Weekly Training Update: 5/26-6/1

This week was one of lessons learned.

1. Colored capris are fine for the gym ... just not fine for working out at the gym. I became acutely aware halfway through my boot camp class at the Y that it looked like I had soiled myself. Lesson: Just wear black.

2. The weather is heating up, and it means that I need to make hydration an absolute priority. I fell off the bandwagon some time ago, and I need to sprint to get back on. I noticed it especially during Sunday's long run. I was through two bottles of Nuun by mile 10. At mile 11, I stopped for more water at a bathroom and I seriously could not get enough as the water pooled into my cupped hands. I drank so much that I had a stitch for the last mile. Lesson: Be mindful of hydration throughout the week and especially the night before a long run.

3. While training is a chance to try new ways of fueling, I'm not sure it's always a chance to try new brands/flavors. I took two PowerBar gels that were freebies on Sunday, and I could not stomach more than a tiny bite/sip. I ended up not fueling the entire run because it was better than trying to suck down the funk nasty. Lesson: Try a bit before you start or at least bring a backup.

On that note: I am desperate to try the new Gu flavors - Chocolate Peanut Butter and Salted Watermelon.

 

4. The Allen County chapter of Girls on the Run wrapped up its season at the Diva Dash 5K on Saturday. I was a run buddy for the race, though I was paired with a different girl than the practice.  But anyway. Once again, the girls all took off as if they were running with the bulls and many completely fizzled in the first quarter mile. I am proud to say my girl held strong until about a mile. We ended up walking a lot (which was fine) because she tweaked her ankle in the beginning section when they were all sprinting. I could dog the girls for doing it but pretty sure I do the same thing. Lesson: Don't pace like a jerk.

5. It's hot. And I sweat a lot. Lesson: Bring a towel in the car to wipe off. And a clean shirt.

6. After my long run Sunday, all I wanted was a carbonated beverage and french fries. I was sure I'd pass a McDonald's on the way home but the first one I saw was a half-mile from home. I still pulled in and was disappointed to learn that they were still serving breakfast. Lesson: McDonald's by my house serves breakfast till 11 a.m. Sundays. I will need to find a gluten free, salty snack to keep in the car as I'll be doing "sunrise service" until fall.

The week, in training:

Monday, May 26
REST

Tuesday, May 27
RUN | 5 miles, intervals    
Time: 45:09     Pace: 9:02
The plan called for 3 x 1000 repeats w/400 recovery but I did 3 x 0.65mi w/0.25mi recovery because I didn't feel like changing distance settings on the Garmin. The intervals were tough, especially as I acclimate to the warming temperatures. I stayed pretty tough throughout and hit puke threshold during the last two. Interval paces: 7:47, 7:52, 7:49

Wednesday, May 28
RUN | 5.35 miles    
Time: 49:46     Pace: 9:08
I wanted warm weather. I did. But DAMN. It's hot and humid. Tami and I started strong but I really faded toward the end.

CROSS TRAINING | Outdoor boot camp
Tabatas with jogs in between.

Thursday, May 29
CROSS TRAIN | 2-mile walk
We were out of coffee. So we walked to get some. At a coffee shop.

CROSS TRAINING | Y boot camp
Basically the same workout as Wednesday. They didn't know ;)

Friday, May 30
RUN | 5.35 miles
Time: 46:36     Pace: 9:20
I'm rather impressed with myself this morning, prying myself out of bed at 5 a.m. to run by myself. These days, it usually it takes the promise of meeting a friend to do that. The weather was exponentially better, and I enjoyed running in comfortable temps and low humidity. The first three miles felt amazing, as if I was speeding along and could go forever. But, at a traffic light, I realized this zoom-zoom was more like slog-slog, and it got a bit tougher. Bright spot: I went 5 miles instead of 4, and I'm slowly building up weekday mileage.

Saturday, May 31
RUN | 3.1 miles
I ran this as a running buddy for Girls on the Run. My girl on the run did good the first mile but said she twisted her ankle, and we walked the last two. It was a beautiful day out, though.

