There are many things I like about running, and probably one of its biggest attributes — one of the things that has kept me coming back for more, day after day, month after month, year after year — is its versatility. You don’t necessarily have to have a race on the calendar to run, nor do you necessarily have to be “training” for some sort of timed event, like a time trial, to commit to the sport. Sure, sometimes having these obligationscommitments opportunities on our calendars can nudge us out the door when it’s inconvenient to go for a run — when we’d rather be sleeping or being lazy or staying away from shitty weather, for example — but at the end of the day, I think one of the best things about running is that if you run, if you put one foot in front of the other and, generally speaking, propel yourself in a forward motion, you’re a runner. You don’t need to run a timed race (or hell, a watch or running clothes, or running shoes, or running *anything*) to make it as part of your identity. You can run for the hell of it, and that’s a-okay.
Of course, if you like to write about your running, as I do, and you’re *not* actively in training mode, it can make for some pretty long absences in your blog … or some dull reading of the stuff that you do write (and publish). o_0
The pregnancy is moving right along, and as of now, I’ve got just two races left on my calendar before my August due date — ZOOMA’s Napa Valley half marathon in late June, when I’ll be about 31+ weeks, and the 5k during The San Francisco Marathon’s weekend in late July, when I’ll be 36+ weeks (!), though obviously both will be races in name only and not in, uh, reality, I guess. At this stage in my life, I can say that I’ve run two marathons, a 50k, and 2 5ks pregnant, but never that late in the game, so we’ll see how it all shakes out over the final trimester. It should be fun … “should” being the operative word here. 🙂 Time will tell.
I’ve written it before, earlier in this pregnancy, but I cannot thank my lucky stars enough that I have been feeling sufficiently healthy and strong and well enough, more often than not, to be able to continue to run through my pregnancy. I’m not breaking any records, my volume is maaaaaybe a third of what it usually is, I haven’t done a legit speed workout in forever, but despite all of this, I seriously cannot express how stupid happy-excited-elated I am at the end of nearly every.single.run I can post while pregnant. Seriously. I’m usually pretty happy after a run, but these days, it doesn’t matter if I go run 3, 5, 12 miles, whatever, because by the time I finish, I am so stupid-giddy about it that I feel like I’m doing all of this stuff for the first time again.
It’s endlessly amusing.
always with the cheesy smile during these ‘running for the hell of it’ miles, even during a solo Sierra 11-mile summit. admittedly, I haven’t been to my home hills of AR since mid-March and really need to get back before the pregnancy makes me waaaaaay too imbalanced for some good climbing action … even if I only go and post a few very, very slow trail miles.
Most of the time, pregnant or not, I don’t look at my watch while I run and instead go exclusively on feel (and by terrain — I’m a fan of working with gravity and can’t recommend it enough), and even on the days where the run is initially uncomfortable because Kiddo Dos is seemingly straight chillin’ entirely on my right side (ahem, today, hi in there! I feel you!), I’m still so happy to be out there, doing what I love, that I’m sure that the shiteating-grin on my face only distracts passersby momentarily from my ever-growing midsection that, uh, attractively, more often than not, is hanging out between the tops of my shorts and the bottom of my top because I refuse to buy running clothes that I’ll only wear when I’m pregnant.
Don’t get me wrong, I feel like I already look like a tank (ah, the joys of subsequent pregnancies and getting huger earlier), and I’m to the point in my pregnancy where my belly actually gets in the way when I try to bend over to pick things up off the floor … as well as the point when random strangers on the street either look at me like I’m crazy when they see me running [PSA: don’t be that person] or, conversely, offer me some solid fistbumps and congratulatory shouts [PSA: be that person] … but dammit if you don’t see me running without a smile on my face because I *get* to do this stuff, still.
All these pregnant miles, these “running just for the hell of it” miles have been so good to me and for me and so mentally refreshing that I would falter more than I would be able to adequately convey my appreciation of them. I’m fortunate to not have much of an injury history, but I imagine that pregnancy miles are kinda like the coming-back-from-injury miles, when you’re just so happy to be out there that you really don’t give a damn about your pace or distance or any other metric that you’d usually obsess over. If you want to run .5 mile, 1 mile, 5 miles, 10 miles, whatever, and you feel well, you do; so it is with pregnancy running.
