Marathon Mom

For the past few weeks I have been feeling the occasional kick or flip, mostly when I finally sat and relaxed at night or while drinking my coffee in the morning. Today this kid has been much more active and has been moving almost non-stop since dinner. For the first time Matt was able to feel the kicks on my abdomen. What a great experience! I wonder if the half yesterday motivated this kid to start running it's own race or maybe it will take after my past life and be a dancer...only time will tell, but it is obvious it will be an active child.

I decided to run this race with Matt and have fun as part of his TCM training. The weather was perfect, mid 50s at the start and 60 at the finish with sun and only a slight wind. The morning of the race was early since we had to pick up our packets before 6:30am and it was about a 45 min drive. The plan was to pick up my parents at 5:15, so leave our house around 5am. Matt set his alarm for 4am, but decided it made sense to hit snooze until 4:53! He calmly woke me up to say we overslept a little. Surprisingly we managed to get dressed and feed ourselves and Morgan (who is a putz in the morning) and leave the house by 5:20. The timing ended up perfect, got a great parking spot at the race, grabbed our packets hit to port-a-potty a couple times and still had time to relax before the start. Matt & I before the race We started the race and kept a nice easy pace 8:45-9:00. The course was through neighborhoods, on running trails and through a lot of parkland, great course and flat at fir...

I truly did speak too soon about my piriformis, two good runs was all I was getting before the pain came back even worse. I guess this means a few more days of no running and doing cross training instead, I may even get back in the pool this week. It's looking more like the half this coming Sunday will be over 2 hours (which I wanted to avoid) just to avoid pain. I started ART again, seems to have always helped with this problem in the past so I hope it works again. I guess I wasn't the only pregnant runner in pain yesterday since I third one my chiropractor had seen that day, always good to know there are other crazy women out there.

I hope I'm not going to piss off the running gods by speaking too soon. Earlier this week I thought I was going to be done running at 18 weeks. An old injury had resurfaced quickly and at low mileage. I was once again having issues with my piriformis and SI joint, I know SI stuff can be common during pregnancy so I wasn't happy about this. 2 runs cut short and 2 skipped all together along with some cross training and stretching and I seem to have put an end to this. I managed a pain free 8.5 miles this morning, felt so good I wanted to go more but decided not to push anything. I also learned today the pain of chaffing under a sports bra. I've never had this issue before, especially on such a short run. The joys of actually having a chest for a change, I've told Matt many times in the past few months that I will never again complain about the small, non-existent chest I normally have. This is one of the essential components to being a comfortable runner and I am now very...

I am realizing that now that I am not truly racing and just running for fun that I don't have as much to say about my running life. The craziness of last week is over and I'm back to regular running, although it has been tough with temps in the 90s and high humidity. Today is the start of cooler temps and I am so excited! Off to run...I love not having a plan and just heading out, maybe 8, maybe 10 or even 12 if I feel good. 17 weeks 4 days and the belly is growing

Week 16 turned out to be a crazy one... On Saturday I planned to run 10-12 miles, but cut it short a little before 9 due to the storms. The downpours started around mile 3 and then the lightening around mile 8. That afternoon we got an unexpected look at the little parasite after a minor car accident on the way to a wedding led to abdominal/pelvic pain. We spent 3 hours in the ED finding out that we have an active kid already, it was flipping, waving and kicking. The craziness of the day made us get to the reception right after dinner, just in time for Matt to help finish off the dinner wine.Luckily they had bulk, bag your own candy for favors so at least I was able to eat on the way to stopping for pizza on the way home. I learned that the kid loves candy and sure got active after that. The belly has popped more this week and is even starting to show from he front. Morgan wanted to be a part of these.

After nearly 2 weeks of traveling and the exhaustion that followed life is finally back to normal or at least as close as it gets. This all started with 5 days in Northern California, home for 5 days and then 5 days in Gulf Coast Alabama for grad school. Running in the Alabama heat and humidity was nearly nonexistent and treadmill running in the summer is just not that enjoyable. In the past I loved the heat and humidity, but pregnancy changed that. I was always the crazy one out there running in 90+ and enjoying it, now I don't dare venture out for a run in anything over mid 80 if I expect my body to cooperate. I am loving the cool Minnesota summer and it has been so nice to be back to mid/upper 70s this past week. Running has been good and I have finally recovered from the exhaustion of 2 weeks of travel after a few afternoon naps. More Belly Pics, I'll start to post these weekly as they happen and not in big groups now that I have more time... 13 Weeks in a bikini (Californi...