I had a really good 20 mile run on Sunday, December 16th. Little did I know it would be my last long run for a while….
We are past 15 weeks and had our next big doctor appointment.
The good news is everything is going well with the baby. We got to hear the heartbeat and we hope to know the gender by the end of January.
At this appointment I brought along my training log to share with the doctor how I have backed off my miles to 40 a week and slowed down my pace. I wanted him to hear about my plans to still run the Goofy Challenge slowly. I wasn’t ever expecting his blessing. I know a doctor would never be in a position to advise something as “safe”, since really anything can happen. I was hoping however that he would review my information and tell me how to be as safe as possible. Things like how much to hydrate, eat, the proper heart rate to maintain, perhaps advise run/walk….things of that nature. Instead of getting advice for being safe in order to complete the races, he instead said I shouldn’t participate at all. It was tough to hear and I did my best to negotiate the situation. I’m running very comfortably now and I would make sure to not run any harder, in fact I would be extremely conservative. He wouldn’t support it. He reminded me that the first trimester the baby is small and still forming. Now that the baby will be growing much larger, he is not comfortable with my version of “moderate” working out going forward. He said that while I’m comfortable running long distances, the baby isn’t. He said that there isn’t a way to know for certain if the oxygen to the baby could be compromised with extended activity. ย And he wasn’t supportive of gambling on any sort of risk.
He had advised me that my 2nd trimester I would need to cut back my running volume by 1/3 and then again at the final trimester. I was just hoping it would be after this race. My version of “moderate” would have to change now. No Goofy Challenge, no more long runs, my pace would have to slow down again, and my running volume needs to come down a 1/3.
I never want to put my baby at risk, but this was still hard news to hear since I am feeling so good and I was looking forward to running as long as possible. Now I would be cutting things short while I felt great, it was hard to comprehend.
It took me a while to even write this post because it’s not how I expected the next 5 months to go.
I tried to convince Rob that we could still go and I would watch him race, but he wasn’t into it. He didn’t want me have to watch him doing the race we planned together, plus I can’t ride many rides when we would be there. I was still okay with going, but I understand where he is coming from. So Goofy is off the books for 2013.
So now what in the running department? I have to say after this first week of cutting back, it feels like I’m recovering from an injury without the actual pain. I savor my much smaller and slower runs. I get to do yoga and lift weights. I can mix in swimming and cycling here and there, but I haven’t done that yet.
I am also shopping my fall marathon. I think it will help to get a race on the calendar so I can focus on it post-baby. Also, I will be using the free time to focus on the nursery and other items around the house.
With the lower/slower miles I can’t say this blog will be very interesting. I will still post progress on the baby and some home project stuff. Rob is starting work on our next airplane so I will have info on that to share soon too.
Now off to plan for fall 2013….