Each day is a new adventure, each mile some potential new opportunity, and being able to partake in new adventures and opportunities each week — regardless if it’s twice a week, seven times in a week, significantly slower or just about the same pace as my non-pregnant running — it all just effing rules. Scratch that; it’s fucking fantastic, my friends.
running on Mother’s Day with my girl — pretty awesome stuff. the best type of “running for the hell of it” miles.
I don’t coach, and I try not to be too didactic with the stuff that I write on here, but I will say this — I cannot recommend having some periods of “for the hell of it” miles in your running career. I won’t prescribe if it should be every year, so many times in a given month, between seasons — all that stuff you can decide for yourself — but I will say that having this period in my running career at least twice now, during both of my pregnancies, has been deeply gratifying, refreshing and just plain fun.
It’s easy to get into nothing but grind mode and hammer-hammer-hammer every single run, every single week, and usually, that’s how I roll, too, but sometimes, slowing down, running less frequently, maybe running fewer miles, can be good for the soul. This is a concept that might sound sacrilege, and I get it — I have thought this way before, too — but truly. Consider it.
If nothing else, I imagine that it’ll give you a good reminder of why and how you became enamored with this sport in the first place and why you keep returning, running back, for more.
Sometime late in 2014, I applied to be a social media ambassador for the San Luis Obispo (SLO) marathon + half marathon weekend, scheduled for late April ’15. Still being new to CA, these social media opps are a really easy way for me to meet other CA-based runners, and generally speaking, I will gladly race for free if given the chance. My intention and initial registration indicated that I would be running the full — my 26th marathon! — but after I learned that I was pregnant and would be 6 months/24 weeks come race day, I really wasn’t all that interested in running 26.2. I filed this under just because I *can* do something, doesn’t mean that I *should* do something … and at the risk of sounding like a complete ass, I wasn’t interested in running more than a 3:30 full. In addition, as the pregnancy has progressed, I didn’t know that I’d even be able to run at all by my 6th month — pregnancy kinda does whatever it wants, folks — so I just kinda figured I’d “train” to be aerobically capable of running 13.1 and if I felt well in the days and weeks preceding the race, I’d pregnant-yog 13.1; if my body were giving me um hell no signals, I wouldn’t run anything and would just defer to ’16 but still partake in the weekend’s non-running festivities. Fortunately, my pregnancy has been smooth, and “training” was fine, so I felt pretty confident that I’d be able to run 13.1 come race morning, barring catastrophe.
The nice thing about being a social media ambassador for a race, aside from the obvious perks like comped registration, is that once you can convince some friends to partake in the festivities, things become a lot more fun, and the race is practically a backdrop. Chicago galpal Erica, whose work is based out of the Bay Area, decided she’d be all in for a weekend at SLO and not only brought along her super sweet Chicago-based friend, Meryl, but also housed the three of us, plus my SJ-based friends Paulette (another TSFM & SLO ambassador) and her husband Kevin at E’s mother-in-law’s vacation home on the beach of Cayucos, CA, about 20 minutes or so from SLO. Twitter/Strava and SF-based buddy Travis and his girlfriend, Jen, were also in on the weekend fun, and together with Travis, Erica, and another TSFM friend, Tricia, we were the mega cool Team Rainbows and Unicorns.
southbound view from our Cayucos digsnorthbound
Saturday – race expo, ambassador meet-up, and really good food
SLO’s +/- 200 miles from SJ, and late on Friday, as I was getting ready to leave, I learned that I’d be on my own for the weekend because both A and C opted to stay behind. To say I was pretty surprised is a bit of an understatement, especially since most of the time, I can’t go to the bathroom without a little three year-old following me in, just to check on things and keep me company because she “likes to spend time with [me].” (aw)
Anyway, after a late drive on Friday and eventually falling asleep to the sounds of the ocean — which was as lovely as you can imagine — Erica and I drove over to the expo at the iconic and kinda wild Madonna Inn on Saturday morning to meet-up with Travis and Jen for an ~5 mile shakeout around the Madonna property and on a bike path nearby. From what we could see, SLO was gorgeously situated in the central valley, buttressed by perfectly golden (though drought-laden) hills. We’d become even more familiar with those hills nestled in the valley on race day …
Saturday shakeout (PC: Erica)
After the shake-out, I had a quick ambassador meet-and-greet and enjoyed reconnecting with some Bay Area-based runners, many of whom I knew from TSFM. Yay, social media! Yay!
with Charles (SF), Laura (Oakland), and Paulette (SJ), all Bay Area-based SLO and/or TSFM ambassadors
part of the SLO ambassador group. My pregnant midsection looks like it’s knockin Charles in the noggin .
