Growing

     My belly has grown exponentially since last week.  Yes, pregnancy is a beautiful and natural thing, but in some regards, it’s absurd.  To grow at this rate is shocking, to say the least. 

     The size I’m at now is about the upper limit of my comfort level.  What’s concerning is I’m only halfway there.  This weekend marks my 20^th week of pregnancy with 20 more to go.  I really am scared about how big I’m going to get.  My goal is to run through my entire pregnancy, but I’m starting to think the physics of it all isn’t going to work.  I’m up about 20 pounds from racing weight (15 pounds from my comfortable weight).  That’s a lot considering I’m only 5’1”.  My joints are starting to complain about the added burden.  But the biggest hindrance is the back pain.  I’m all out of proportion and my back arches severely to manage the added frontal weight.  And it’s only going to get worse. 

A photo from 5 days ago.  I've grown about 4 inches in circumference since then.  

     There’s not really a how-to guide for training during pregnancy on the market.  I expect no one wants to touch that for fear of liability.  My plan is to do what feels good for as long as I can.  So far, I’m still able to run my regular distances and it feels okay.  I’m slower every day, but I’m still doing it.  Speed isn’t a factor in my current training plan.  Moving is. 

     I’m trying my best to stay confident that I can keep this running up as my shocking growth continues.  (Free advice:  Confidence is 9/10 of the game in running and probably in life.)   I have to admit, though, the confidence is wavering.  (20 more weeks?!?)  So far, I’ve run through half of my pregnancy and that’s no small feat.  However the bigger feat is yet to come.  (Did you catch the double entendre there?)  Even if today ends up being my last run until after baby comes, I’ll be happy with my accomplishments.  I cherish every run I finish now in a way I didn’t before.  Every time I beep on my Garmin, I know in the back of my mind that it might be my last run for a while.  The encouragement from my peers has been extremely helpful.  This morning during my long run, a friend reminded me “You’re growing life, woman.  Go easy on yourself.”  When I got home afterwards, Chris asked me how far I went.  It was only 7.72 miles.  He said, “That’s still 3 times farther than I can run.”  Sometimes I forget that distance running is a little extreme.  Distance running during pregnancy is even more so. 

     Pregnant running is giving me perspective for future training, post-baby.  It will seem easier, for sure.  My complaints won’t have a leg to stand on because I’ll be able to say, “At least it’s easier than pregnant running.”  In fact, it might give me an edge that a lot of other runners won’t have.  What I’m most looking forward to, though, is seeing and, more importantly, feeling my improvement.  I think about that a lot while I’m running to take my mind off the aches and the constant pressure on my bladder.  In the meantime, I’ve got to stay confident and keep moving through the discomfort.   Let’s see if we can make it to 7 months.  

Body Pump

Body Pump is a lot harder than it used to be.   For those of you who aren’t familiar with body pump, it’s a 60 minute, high repetition weightlifting class.  You can find out more here.  The class is great for cross-training.  I have fewer running aches and pains if I keep up with my body pump at least twice a week. 

Lately, though, it’s been wearing me out. 

Usually when I miss a week or two of class, the first time back is rough.  I’m sore and worn out . . . if not by the end of the hour, within two hours after the end of the class.  But the subsequent classes get easier as my body remembers the routine. 

That’s not happening anymore.  Every class in the last few weeks has been a challenge.  During class, I have to take breaks as my temperature and heart rate get too high and threaten light-headedness.  After finishing this afternoon’s class, I had to sit in the car for a few minutes waiting to recover before I felt comfortable enough to drive.  On one hand, I was happy that I had an effective workout.   I’m getting more bang for my workout buck.  On the other, I realized I’m going to be exhausted for the rest of the day.  

I’ve been finding the same result with running.  If you read my last post about Drew Hills, you know how much effort I put into that run.  The day after Drew Hills, I was useless.  Completely spent.   I’m still pleased with the workout, but I wished I would have had enough energy to get an easy run in the next day, too.  It didn’t happen. 

A cute picture of Daughter taken shortly before Body Pump today.  

I’ve been planning my workouts more carefully with this newly developed, post-workout, intense fatigue.  I skipped my long run this past weekend because I needed a whole day to work on my thesis.  If I would have ran first, I would have been too tired for intellectual thought.  Even with a nap.  (See my post on Mental Fatigue) Husband tells me this tiredness will probably only get worse. 

