The YMCA Christmas Run is an absolutely great way to kick of the holiday season. Nothing beats catapulting into the holiday spirit while burning a few calories right along side some fun-loving fellow runners and walkers.
4:52am. The iPhone alarm begins to chime. I press snooze. 5:00am. Try again. I rub my eyes and get out of bed. I try and focus my eyes while I have my moment in the bathroom. There is a slight stirring in the nursery. She knows I need her. A light from the other room [...]
Jan was an amazing woman and was always there to listen and offer advice. She was a domestic goddess and a very organized working mom who worked as a lactation nurse. One of my favorite Jan stories was one time when we were running she was talking about her long day the day before and how she was so exhausted and wanted to do nothing more than just put her feet up and relax. She continued by saying, “but, we were out of orange juice so I had to go the grocery store.” I must have given her a look like, “Are you crazy woman? You were exhausted and went to the grocery store for orange juice?!?!” I don’t know why of all of the memories, this story is most memorable…probably because to me, it defined Jan.
A post giving you a “how to” get back into shape postpartum is a bit premature because I am so far from in shape at the moment. I am, however, giving it a valiant effort and will share with you what I have been doing. Before my doctor gave the okay to exercise again, it [...]
If you have been reading this blog for awhile or know me personally, you probably already know that I like goals. They make me tick. They give me something to look forward to, to work for…I dig them.
Sometimes when goals are lofty, I break them down into smaller goals that when combined and achieved together achieve the greater goal.
Running a marathon, for example, is really three separate races to me: the first ten miles, miles 11-20 and the last 6.2. If I look at it as a full 26.2, it can seem unachievable, but broken down…let’s do this thing.
I also create mental rules for myself. For example, if while running a long run, I am tired, I know I can always make it eight more minutes without stopping. Eight minutes is nothing, I must keep going if I have less than that amount of time left. When running marathons, this can be increased to even eight miles. Once I make it to 18.2 miles of a marathon, there is no quitting…
And since I like goals, I like to measure progress towards goals. Sometimes during a run, I will spend upwards of half the run doing mental math problems figuring out what fraction of the progress I have made.
I am running five miles which will take me 45 minutes at a nine minute pace, and I am 12 minutes into the run, so I am 12/45 reduced to 4/15 of the way through the run.
If you see me running, making what looks like a gang sign, it is probably just the finger configuration for 9 * 7 (hold both hands up facing your face, put the seventh finger from the left down and you get 63…it works for all of the 9′s times tables.) Even though I have a minor in math, my mind sometimes gets tired when running so I resort to the 9′s trick with my hands.
Anyway, so my point. Today I am at a milestone in this pregnancy which I am very excited to reach. Of course, I am thrilled that this wee babe of mine that I have been nurturing for nearly 26 weeks could likely survive outside of my body, if needed, but that is not what I am talking about.
Nope, the excitement, the hype is being generated over something much more arbitrary than that. Today I break the 100 days left mark. I have 99 days until my due date! Doesn’t double digits just seem so much more doable?
The funny thing is that even with my terrible memory which is even more terrible when I am pregnant, I vividly remember breaking this arbitrary goal with my first pregnancy. So yes, it really does mean something to me.
Standing with Andy in front of a wooden podium with the letters “CONCIERGE” engraved in black on a golden nameplate, I asked why it was so impossible to get into the Indian restaurant as well as the dozen other restaurants which had already been ruled out by the woman on News Years Eve.
“No way can you get reservations there.”
“But we are going to eat at 5:30pm and will be finished before 8. Who does that on New Years Eve except foreigners with toddlers with 7:30pm bedtimes and grandparents watching the kid before they go out for their New Years Eve dinner.”
“I am sorry miss, those places needed to be reserved days ago.”
“Fine, what is available?”
Looking annoyed, the short Mexican woman with dark red lipstick and her hair tightly pulled back in a ponytail began to consult her computer.
I started to feel lightheaded. We had just finished a hard fought run on the beach, our last for quite some time with the baby coming and no new beach vacations penciled in on our newly unwrapped and displayed 2011 calendars.
I scanned the lobby looking for a place to sit myself including my extra 18 pounds of baby and pregnancy weight. What looked like an accessible chair turned out to be behind a barrier I didn’t want to scale so I desperately returned to Andy’s side. In an unintended bitchy tone, I directed him to choose where we were going to eat and then communicated that I didn’t feel well and needed the key to the room. He responded, “Do you want me to get you a Coke?” to which I replied that there was water in the room and then took off to the hotel elevator.
He knows the drill. He came to my rescue when I was pregnant with Belén after a similar desperate, dramatic instant message, when I was sitting at my desk, white as a ghost, mind in a psychedelic wind tunnel only accessible by drunk dreams or extreme bodily conditions, sweat coating my face. On that day, we learned how to deal with situation. Cool off, hydrate, consume sugar and use the restroom.
Once back in the room, I parked it on the toilet and opened a can of Coke from the minibar. Why oh why does this urge to pass out couple itself with needing to use the bathroom? I felt slightly better. I immediately began to wonder if there was any way in hell I could possibly handle natural child birth if an urgent bowel movement rocks me so hard.
After round two, Andy returned to the room with two packages of gummy bears and a can of Coke in hand. He should be moving in lockstep with Pope John Paul II towards canonization.
A can of coke, two packages of gummies and a half of package of our favorite “Japanese style” Mexican coated nuts, a delicacy we have no idea how it has not made it’s way to the United States, I was experiencing the greatest sugar high in recent memory. Talk about going from a low of lows to walking on the clouds. I was never going to want to come down.
I took a shower to wash off the layer of salt and sweat acquired from running next to a content turquoise ocean at which time I came up with a name for our baby which Andy was sure to love.
As I dried off, I pitched the name. “What about Ahnalee?”
Andy said, “Nope.”
And then we both proceeded to sing “Puff the Magic Dragon” the remainder of the day.
As you know, exercise is important to me and that doesn’t change when I am pregnant. In fact, I think exercise is even more important when you are pregnant because your body is changing so rapidly and you need to keep your muscles toned and strong to support all of the changes and also get you ready for the birthing process. It also helps you bounce back post-birth more quickly if you were toned and healthy going into it.
But you have to change how you go about it. Many of my hard core running friends have commented that they can tell when they are pregnant even before the test comes back positive because they notice their running is affected and it suddenly becomes harder. The thought of waiting to tell your running partners you are pregnant until after the first trimester is almost impossible because they will notice something is up much sooner than that.
I feel very fortunate to have a doctor who shares my beliefs about exercising while pregnant and does not place what I feel are unnecessary restrictions on me to error on the side of caution. I also do not take advantage of that and try not to push it too much. You are pregnant for goodness sakes, if ever you had an excuse to slack a bit on the exercise, now is the time to play that card.
Here are the “rules” I follow for exercising while pregnant. These have been compiled from likely dozens of sources as I read articles or have conversations with fellow workout enthusiasts and been modified to fit with how I feel while pregnant. Please note that I am not a medical professional so check with your doctor on your workout plan of attack while pregnant.
1. Don’t go anaerobic.
This morning I ran Hulls Gulch with my friend Lindsay (behind our other friends). It was great to get out there even though I reluctantly left my bed at 6:10 am on a Saturday. Lindsay is eight months pregnant and I can barely keep up with her, she is truly amazing. I am hoping that [...]
We began to work our way down to the waterfront and the series of numbered piers and night began to fade to morning.
