I’m fairly certain that we’re already in or are quickly rounding bases into the second trimester, which is exciting for all the obvious reasons. Particularly as it relates to my little blog and to the “runner” part of me, rounding second has been super exciting because it has been within the past few weeks that I’ve begun to feel more like myself and that, namely, going for a run has become part of my routine again. And let me tell you– it is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.
I alluded to this in an earlier post, but some of my most cherished memories from my running have come from the miles I logged when I was pregnant with A between 2010-11. Sure, running while pregnant and having to deal with the fun things like ever-growing knockers (which always sound like a lot of fun until it actually happens, and then it’s just a huge pain in the ass), an ever-growing belly that arrives at places before the rest of you does, or, at the time, running so many pregnant miles during a Chicago winter and having to contend with snow and ice with a body that was no longer exclusively mine… but … but … I’ll tell you why it was awesome.
Snowmaggedon in Chicago in ’11 was the last time I was on a treadmill. Snow running rocks… but it’s a touch more challenging pregnant. Pictured here: lovely LSD. (cred: Chicago Tribune)
Running while pregnant was awesome because it was one of the few times in my running tenure wherein I wasn’t training for something so much as I was just running for the hell of running. I knew I’d get bigger, and heavier, and slower, and that of course, all those challenges would affect my running over the subsequent months of my pregnancy.
This is the thing, though — I didn’t care.
Every day, I found myself a little more pregnant than I was the day before, so whatever I could do that day–if it were a 4 mile run at 9 minute miles or a 3 mile run at 13 minute miles in ankle-deep snow–they were all victories. They were all like little milestones, uncharted territory into which I had never yet ventured, and the feeling of excitement and joy and, let’s be honest, pride, was pretty cool and were feelings I hadn’t really experienced in several years since getting into marathoning back in ’07.
Not many of my friends have children, especially my female runner friends, so this concept might be a little hard to grasp. Both with A and now, with kiddo dos, running while pregnant, and being able to celebrate the sheer fact that I feel well enough to do it, makes me think a lot about when I was marathon training for the first time. Every weekend, a long run became a new milestone. I had never before run 10 miles… and then suddenly, I did. I had never before run a half marathon… and then suddenly, it happened. I wouldn’t even drive 20 miles if I didn’t have to (god, I sound like my father), but guess what? I ran the damn thing. Willingly.
Even though I’ve been pregnant before, the novelty of being able to run while pregnant with kiddo dos hasn’t worn off, nor do I think it really will. Pregnancy is such a cool and weird-as-hell process. You really have no idea how you’re going to feel each day, regardless of how you felt with previous pregnancies (if you had any) or even how you felt just the day before. Just because I ran through almost all of my pregnancy with A doesn’t mean that I think I’ll be able to do the same with kiddo dos. I would absolutely love to, don’t get me wrong, but these days, I’m running without expectations… and it’s just lovely.
If, on a day that I penciled in a run, I wake up and feel like a million bucks, you better believe that I’m that girl running down the streets or trails here with the biggest shit-eating grin on my face that I’m feeling well enough to be able to run.
shit-eating grins are the best. On a run in Willow Glen last Saturday to promote the 408k. (cred: Bertrand)
more of the shit-eating variety. from Saturday’s 6’er with fellow Wolfpack Isaac (right) and a Taji 100 supporter. Hoka should pay us for the free advertising. (cred: Bertrand)
And if the contrast happens, if I wake up and feel like ass on a day that I would have liked to run, then no matter. I’ll try again tomorrow. NBD.
While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that everyone get pregnant just so they could try to run through their pregnancy (because wtf, who would ever say that?), I would say that for me at least, it was nice back in 2010-11 and then again, in 2015, to have this little phase in my running that has been punctuated less by training for a killer marathon PR or distance record and more by just simply running without expectations, just running for the hell of running, just running because it makes me feel normal. I think some people achieve this phase by not signing up for an event for a while or by not wearing a watch and simply running by feel or by doing something outside the same ol’ routine, like switching from roads to trails or vice-versa. To each her own. At the end of the day, even though I know the postpartum comeback will be arduous, it is pretty refreshing to just run (and hopefully soon, race!) simply because running rocks, regardless.
I say this all the time, but here again, let me preface everything that I’m about to say with this because, hello, litigious society and the need to disclaim: everything I’m about to write–as well as every other word on this little blog of mine–is proprietary to me and my experiences. That’s it. Please don’t extrapolate and project my experience onto yours because YMMV. Pregnancy is very much an experiment of one, in terms of how greatly things can vary. Basically, please please please don’t be an idiot or irresponsible, and talk to your practitioner if you’re pregnant, wanting to get pregnant, or whatever and wonder how and if your running can intersect with your pregnancy. Please.