Scheduling workouts has been a struggle.  My runs have been sporadic, which is SO unlike me.  (Ask my coaches.  During training, I don’t miss runs.  Ever.)  I’ve been doing pretty well with body pump classes.  I need to work harder at getting runs in.  Yet, at the same time, I feel like any kind of forward progress is good for me right now.  When I was pregnant with Daughter, I didn’t run a single mile.  Then 2 years later I ran a 3:35 marathon.  With this new baby, I’ve logged over 300 miles already.  I’m already in much better shape this time around.  On the days I miss a run for whatever reason (don’t want to be worn out, just ate, too exhausted from work . . .) I usually get a lake walk in.  This past week, I walked around Lake Harriet on 3 different days.  It makes me feel better.  It’s forward progress.

In the next few weeks, I plan to get back up to 3 runs a week while maintaining my 2 body pumps.  They may have to be lower intensity runs, but they will be runs.  A month from today, I will be submitting my thesis to my committee and will have a HUGE time suck taken away.  Then I’ll have nothing but time to run and lift and play with my 2 year-old and be tired.  I’m looking forward to it. 

Drew Hills

     I showed up to running club tonight expecting to do an easy run around Lake of the Isles and Lake Calhoun.  Turns out I read the email wrong.  The lakes were Monday’s workout that I skipped.  Tonight was Drew Hills.  When Coach Red first announced that, I turned to my friend, Jessika, and said, “Shit.  I didn’t know we were doing hills tonight.”  Without missing a beat, she came back with, “Oh yeah.  That’s why I came tonight.  I like Drew Hills.”

     I used to like Drew Hills, back when I was a front-of-the-pack runner.  In fact, Drew Hills is a bit nostalgic for me.  We used to do that workout a lot when I was in the intermediate group of running club, when I first joined up.  I was thrilled when marathon group ran Drew back in my first marathon training session.   Keep in mind I was a little fish among a sea of marathoners.  That first training session was intimidating, but that’s a post for another day. 

     We started out on the run and I beeped my Garmin on.  Jessika was nice enough to hang back with me for the 2 mile warm-up.  I thanked her for it and she reminded me that I ran with her when she was pregnant.  That’s one of my favorite things about running club:  Someone’s always got your back. 

     Even with Jessika’s company, I was getting frustrated with the run.  The rest of the group kept getting further and further ahead of us.  I was thinking it’s time for me to give up the club until post-baby.  I wasn’t sure there was a place for a pregnant gal in a running club.  Everyone else is training to get faster.  I’m just trying to finish the workouts, regardless of how slow I have to go to get there.  I’m just trying to hang in there so I can bounce back quickly after Baby is born. 

     We got over to Drew, on the far side of Cedar Lake.  Drew Hills is about a half-mile loop that has a smaller hill first and a more significant hill on the back end.  Then we run back down and do it again.  When we started the first repeat, Jessika took off ahead of me.  I was glad, I didn’t want to hold her back from the workout.  I ran the first 3 loops alone.  The nice thing about Drew, though, is that you keep seeing people the whole time you’re running.  In a .5 mile loop, you see everyone over and over.  I like that a lot.  Other clubbers kept yelling encouragements to me and I did the same.  Coach Red even shouted, “Looking good, you guys!” referring to me and the baby. 

     It didn’t take long for me to realize I was in the zone.  I felt good.  I felt great.   Instead of running the 3 loops I had planned on, I finished 5.  Sure, the last 20 yards of the second hill were torture, but I made it to the top, running, every single time. That’s all I can ask for. 

     While I was running in the zone tonight, I was contemplating the balance of pushing myself harder vs. taking it easy because of the pregnancy.  Pregnancy is notorious for giving women an easy way out of all things challenging.  For good reason.  But I wonder how necessary it is to take it easy all the time.  If I feel okay, shouldn’t I push myself a little harder and get outside of my comfort zone?  Won’t that help my fitness?  (Let me repeat the beginning of that phrase: if I feel okay.)

     I pushed myself tonight and I felt great.  It was just like the old days of running, when it was just me (before the baby).  I’m not as fast as I used to be, but the workout was just as rewarding.    

     I loved running tonight.  After the rocky start, the rest was perfection. 