Erica, Paulette, Kevin, and Meryl and I were in and out of the expo fairly quickly, stopped by The Natural Cafe for lunch (which, by the way, it’s awesome and vegan-friendly; the tempeh tacos were delish), went back to the property in Cayucos to get cleaned up, and then met Travis and Jen back in SLO at Sidecar for our senior-special 5pm dinner (and similar to TNC, Sidecar was great; the vegan hash was superb, and everything you read on Yelp about their brussel sprouts is true … even coming from someone who generally doesn’t enjoy them). Soon enough, all of us sans Travis and Jen were back in Cayucos and in bed by 9pm for a cough 3:30 cough wake-up.
Sunday – Race day!
When I’m not pregnant, life dictates that I routinely run predawn and am out the door sometime in the 4 o’clock hour, necessitating a 3:xx wake-up. It doesn’t matter how many times you do that, though; a 3:xx wake-up is super fucking early! Erica, Paulette, Kevin and I figured that we would catch the final shuttle bus that left Cal Poly (in SLO) around 4:45 — which would still put us at the start line shortly after 5am, even though none of us 13.1 runners would begin our race until 6:45 — and our plan went over swimmingly. What I’m still smacking my head about is the fact that it didn’t occur to any of us to look at a map and see what the distance was like between the shuttle bus loading area and the starting line drop-off area; had we done that, we would have learned that it was only 1.5 miles away — something that we could have easily jogged (or walked) as a warm-up — and given ourselves probably an hour (plus!) more of sleep. Ah well, live and learn. Getting over to the starting line as early as we did meant that we had lots of time to hang with other runners/ambassadors, chat up other Bay Area-based pacers (many from the RA group here!), get in a proper warm-up, and see off Travis, who’d be starting the full at 6am. Fortunately, the time passed by relatively quickly, and soon enough, it was our turn to go.
ready.26.2 start at 6am
If you’ve been following along here for the duration of my pregnancy, I’m surely sounding like a broken record by now when I talk about what it has been like to run (and race and train) while pregnant. My resounding echo has been that I find it all rather refreshing — to basically let go of PR attempts and the training grind that I’m so accustomed to — and just run (and race and train) for nothing but my love of the sport and my appreciation to be able to do so while growing a fetus. That said, when I figured that I’d be able to pregnant-race SLO, my only legit goal was to enjoy the experience and the change in scenery. If everything felt great, I’d prefer *not* to PW (personal worse, a new verb) my 13.1 on the course, but if I had to, I’d have absolutely no problem putting aside my ego for my/my fetus’s health (duh). I figured my fitness pointed to a 1:55 +/- finish, but again, if anything felt off or shitty during the race, I would gladly accept that PW or DNF like a champ if need be. It is slightly weird to go into a race with this mentality — well shucks, I’ll just go as slowly as possible or drop out if I feel like shit, and I’ll still be a winner! — but whatever. Long term view and perspective on running (and health, and pregnancy, and pretty much anything meaningful) > short term, any day of the week, in my book.
Those beautiful, drought-laden hills I mentioned earlier, as well as their sisters some long-ass residential hills, constituted a lot/most of the HM course. My Garmin indicated almost 700′ in elevation, and I think the full runners had something over 1,200′. For a road race, for 13.1 or for 26.2, that’s no joke! The first three miles of the HM were through SLO’s super-cute, college town-y downtown, before we began the peaks and valleys, peaks and valleys, rinse and repeat cycle on the back country roads that abutted those beautiful Central Valley hills. I knew that the course would be hilly, but hello nurse was it ever.
