And later...

Over a year has passed since I last chronicled my adventures in running and life. It's difficult to summarize a year's worth of running, but let's just say, I've improved.

In 2010 I logged just over 1,750 miles, ran a few races and got a little bit faster. In July I participated in the annual ritual of Atlanta runners: The Peachtree Road Race. I mustered my quickest time to date in this race, finishing in 49:19.

On a warm September Saturday, I "ran" the Salem Lake 30K in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. This race proved one thing for me: I don't want to race anything longer than a half marathon. I felt like I'd trained well, ran some good long runs and had continued running six days a week. However, after 12 miles I completely fizzled and sweltered to a slow crawling finish. After crossing the finish, I felt dazed and had to acquaint myself with a nice patch of grass to prevent vomiting. It was not pleasant.

In November, I managed to eek out another milestone. I ran the Chickamauga Battlefield Half Marathon, besting my time yet again with a 1:49 and some seconds finish. My goal had been to break 1:50.

Getting faster has been a process of logging ample mileage, dedication, and forcing myself to run faster on a regular basis. I've been fortunate to find someone to run with on occasion that's much faster than me, so I've got to step up to keep up. That's been the main reason I've made some strides.

2011 has me in an odd frame of mind for running. I've been debating the prospect of signing another race, but keep concluding that it's best to leave well alone. I can come up with a number of excuses not to "do" a race, including: the cost, the transportation and the manner in which I simply get worked up about races. Why I get anxious about races is a mystery given that I'm a solid mid-pack runner without any hope of hardware. Nonetheless, this year I endeavor to simply run, between 30-40 miles per week, for the joy of it. Oh, and I might have a little goal of logging 2,000 miles this year.

Takin' it to the Streets

I never would have expected that two years after the birth of our daughter, that I would be running better than I have in my whole life. The past two weeks have fueled my running fire. I'm ready to roll and find some speed.

Several months ago, college running buddy and I decided to sign up for the Chickamauga Half Marathon in November as our return to running. We both felt that marathoning remains a distant past and future with shorter races being far more realistic. As such, I picked out my favorite Hal Higdon schedule and toyed with it a bit to come up with some kind of training plan. For twelve weeks, I got up early (6:00 a.m.) nearly six days a week to run. I slowly churned through the miles and did something akin to "speedwork" once a week or so. Race day arrived quickly and I was ready to have this November race in the books. Having never run a half marathon faster than two hours, that was my goal: 1:59:59 or bust. College running buddy and I had a great race in that we chatted and talked for the first 10 or so miles. Finally, running buddy said "one mile left" at the twelve mile mark. I kicked into overdrive, knowing that our goal was readily in hand. Running buddy hung with me until about the last 1/4 mile, when she put the hammer down, finishing 10 seconds ahead. I had forgotten to stop my watch, so my chip time wasn't apparent, but the results were expediently posted. I broke two hours: 1:55:12. Despite the pleasure of reaching a goal, I had a nagging feeling. Running buddy and I had casually talked the whole race. We had only pushed at the last mile and we had a good amount of gas at the end. Maybe the goal was too conservative? Should we have pushed harder throughout?

These questions being unanswered, I noticed some other folks from the local running group doing the Thanksgiving Half Marathon for "fun." A couple of folks were recovering from injury. The wheels began to turn. Maybe I should do this race for fun too, but the cost is too expensive for my frugal bones. I called up one woman and asked her what her plan for the race was, to which she replied, "I'm not running now, are you planning to? You should take my number!" So, despite all of the directions that people shouldn't transfer numbers, I took running group woman's bib number and decided to run - for fun - and to keep someone else company because this woman couldn't run with her. So I met up with the other woman, who we'll call Bandana, early Thanksgiving morning to head downtown for the race. We had fun conversations and it turns out she was an interesting person that I enjoyed getting to know better. Shortly before the race, I said, "if we feel good, maybe we can try for a nine minute pace."

There it was: a goal of sorts. Try to break two hours again. The race started and I felt good. We were faster than the goal pace. We met with another running group man, Tall Dude. Tall Dude played college hoops and then race track instead. Nature called, so I hid behind some bushes and "stretched" for a moment. Then I pushed it to catch back up with Tall Dude and Bandana. I felt strong. I was running 8:45 or better each mile and lost Bandana, with Tall Dude trailing closely behind. The continuous thought was: "I have absolutely no business running this pace and I'm going to crash and burn on the second half where the hills are."

The crash never came. I chugged up the hills. I kept thinking: "don't let anyone pass you. If they pass you, that means you're slowing down, because they're slowing too and it's all a crazy mirage."

The beauty of a race with 8,500 people is that you're never alone and there's always someone to pass. Tall Dude reappeared a few times, and remained close on my heels throughout the race. We ran under the Olympic rings close to the finish; I caught sight of the clock which was ticking up from 1:55. I'm not sure what it was when I crossed the finish, but I hit my watch. Then I looked down: 1:53:17. But it wasn't really me. I ran under someone else's number and I didn't wear her chip. It's kind of like the old tree falling in the forest. It seems like an unofficial personal best.