Sunday, June 1
RUN | 12 miles 
Time: 1:55:04     Pace:9:35
I'm not sure what to say about this. I just put this into my log and despite my efforts to get faster, I saw my paces for last year ... and I'm not. I'm feeling a bit disheartened that I'm stuck in this place. It doesn't help that this run didn't feel great. We started out a bit fast but walked in the third mile as my partner is struggling with back pain. We rallied for the next few miles, and I dropped her off just shy of 7. I tried to really do well but the heat was getting to me. Shed the shirt at mile 8 and ran back to the car. Ran out of water at 10. Didn't have any fuel because the Power Bar gel I decided to try was funk-nasty and I couldn't stomach more than two sips. I really need to figure out what I'm doing wrong so I can stop feeling depressed and start getting faster.

Weekly Training Update: 5/19-5/25

Solid. Week.

I mean, I got my workouts in, nailed my paces and got in some major miles on the bike.  I taught some tough classes, had quality time with my running buddies and didn't kill anyone with my bare torso.

And, really, that's all I have to say.

The week, in training:

Monday, May 19
REST

Tuesday, May 20
RUN | 5.25 miles, 2 miles at tempo  
Time: 46:52     Pace:8:55
BOOM! 2-mile WU, 2 miles at tempo, CD. My goal was to stay controlled and focused during the tempo miles, and I did it. Splits were 8:30 and 8:18. There wasn't a point where I got down on myself or started looking for excuses to quit.

CROSS TRAINING | Cycle, 6 miles
Biked to the park, took a couple laps and went home.

Wednesday, May 21
CROSS TRAIN | Cycle, 6.75 miles
I'm pretty sure it took me longer to get the bike in and out of the car but who cares. It's so refreshing to get to ride outside. I squeezed this ride in between daycare dropoff and work, and I even wore my dress and sandals for it. Good thing I had my hybrid and not the road bike.

Bonus note: The bike kicked up some mud on the back of my dress, and I spent half the day looking like I had crapped my pants.

CROSS TRAINING | Outdoor boot camp
We did 5-4-3-2-1 workout, with five rounds of three exercises. We did five sets of the first round, four of the second, etc. The bugs were out in full force, and it was pretty gnarly.

Thursday, May 22
RUN | 4 miles
Time: 35:44     Pace: 8:55
Back at it with Joe. I was glad to keep a strong pace for most of the run, though I did request a stretch halfway. I sort of hate doing that with a group though I have no problem doing it on my own. Weird.

CROSS TRAINING | Ripped
I decided to kill the rumors and do lunges rather than squats.

Friday, May 23
RUN | 5 miles
Time: 46:36     Pace: 9:20
A great run with Tami. I feel so bad that every time I meet her, my legs are dead but I am loving these early morning outings.

Saturday, May 24
RUN | 10 miles
Time: 1:32:30     Pace: 9:15
Double digits. FINALLY! I ran the first 5 with two of the gals and then we joined a bigger group for 5 more. We went out pretty strong as we discovered the more we talk the faster we run. I was a bit concerned about what that would mean for the second half but Joe paced us at a more manageable speed. It still didn't feel great but it went by quickly.

Sunday, May 25
CROSS TRAIN | Cycle, 17.87 miles
Time: 1:36:12     Pace: 11.1 mph
Mark and I had a kid-free morning so we decided to go for a long ride. We decided to ride downtown and do the Fort4Fitness course, which offered a nice preview/review of what we'll have to look forward to ROCKING in September. We haven't gotten my bike off the trainer so I was on the hybrid, hence the slower speed.

Weekly check-up: 8 is great

Move that body: 15 minutes upper body circuit and 1.5-mile walk with Denali

I discovered something new today. OK, not brand new but new to me.

The wall push-up.

Yep, after a good 16 weeks of not doing anything resembling a push-up or exercise to work my chest muscles, I did a wall push-up. Twenty-five of them, actually. I could have done more – they weren’t really difficult – but I had cake balls to dip and it was the last exercise of the morning.

The rest of my upper body workout consisted of doing an exercise for 1 minute straight before moving onto the next muscle group. The biceps got worked out three times, triceps two, shoulders three and back two. I think. I did this at 7 a.m. – you can’t expect me to remember something that long ago.

***

Warning: Snarkiness looms ahead.

I am 32 weeks pregnant today. THIRTY-TWO. Eight months, if you want to count it that way. And if you want to count it another way, I have 8 weeks left. EIGHT.

Holy crap, I’m going to have a baby.

It would feel a bit more surreal if I didn’t feel like a cow today. Then again, that’s probably because I decided to cinch my “waist” (aka the narrow space that’s left between the boobs and a belly) with a snakeskin belt in an effort to feel a bit more fashionable. The effort might have been worth my heifer feelings if my flat iron had decided to work this morning. And, no, I didn’t drop it in the bathtub. It just decided not to get hot. So now my hair is pulled back in a nub with about a billion pins. And no, you aren’t getting a picture.