c/o my garmin
On the (multiple, long-ass) hills, I focused more on even effort than on even pacing because this seemed to be the most sensible thing to do. I didn’t even bother to peer at my watch on the ascents because I knew no good would come from it — because Garmin doesn’t measure ‘effort’ — so I planned to just work with gravity on the ascents and descents. I had an interesting encounter running up a very long ascent in mile 4, wherein I was near, and eventually behind, a man I named The Grunter who was grunting so hard (and heartily, and frequently) that runners several paces ahead of us actually turned their heads to look at him, probably to ensure that he wasn’t going into cardiac arrest or something. He said something nonsensical, to which I could only reply hey man, what goes up has gotta come down, just go by effort on these and tried to get outta dodge from him. I’m kinda curious about his race strategy; maybe the grunting was like some sort of I am a strong man! mantra or something that he needed to vocalize …
Once we were on the back country roads, the HM became more or less an out-and-back and turned at mile 7 and change. I enjoyed the OAB because I saw pro runner Ben Bruce — who’d go on to win the half — his wife, pro runner and 5 mos. pregnant Stephanie Rothstein Bruce — who’d also go on to win the half on the women’s side (and with whom I shared a side-5 and a pregnant runners are awesome! catcall) — and then Erica and Kevin. Once I was on the ‘back’ side of the course, I enjoyed looking for other racers I knew and cheering for folks accordingly.
The final 3 miles were different from the first 3, and after a little descent, we eventually got onto a bikepath for a mile or so before having to run on a bridge — Chicago runners, think N Ave bridge, but with 3 or 4 levels … hard right, hard left, hard right, hard left, hard right, hard left, over the RR tracks, and then down on the other side — which was a bit annoying and disheartening because of the imminent pace breaking (and braking) it necessitated. Once we were off the bridge, though, we just had a little bit of SLO downtown/residential neighborhoods remaining before going up a this-feels-stupidly-steep-but-really-isn’t hill for a few hot seconds on that bikepath outside the Madonna Inn that Erica, Travis, Jen, and I had run on Saturday and a .5 or so descent into the finish line. Downhill finish FTW for sure, though not before I muttered a few hearty motherfuckers at that multi-level bike bridge and at that little incline outside the Madonna.
Throughout the race, I barely looked at my watch, but the few times that I did, I figured that barring catastrophe, I could pull off a 1:55 pretty handily. I felt so great! I let as many people as possible pass me, knowing that I’d try to pass many of them back on the final few miles of the course. Even on the never-ending ascents, I felt way stronger than I anticipated I would, and it was just all so … fun. #SLOfun. 🙂 Eventually, toward the end of the race I was even thinking that I could pull a sub-1:50 if I felt pretty good and depending on what was left on the course (read: how much more climbing we’d be doing) … and yes, it happened! 1:49:48 for 13.19, and I finished the thing with a smile on my face, feeling like I’d be good for another hour or so of running, and with everything feeling as okey-dokey as it did when I awoke at 3-freaking-30. Honestly, I know I’m not breaking records here or anything, but to have that much fun and to feel that good and strong over 13.1 hilly road miles at 6 months pregnant, carrying at least 15 more pounds than usual?! I was floored! (splits)
Soon after I finished, everyone connected and raved about the challenging course. Erica and I went over to meet and chat with a very gracious Steph Bruce about her race, her pregnancy, and what it’s like to be a pregnant professional runner. She was so sweet and down-to-earth and surely thought we were crazy but didn’t let on at all.
very sweet lady.slightly awkward picture. note the drastic differences between a 20 week pregnant pro runner and a 24 week pregnant non-pro runner. also: Clifton love!
It was a great morning for everyone: Erica eventually learned that she pulled 2nd in her AG; Paulette had her second fastest HM ever (and broke 2 hours!); Kevin, Charles, Laura, and Tricia all ran strong races (the first post-injury bouts, for some); Travis dominated on the super-tough 26.2; and generally speaking, the post-race mood was cheery. Add the lovely mood to a sunshiney (and windy) morning, with the beauty of the Central Valley, to a backdrop of a well-organized 13.1/26.2 race … no complaints.
the gang! Meryl, Jen, Travis, Erica, Kevin, Charles, Paulette, and me
Overall, I really enjoyed my SLO half marathon race experience. The HM course is challenging and hilly, but I think it’s still possible to run well here, provided you train accordingly. The race had nice premiums (a red long-sleeve tech shirt, personalized bibs, unique medals), and the outdoors expo and after-race party were chill and enjoyable. This was only the race’s fourth year, and I think that its popularity will soon expand beyond the regional confines of the Central Valley here in CA. I’m really happy to have been able to run this race during my pregnancy (and to have so much fun in the process!), and I think this half would be worth repeating (not pregnant), should I decide not to tackle the full instead next year.
And yup, even though SLO comped my race registration for the half marathon as part of the social media ambassador program, the views are my own. It’s a good race. Look into it.