TOLAC

     Trial of Labor After Caesarian.  That’s what the pregnancy specialists are calling me:  a TOLAC.  I met with the OB/GYN who performed my surgery this week.  My midwife clinic requires that I see an OB twice during my pregnancy.  Once at 16 weeks and again at 36.  I had a lot of anxiety going in for this TOLAC consult.  I didn’t like this woman the first two times I met her.  She was pushy and had no empathy.  I fully expected her to tell me that I should have another C-Section.  But surprisingly, she didn’t.  Rather, she offered that I was a perfect candidate for a VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarian).  At the time, I wasn’t convinced.  I was having moderate round ligament and adhesion pain that day.  Since then, though, her support has given me renewed confidence.   I might actually be able to pull this off. 

     Some of you may not know, but labor and delivery for my first born was lengthy and difficult.  Hard labor began on a Friday evening and ended the following Sunday afternoon via surgery.  Like all progressive women, I wanted my birthing process to be drug-free.  The amount of propaganda directed to pregnant women about how important it is to deliver naturally is overwhelming and I bought into it completely.  This, I believe, was one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in my life.    

     Daughter was nearly two weeks overdue, but I resisted getting an induction because I wanted a natural birth.   This was probably my first mistake.  Since Pitocin (an intravenous, labor induction drug) was lurking a couple days away, I decided to take matters into my own hands and attempt self-induction.  With castor oil.   This was probably my second mistake.   

     The castor oil seemed to work because I found myself in labor, but I’m not convinced my body was ready for it.  I labored at home all Friday night.  We went into the hospital the following morning.  I labored all day Saturday without any drugs, wandering the halls of Methodist Hospital.  It wasn’t until about 9 on Saturday night when the midwife checked me and said I had not progressed at all the entire day.  I’d checked into the hospital at 4 centimeters.  By Saturday night, after significantly longer, and more intensely painful contractions, I was still 4 centimeters.  This news was devastating.  That was the point at which I gave up.  I asked for an epidural and while they were administering it, Chris watched fireworks outside of the hospital windows.  It was the Fourth of July. 

     I rested all night with the comfort of the drugs.  By late morning, I’d progressed to 7 centimeters, but that’s as far as I would ever get.  My body shut down after that.  My midwife recommended a Caesarian.  By that point, I would have signed up for anything just to be done.  I was exhausted.  Chris was less sure.  He knew we both didn’t want that.  But because of the prolonged labor and my increased temperature, the medical staff was concerned that baby had contracted an infection and wanted to get her out. 

One of Daughter's first pictures.  Lots of wires and an IV hooked up to her.  

     Daughter was pulled out of my abdomen at 12:27 p.m. on Sunday, July 5^th, 2009.  (I still stand firm that I didn’t have a baby.  Someone pulled my baby out of me.)  She went immediately to the next room because of meconium and other concerns.  Chris got a glimpse of her first moments, but I never did.  I was trapped on the operating table getting put back together while Chris tended to our new little bundle of joy.  After she got cleaned up, Daughter was brought over to me.  My arms were still tied down because I was still in surgery.  I saw her for maybe a minute and then she was taken away to the NICU.  I wouldn’t see her again for hours and hours. She was in NICU and I was wheeled to a recovery room without the ability to move from my chest down.  

     I can say confidently that this waiting was the worst experience of my entire life.  It led to months of debilitating postpartum depression.  Instead of sleeping while the baby slept, I stayed up all night crying, grieving for the loss of those first critical hours of baby’s life outside of the womb.  I felt I hadn’t bonded with my baby because of the circumstance.  I felt cheated and robbed and helpless.  I desperately wanted a do-over.  

     It wasn’t until I joined Club Run that I started feeling like a normal person again.  Running has been my confidence, my discipline, and my release.  It has been one of the best experiences of my entire life. 

     My previous birth experience has led to some anxiety for this second pregnancy.  The last thing I want is to be put into that situation again.  Yes, Daughter was a perfectly healthy, beautiful baby.  I just want to be able to enjoy this new baby’s first impressions of his new world.  I want Baby to know who his mommy is right away. 

     So I am a TOLAC.  I’m going to try giving birth the better way this time around.  I have some things in my favor now.  The biggest, I think, is perspective.  I certainly have more knowledge now.  A close second is my distance running.  I was not a runner before my daughter was born.  In fact, I didn’t start until she was 6 months old.  I have confidence that my marathon running experience is going to be a helpful tool in the delivery room.   I have more practice with physical pain and endurance. 

     In the meantime, I’ll keep training.  I want this more than Boston.  