Phew. Alright. I know there’s no shortage of talk on the internet from bloggers, practitioners, and people who don’t shy from voicing their opinion on the matter when it comes to running and pregnancy–should you do it, how much, how often, what should it look like, what can it look like, do you need to stop when you’re approaching your due date–and I thought that I’d chime in with my own experiences.
When I was pregnant with A in 2010-11, I blogged pretty regularly (for me) and talked about what was going on with my body and how I was feeling, so now that I’m pregnant with kiddo dos, I figured it’d be worthwhile to compare my experiences and put it all out there. It’s probably more for my own edification than anything, but then again, what isn’t. 🙂
First, though, I’ll back-up and give you some maybe-but-probably-not-entirely pertinent information about our pregnancies. In both 2010 and just recently, in 2014, when we decided we wanted to start and then, subsequently, grow our family, I was on birth control of some manifestation: specifically, the ring and then a Mirena IUD. For both pregnancies, we stopped using birth control, I had exactly one super short cycle, like, barely 72 hours, and six weeks post-BC cessation, boom, I was pregnant. I know we’re super lucky in this regard and am quite thankful that both times we were able to conceive as quickly (and truthfully, pretty effortlessly) as we did. I know many people have to try for much longer to get pregnant, and some people’s practitioners will even go so far as to assert that there’s a connection between running/endurance stuff and difficulty conceiving. That hasn’t been the case for me either time around.
When I got pregnant in 2010, I was in the throes of marathon training for Chicago in October. Fun fact: we conceived right before–like, nights before–I flew from Chicago to run the San Francisco Marathon in late July. That was my girl’s first introduction to endurance racing 🙂
hey guess what, you’re pregnant! circa mi 25 at TSFM in ’10
As I said, I was in the throes of marathon training for Chicago, wherein I was going after my very ambitious sub-3:35 goal (I think), and when I found out I was pregnant, I was super excited and also (naturally) wondered how running and pregnancy would intersect… assuming they could and would at all. I continued with my training as prescribed, speed and distance stuff and all, in the first trimester, and in fact, a 20-miler that summer, the CARA Ready to Run run-the-entire-lakefront-path-from-north-to-south jaunt, was one of my fastest and strongest 20 milers ever at the time. It was unreal. I felt fantastic during my first trimester and if anything, I actually felt faster, lighter, and more efficient; it was like all that increased blood volume that comes with the first tri somehow gave me a set of wings or something.
one way to make a 20 miler FLY by is to tell your gaggle of Boston training buddies, at mile 3, that you’re about 7 weeks pregnant. love them!
Our midwife group in Chicago (amazing, by the way– you need a recommendation, you let me know) advised us that since I had been a runner for a long time pre-pregnancy, I could still safely continue to run for as long as I wanted and as long as I felt comfortable. With that, they gave me their blessing to run CM; I just had to be smart with my pacing and hydration (but really, who doesn’t have to be smart with pacing and hydration during a marathon?). By the time CM rolled around, I was about 10 weeks pregnant (+/-), and the day was atypically warm for Chicago in October, so I kept things comfortable and ran a low-4 marathon and just had a blast. I really didn’t care about missing my goal because a) pregnancy, b) warm day in October, and c) there will always be other marathons and future Chicago Marathons.
I ended up running through about week 36 of my almost-41 week pregnancy with A; by then, the anatomical changes that come with pregnancy and late in the third trimester necessitated that I shift from running–which was probably more like slogging–to power-walking. Running during pregnancy made me feel good, it made me feel strong, and it was just something I did because it was something I had always done. Of course, I got significantly slower over time, and since I was running through the winter and into May, dealing with the winter conditions in the midwest also added some nice challenges into the mix. I still ran some races pregnant for the hell of it (my memory is rusty, but I think it was a Trick or Treat Trot 10k, dressed up as Robin, at about 14-5 weeks; the Hot Chocolate 15k around 17 weeks; and a Santa Hustle 5k maybe about 20 weeks). In part, I credited my positive labor and delivery experiences (and relative speed therein, for a first timer) to being able to run and stay active for the entirety of my pregnancy.
this is actually a fantastic costume to run in, pregnant or not. That Batman feeling me up is my husband, don’t worry.
Hot Chocolate 15k in Chicago with a bunch of my Boston ’09 and ’10 training buddies. It was quite crisp that morning.
