting up before 5 to get his workouts in, since he did sign up for an Ironman that takes place in 20-something weeks. That leaves a rare lunchtime or the after work (meaning DARK) hours for me. Not that I would trade training hours with him. Early mornings are not my thing. I used to try to get on the trainer while the toddler napped, but he has decided recently that naps just aren't for him anymore (and even back then, he could sense me riding and wake up after 30 minutes, getting mad that I was all sweaty). A few times the miracle of sleep has come upon us before 8pm on those non-napping days, for the first time in his life. But other times he likes to extend his waking hours so that when his internal alarm goes off at 7am, he has gotten a total of 9 hours of sleep in the last 24. He definitely gets it from his dad, because I have never been a naturally early riser, or one who happily survives on 30% less sleep than average. His latest sleeping habits include less frequent nursing, but if I'm not directly touching him, he wakes me up every hour or two to let me know. Every night. No, he doesn't "sleep through the night" yet, by any stretch, but I'm sure one of these days he will be in his own bed and I won't be alerted to this so frequently. I am really not complaining about this, since it's just part of having a little one, but rather I'm explaining why I just can't get up in the mornings to run, bike, or swim. Especially when it's cold and dark.

Since my decrease in mileage when I decided that the half marathon wasn't in the cards, I have slowly increased back up a bit, and even begun again the season of 24 where I left off, meaning I rode my trainer. I'm still going to the gym for barre or strength classes. I was thinking recently how ironic it is that I need to go to these classes when I have the knowledge to train myself perfectly well, and I have even been an instructor in many of these. It's just that I can't get the motivation part down. Or I just plain forget that it has been three weeks since I lifted a weight other than the toddler. 

We planned to have Jeremy run the St. Jude half last weekend. On Thursday I texted our homestay, Nancy, to see what time we should get there on Saturday. Her reply was that, well, the race starts at 8am Saturday, so... For the previous six months I had believed the race to be on Sunday, and now travel would need to happen Friday night after work, with either a cranky toddler, a napping on the way toddler, and/or a toddler who wanted to stay up until midnight and play with Nancy's kittens. She pointed out that it was a long way to go for 13 miles, and it occurred to me that yes, it was. So we stayed home. I was sad to miss my friends and fun in Memphis, especially since I wasn't the one who had to worry about racing. But we will be back!

Every post needs a toddler picture, so here is even better: a video clip of Hunter's first ride on Mystic. "Mommy, Daddy! I'm on the grass on Mystic on the grass!" He's a natural equestrian. I'm not a natural videographer I'm afraid.

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