Mental Fatigue

                I’ve learned that racing makes me tired.  A no-brainer, right?  I always expected that running would make me physically exhausted.  What I didn’t expect is the mental fatigue that comes from endurance racing.  And this is something that’s very difficult to train.  The only way I’ve found to practice overcoming mental fatigue is actually racing. 

                What do I mean by mental fatigue?  Allow me to paint you a picture.  At the beginning of a race, I’m prepared.  I’ve done the training.  If things are going well, nothing hurts and the weather is favorable.  I have a goal time in mind and all of the tools to get me there: a good sense of my marathon pace (without using my Garmin), enough energy gels to get me through the race (Chocolate Outrage Gu, please), and my lucky pace band.  Mentally, I’m fired up.  I’m nervous and confident and over the top with excitement.  It’s this excitement that can lead to the demise of a race.  It’s easy to go out too fast when you’re so excited.   Running too fast at the beginning of a 26 mile race makes for a long and miserable morning.  In any case, my confidence is very high at the beginning of a race.

                As the race goes on, doubts creep into my mind like a forest fire gaining fuel:  Can I really do this?  Four hours is a long time to be running as fast as I can.  My knee hurts, should I walk for a while?   That person is in much better shape than I am.  The more physically expended I am, the worse the mental fatigue gets:  Why do I run these races?  This hurts so much!  I can’t make it one more mile.  When will it end?  I want to drop out.  I’m never going to do this again.  This is the worst idea I’ve ever had.  I can’t do this. 

                The mental battle is always worse than the physical one.  My body is trained to race 26 miles.  I put in the miles and the effort and my body knows what to do.  My mind doesn’t have that luxury.  It learns on the job.  Losing a positive attitude can ruin a race. 

                The other night at the hospital, I noticed my thoughts were taking a lot out of me.  I felt defeated and it reminded me of the dark side of marathon running.  I was exhausted.  On Wednesday morning, Leap Day, my alarm went off at 4:15 a.m.  We had to get mom up to the hospital in West Allis before 7.  It’s about an hour’s drive from my parents’ place.   It was a long day of waiting, worrying, and feeling helpless.   She was brought up to her room at 3:30 and was mostly out of it.  Between her bouts of nausea, she couldn’t keep her eyes open.  We roused her every 10 minutes to remind her to press her morphine button, but she learned how to do that without ever really waking up. 

                I insisted on staying the night and sent my family back home to Kenosha.  The recliner was comfortable enough and I didn’t have trouble dozing off, but the nurses and my pregnancy conspired to keep me awake.  It was during one of my many trips down the hall to the bathroom in the wee hours of the morning that I noticed my mind was swimming in negativity.  It was a perfect storm that left me a victim of my emotions:  extreme tiredness, a very stressful event (the undesired reshaping of my mother’s body), and the sensitivity of pregnancy.  I needed to get out of my thoughts, so I put on a movie.  I watched The Big Year on my computer and finally fell asleep for a good hour or two.  When I woke up, light was creeping in through the blinds.  I felt noticeably better.  Rest is a wonderful healer. 

My family the night before Mom's surgery.  Daughter is holding the remote for the camera.  She took this photo.  

                 I stayed at the hospital throughout the next day, catching a couple more hours sleep in the afternoon.  My brother took the night shift for Mom’s second night.  If I wasn’t pregnant, I would have insisted on staying again, but I was worried about baby not getting enough rest.   I slept the whole way home in the car that night.  Back at my parents’ house, I went through my bedtime routine, washing my face and brushing my teeth while I was half asleep.  I crawled into bed at 10 and finally broke down.  I grieved for my Mom.  Grief seems like the right word . . . Like when someone close to you dies, but you forget first thing in the morning when you wake up.  When you remember, the grief floods in painfully.  Mom looks entirely different now.  She has severe scars where her breasts used to be.  She was well-endowed (naturally, not by choice), so the wounds are significant.  I grieve for her loss. 

I can’t imagine Mom’s mental fatigue.  Right now, she’s struggling to get her health back.  Somewhere along the way, she’ll have to face the mirror.  She hasn’t taken a shower yet.  That will be a big shock for her, I’m sure.  She hasn’t taken in her new body yet the way I did when I helped her out of her hospital gown and into her post-mastectomy camisole.  I expect her emotional recovery will be much more difficult than her physical one.  Yes, she’s having reconstructive surgery, but that’s a process that takes many weeks. 

I have no doubt that Mom is going to get through this and be happier when it’s all over.  (She always wanted to be smaller.)  Much like a marathon – we’re always happiest when it’s all over.