Walkies

This morning when my alarm went off and I rolled out of bed I realised that my body was just not up for a run. I'd had one of "those" nights with the girls and in the last couple of day's I seem to have exploded a little more. Instead of throwing the sheets back on and going back to sleep I decided to go for a walk instead. Due to the slower pace I decided to take Jessy with me.

She appeared to hear her leash before I even touched it and started jumping around like a puppy and not like the nearly 9 year old dog (who had a VERY tough start) that she is. I'd decided after our last attempted run that ended up with me literally throwing Jessy in a creek to cool down that her running days were over but a surely a 5km walk couldn't be that bad and she'd surely be able to keep up with my 27 plus week waddle.

As we walked down the street, me waddling, her wagging, she dashed all over the place in the still dewy grass.  500m down and it was time for the lead to go on as we approach a couple of other four legged walkers.  There was no way at this stage that Jessy was interested in healing. Another 500m down the road and the bounce in her had diminished and she was ready to heal and walk beside me without any tension on the leash. Across the train line we go and I notice that our pace as slowed and needs to be picked up again.

Past the train station and about 2km from home but home is visible and Jessy wants to cross back over the line. I don't pay any attention that she has now dropped off my shoulder and is trailing behind me. We follow the train line towards the next station, which is all up hill and by the 3.5km mark I'm almost pulling her along and I've had to slow down to less than 5km/hr. She's not limping or anything like that, she's just buggered but at least its (mainly) downhill.

Down the hill we go, which when I first started running made me grind to a halt, and Jess picks up a little pace. Back onto the main road and the truck that goes past seems to give Jessy a second wind but we've still got 1km to get home.  If anyone was around they would have thought I was nuts as I was talking to a dog about being nearly home now. I dared not mention the last little hill to her.

Up the last hill I dragged her and past the train station once again. It's all down hill now and no more roads to cross, and no pedestrians or dogs in sight so off comes the leash. One last little spurt of energy comes through for all of 10m. We round the corner and home is only 100m away. I'm sick of urging her on by this stage and leave her to follow after me.  Even my DH comments on how buggered she looks as I walk up the driveway while she's still another good 25m away. It taken us 55 minutes to walk a tad over 5km.

Jess walks (actually more likes drags herself) in the front door and heads out the back for a well deserved drink. I start doing the morning chores while the girls drag themselves out of bed and sit at their table for breakfast. Its then that I realise that Jessy isn't near the table watching for dropped food.  I call her and there's no sound. I walk back towards the kitchen and spot her, spread out on the floor with a look of "I'm not moving another inch" on her face. Her wag has even slowed - I've got one tired puppy on my hands.

Somehow I think someone may have slept rather soundly in her kennel today.

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Running for Two

I've been really quiet on here and I can't believe its been nearly 3 months since I've done a blog post. Time really flies when you're juggling numerous balls.

25+ weeks

I'm now over 26 weeks pregnant and approaching the final trimester of my pregnancy. My belly has started to look pregnant instead of fat. What seems to amaze people is that I'm still doing weight training 2 - 3 days a week and I'm running between 15 and 19km on top of that. I've had so many people urge me to stop training and even more that are concerned about my running. I've got the full support of my doctor to keep going and his advice is that I will just know when enough is enough.

Now I'm no expert, I'm not medically trained so don't take anything here as gospel and definitely do your own research and tall to your own doctors if you want to run while pregnant. For most women that have been running before falling pregnant there are no reason why you should stop once you conceive. Obviously if you weren't a runner before hand its not the time to take it up but if you have a low-risk pregnancy you shouldn't have to dramatically change your exercise routine.

If found that during my first trimester that going for a run (and to a lesser extent doing my strength training) helped to keep my morning sickness at bay. Looking back now I think it was more that the running gave me something else to think about and took my mind off that awful "I think I'm going to hurt" feeling in my stomach.  Fatigue also rears its head during the stage but once again the endorphins from the exercise helped to rise above it.  During this first 13 weeks my training barely changed. I was more conscience about my heart rate and over heating but my mileage and pace stayed fairly constant.

Almost 22 weeks

Almost 24 weeks

From 14 to 22 weeks I started to slow things down a bit. Both my mileage and pace dropped off. Some of this was due to my belly starting to swell but the main reason was due to the heat of summer. My weights during my strength sessions have basically been the same from this point forward too.  I'm actually not wanting to increase any of them even if I'm feeling ready to as the increase in relaxin can make your muscles, joints and ligaments more unstable.

Almost 26 weeks

About 3 weeks ago I thought that my running days were about to be replaced by shuffles. My Saturday 5km run times were increasing in time, which is to be expected. Well I'm still not sure what has happened but just over 2 weeks ago I record a PB at parkrun and then 1 week ago I equalled it. Now this is not a true 5km PB as I have gone faster but its the fastest I've done since starting this course on New Year's Eve.

I'm no where near the fastest that runs each Saturday but I'm having a giggle at the pseudo celebrity that my belly has become. It also gives me a little bit of a lift when the volunteers on the day call out things like "your stowaway is the fastest runner in her age group".

I'm hoping that I can keep running up until the weekend before baby number three arrives, but with my past history if I'm still running at 30 weeks I'll be happy. Any activity after that will be a bonus, be it a shuffle a run or a session at the gym. To date I've put on a total of 5kg since falling pregnant. I'm not trying to not put on weight and to be honest my diet has be far from perfect recently but when I compare it to my previous pregnancies there is no comparison to be made.  If you tried to tell me that I'd be running at 26 weeks pregnant this time last year I would have laughed in your face and today if you told me to stop I would not so politely tell you where to go.

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