Of course, I shouldn’t being calling myself a cow or a heifer. The Pampers Month 8 pregnancy e-mail I just got said I should view my changing body as “a soft, protective home for your baby.”

Easy for them to say.

Other Month 8 happenings:

• Your baby's brain is developing more folds and connections. Bones are hardening and the skin is getting thicker. If you're expecting a boy, his testes are moving into the scrotum now, although some boys' testes don't get there until their first birthday. Not what I wanted to know …
• Your little one is also putting on fat and getting chubby cheeks (both kinds). He's gaining about half a pound each week, bringing him to between four and six pounds. The fat stores energy for his trip through the birth canal. He may be preparing for the journey by pointing his head down. Yeah, he might be … if his head wasn’t stuck underneath my ribcage.
• Your baby sees a good amount of light now, so he's tuned in to the passing of day and night. He has clear, complex, and sustained sleep and activity cycles, often coordinated with Mom's rest and waking times. Some research suggests that dream sleep, called active sleep in the fetus and infant, begins at this stage.
• With more baby than amniotic fluid, there's not a lot of wiggle room in the womb. You feel those stretches and kicks. And you can see the movement too, since your uterus is thinner. How active your baby is now and how he responds to light, sound, and movement is somewhat a part of his personality. Great. He likes to stay up late and beat up his mom.

Weekly check-up: Feeling blue

Workout: 3.0-mile run with Denali.

Would it be wrong to decorate the nursery around a pair of running shoes?

I’m only being sort of serious. I swear. But when I saw this pair of New Balance (women’s shoes I might add), I got excited. The colors – the orange and blue – are the colors I had in mind for baby boy’s room in the new house. (On the house front, we got some unofficial good news.)

Tentatively, three of the walls will be painted blue and one will be painted orange as an accent. The furniture will be white, and I hope to do a fun, creative treatment with his name. 

 

Pregnancy: Week 25

Weight gain: Not tracking

Cravings: Milk and buttered popcorn

Crazy dreams: My mom (who’s dead) being pregnant

Running: Still going. 3 miles is about all we’re comfortable with and by “we” I mean Mark and my grandma. My pace is in the 10:15-10:30 range. It’s tougher but I don’t have that heavy feeling that I had been whining about.

Baby boy size: Eggplant – 13.6-14.8 inches and 1.5-2.2 pounds

Sea monkey features: That oh-so-handy sense of equilibrium is kicking in, and baby's learning to distinguish right side up from upside down.(From TheBump.com)

General feelings: I don't really have time to notice anything between my every 30-minute bathroom trips. Physically, I am more tired and I’m having a harder time getting up the steps. Emotionally, I’m a far nicer person than I was first trimester.

Make a run for it

I can run. I can run. I can run!

This morning was my dreaded 4-week check-up with the OB, the day I was sure he would steal my sneakers and send me to the pool.

So I wore ballet flats. And kept my mouth shut.

The appointment was at 9:15 a.m. and I sat anxiously in the waiting room, flipping through a Restoration Hardware catalog and dreaming of a backyard with beautiful furniture. When my name was called, I was ushered back for the usual - pee in a cup, stand on a scale, hold out arm for a blood pressure reading. All of which, by the way, were good. Well, the blood pressure, protein and sugar levels were in check. They made no mention of too much weight gain (for my mental well being, I am no longer monitoring that).

Then he came in. The decider of my fate ... or my slightly socially awkward doctor who also has red hair. Was I feeling the baby move? Yes. How did I feel? Good. Let's find the heart beat. OK. He's hiding so let me try here. OK. There he is. Good.

"Any other questions?" he asked.

Nope. None.

And with that, I was sent on my way with a paper giving me instructions for the glucose test I get to do at my next visit and a smile (unrelated to the glucose test). I made it without an inquiry or mention of my activity levels and made no request to limit exercise. Awesome!

Of course, I could be faulted for not asking but I figured he knew I was a runner and if he was concerned, he would have said something. Right? Right.

Now excuse me as I plot tomorrow's pre-haircut treadmill.

Weekly check-up: It’s a …

Workout: Ran 3.21 miles

Capris, ‘twas nice to wear you again.