This time around, when I learned I was pregnant back in December, I quickly realized that, again, I somehow managed to get pregnant at the peak of my 50k training, if not specifically during one of my peak weeks. Crazy. Much like A, this little fetus has already been introduced to the world of endurance racing, a la long long long training runs and a trail 50k at around 4-5 weeks gestational age. 🙂
unknowingly 50k-ing with a buddy in my uterus
For the first half of my first trimester this time around, I felt great–completely unfazed. With A, I didn’t have hardly any of the classic first trimester annoyances like morning sickness, nausea, dizziness, headaches, indigestion, sleep issues, gastrointestinal issues, food aversions, a crazy/voracious appetite, or the opposite, a suppressed appetite. Anything I had was fleeting and more of a blip in my day (at the time, I was working FT, going to grad school FT, and still running a lot) and less of an oh-my-god-my-world-is-coming-to-an-end meltdown. I was confident that this time around, my first trimester experience would mirror that of my first first trimester experience… because really, why wouldn’t it? … and then reality smacked me in the fact with a good ol’ serving of vegan humble pie. A gooooood ol’ serving.
Everything that I just listed, all those first trimester PITAs? Yeah. That (and more) has been my jam for the second part of this first trimester, since about mid-December. It is a really, really weird feeling to be used to operating at 100%, 100% of the time, and then suddenly be relegated to just trying to stay horizontal, on the couch, with my eyes closed, in a cold and dark and quiet room, in the hopes that I can convince myself that I’m not going to throw up, I’m not going to throw up, the world isn’t violently spinning around, there aren’t screwdrivers digging in at my temples… as well as some more colorful things as well that you really don’t want to hear about. The good thing, of course, is that all of this stuff that my hormones have thrown at me over the past month+, the stuff that I was more or less spared during my first pregnancy, is all normal–yay raging pregnancy hormones!–and that’s what I care about. I can be miserable if it means that everything is healthy. Promise. I try to keep my bitching to a minimum because, guess what, it doesn’t make anything feel better.
Like many of you, on any given day, running for an hour, an hour and change, is no big deal. A 13-mile long run on the weekends is usually a cutback LR. We all have our usual paces, our usual routes, and know more or less how much distance we’ll be able to cover if we set out on a standard hour-long run or even a short two-hour LR. The past month has totally knocked me off guard, and many (most) days, I can’t even fathom running for an hour, much less doing any sort of LR, because I feel that outta whack. Of course, I know many women have far rougher first tris than me, and deal with it while still having a 9-5, if not also kid/kids at home, and seriously, I give you all my love and respect; for me, though, this is a brave and brand new world and one I can only hope to exit quickly and successfully with the advent of the (hopefully) honeymooning second tri. It is crazy. The human body–or I guess, more specifically, the pregnant body–is unreal.
While I’ll be honest and say that my usual motivation has dropped some–in large part because I know I’m just going to get bigger (read: heavier) and slower over time, regardless of any training “advances” I might make (which won’t happen, obviously)–at the same time, I feel actually pretty content about not running much or at all right now. I know that when I feel well, I’ll run again, and I’ll run at a pace and distance that feels comfortable because a) it’s good for my fetus and b) it’s good for me (and c) it’s good for my family, surely, because I’m more pleasant to be around post-run than I am when I’ve been trying to stay horizontal in a cold, dark, and quiet room all day).
I know some people are really concerned about running in the first trimester because of the potential to miscarry–not from running necessarily but just due to the higher chance of miscarriage in the first tri than in the other two–and I totally understand. I think that ultimately, you have to do what’s right for you and do what you and your practitioner have agreed will be right for you and your burgeoning family. Just because you can’t (or are choosing not to) run today doesn’t guarantee that tomorrow is a wash, too; you just have to listen to your body (and your practitioner) and take it a day at a time. Everyone is different; every pregnant body is different; every pregnancy is different.
While I’m itching to be back running on the regular, I’m also itching *more* to begin to feel human (or more specifically, more like myself) again on the regular. I’ve never had a serious injury during my marathoning tenure that has necessitated taking more than a day or two off, so while I can’t liken my somewhat self-imposed let-me-get-over-all-this-first-trimester-PITA timeout to that, I kinda have been thinking about it in those terms: that, while my spirit to run is (ever) present, my physical hormonal state is kinda precluding it. No matter. Just because it is today doesn’t mean it will be tomorrow…
…and the nice thing about running is that it will always be there for you tomorrow. The roads, the trails, your hills, your track: it’ll all be there, waiting patiently for you to give it whatever you got, whenever you’re ready to give it to it.
While I don’t have a lot to give right now, and most days, the very thought of even trying to give anything sends my mind into a whirl and makes the world feel like, yet again, it is spinning faster than I can lie down and convince myself you’re not going to throw up, you’re not going to throw up, this will pass, just close your eyes and imagine nothing but darkness, I very much look forward to the day(s) that I’m back out there, regardless if it’s tomorrow, or the next day, or the next week, or the next month. Some of my fondest memories from my running life have come from running while pregnant, and continuing to share that with kiddos dos in utero, just as I did with A nearly four years ago, is something I am eager to do. When that day/those days will manifest? Your guess is as good as mine. Until it happens, though, all I can do is wait this stuff out and, kinda like marathon training, trust in the process and take each day at a time, keeping my experience my own.