It was 35 degrees and partly cloudy when I set out this morning, borderline capri weather. However, I was determined to wear them this week and I did – along with a long-sleeve top and thin jacket. No gloves. No hat. No ear covering (though that might have been nice). The sidewalks were clear save for a few rough patches at the park. I pretended it was spring. And I loved it.

We’re supposed to hit 49 today, with a low of 44, so I’m hoping that tomorrow I can not only wear capris but run somewhere other than the fancy boulevard and the park!

***

Yesterday was the big day - “Show Me Your Parts Day” – at the OB’s office. I could tell you the story about how I ate a cookie to give the baby a sugar high (aka get him/her moving) or how Mark met me there or how the baby looked sort of creepy – like a dancing Halloween skeleton.

Or, I could just tell you what you want to know … what we all wanted to know.

Please cue the video to 3:59.

Did you watch it? Did you?

So, yes, it’s a boy! He’s healthy with two arms, two hands, two legs, two feet, a beating heart and, of course, one … well, you know. Mark and I are both excited though I think Mark is more excited than I am. Something about having a boy boosts a guy’s manhood and pride. It’s like they did something right. Whatev.

While Mark was basking in his “accomplishment,” I was being taken down a notch by the doctor. I asked, because my grandma will ask me later, if it was still OK to run. I was expecting his normal encouragement but instead I got a very vague response that boiled down to “not much longer.” I tried to assure him that I was running slower over a shorter distance and fewer days a week. He nodded as if it was OK but not before asking: “Can you speed walk?”

I bet you know my answer. So, I’m running. For the next four weeks, at least (that’s when I see the doctor again). It’s a bit hard to swallow that my desire to be be one of those Runner’s World chicks who run till 8, even 9, months probably won’t work out. I’m hoping, instead, that he’ll let me go through to the end of my second trimester.

How far along: 19 weeks

Weight gain: 13 pounds (within normal range)

Cravings: Can I say cookies? HA! Actually, I’m wanting for nothing specific. I am eating pretty much as I did before being pregnant except that I’m eating more.

General feelings: The fatigue of the first trimester has dissipated, and I can now stay up to 10 p.m. to watch all of “The Biggest Loser.” Except last night – I fell asleep on the couch at 9 p.m. as I watched the Westminster Dog Show.

Sea monkey FAQ: Now the size of a mango, Vernix caseosa, a greasy white substance made of lanugo, oil, and dead skin cells (yum) now coats baby's skin, shielding it from the amniotic fluid.

The weekly check-up: Bump it up

Workout: Walk with Denali and 60-minute Vinyasa Flow yoga class

Two people at work - count them 1-2 - this week have said something to the effect, "Look at you! You're getting a belly."

Well, gee, thanks. I appreciate you pointing out that I'm a little rounder these days. It makes me feel oh so good. By the way, have I told you that you look like you packed on a few pounds? Maybe you shouldn't have gotten that Snickers bar from the vending machine. Just sayin'.

All right. Breathe.

Now that the snark is out - for now - I can revel in the humor that is people telling me I'm getting a belly. I know they are only doing it because I'm knocked up but I'd never tell a friend that it looked as if she put on a few pounds.

I would, however, tell Mark. I mean look at him.

From our 2008 honeymoon in Cancun

Just kidding. Here's the picture you really wanted to see ...

Where did this come from? I must have had a big dinner!

Pregnancy status: 16 weeks

Weight gain: 8 pounds (I'm not sure what happened this week but 3 pounds of my worrisome 11 just disappeared.)

Cravings: Cantaloupe, V8 and grape soda

Crazy dreams: Last night, it was that I had a baby girl who had very feline features. Every time I tried to pick her up, she scratched me.

Sea monkey size: Avocado (I'll never look at guacamole the same way!) - 4.5 inches and 3.5 ounces

Sea monkey features: Tiny bones forming in baby's ears mean he can now pick up your voice. A few more minuscule changes: Eyebrows, lashes and hair are starting to fill in, and taste buds are forming. (From TheBump.com)

General feelings: I don't really have time to notice anything between my every 45-minute bathroom trips. Generally, I'm good - less tired, less ravenous and fewer headaches.

And, in case you were curious, I've added a new page (under the header) where I talk about my efforts to have a healthy pregnancy. It's a work in progress and will be updated.

Also, if you hate preggo updates - let me know. I bore myself with talking about pregnancy sometimes and would hate to do it to you.