It's on now. Let's see what I can really do.

Four Hours

I spent a number of marathons attempting to break four hours as a milestone goal. Amazingly enough, it seems that my goal in childbirth was the same. Here's the birth story of our little girl.


On Thursday, November 8, I woke up to discover that I had had some red bleeding overnight. I told husband not to be alarmed, but that I would call the doctor on our drive in to work. We had started carpooling together that week as I'd reached 36 weeks in the pregnancy. Instinctively, husband insisted that we have our hospital bag packed just in case. I tried calling the doctor during the drive but was put on hold for an extended period of time as other people with overnight issues certainly bombarded the phone lines. When I got to work I called right away and explained that I was having some bleeding. The advice nurse advised us to come in right away. I called husband who had only just arrived and poured a cup of coffee before heading out again to go to the doctor's office.


Once at the office, we were attached to monitors to discover that baby girl was doing just fine and I was in labor. The midwife indicated that I was 1 cm dialated and baby girl remained in her breech position. So, it was proclaimed that we would have a baby that day.


What followed was a whirlwind of events. We nervously drove to the hospital, were admitted, whisked into a room, prepped, epiduraled and rushed off to the operating room. At 8:45 a.m. a call to husband was made. At 12:47 p.m. our little girl was declared to the world. She was considered "preemie" at birth with a low weight of 5 lbs. 11 oz. and height of 18.5 inches. Nonetheless, she is amazingly beautiful and more wonderful than either of us could ever imagine. All of the hackneyed things people say about having children, that will change your life and allow to feel and indescribable love, are so resoundingly true.

Our stay in the hospital lasted a horrid five days that made me truly hate being in an invalid. Here's what happened in a nutshell: general pain from having a c-section, an inability to shower because the epidural had to remain in my back, a general assault by every staffperson in the hospital, a diagnosis of HELLP syndrome, a 24-hour drip of magnesium sulfate, my birthday, meddling nurses disrupting our feeding schedule over concerns of baby girl's lower than normal temperature, two bags of calcium and finally the trip home. Fortunately, husband, my mother, and husband's mother were extraordinarily supportive and helpful through this process.

We are now settling in to our life as parents. I am continually amazed that we could have made something so beautiful. I am also amazed by the sheer volume that a little girl came have shoot out her nose and mouth. Last night while feeding, I was burping our girl when she shot milk out her mouth halfway across the room. I hollered at husband to bring a couple of tissues. In the brief time it took for husband to arrive with the tissue, baby girl had managed to spit up her entire meal in a veritable fountain all over herself, me, the chair, and the floor. When husband arrived with the tissue I had to laugh because it seemed so silly, two tissues for this huge mess. This mess is the first of many, I'm certain.

I'm still working on a return to running. I've been taking walks in the neighborhood and estimate that I'll be back at it in a couple of weeks.

Fear the Belly

We're now approaching the 29th week of the literally growing saga of this whole pregnancy business. I'm not running any more, which is no fun. Now I'm attempting to churn out the miles walking in our neighborhood. The only problem is that walking just takes so long. The other pregnancy news is the results of a glucose test for gestational diabetes. Notoriously I indulge in sweets of all kinds as I am genetically predisposed to an attraction to all things chocolate and ice cream. I think there were many years of my mother's life spent subsisting on caffeine, M&Ms and nicotine. My grandfather on my father's side was a prodigious home manufacturer of ice cream. As a child, I think I may have had ice cream running through my veins. So, when the one-hour glucose test came back high, I can't honestly say that I was tremendously surprised. After all, I did regularly consume some form of candy as well as cookies and/or ice cream on a twice per day basis. So, after the first failed test I was subjected to a three-hour test. There is nothing quite so fun as to spend over three hours hanging out in a lab and having blood extracted on an hourly basis. Needless to say, I "passed" three of the four portions of the test. The one number that indicated I wasn't processing sugar well has led to the unfortunate exclusion of most simple sugar sweets from my diet. I'm limited to a scoop (as opposed to my normal ritual of three scoops) of ice cream a few times per week. Fortunately, I haven't been put on some restrictive diet involving finger pricking and constant monitoring. We're approaching day five of this restriction. Only 77 or so days to go.

One of the most interesting facets to pregnancy is the belly growth and the response to this burgeoning body part. As the belly grows, it becomes increasing difficult to tie my shoes, maneuver in bed or extricate myself from the car, which I fully expected (though not quite this soon). One relieving part of the belly growth is that my condition is fairly obvious. We've moved past the stage of "is she just letting her self go" to "oh, she's got a 'giant uterine parasite'" (See this article about uterine parasites: http://www.theonion.com/content/news/woman_overjoyed_by_giant_uterine). Some people are drawn to the belly. They simply can't help but gaze upon it. Others avoid looking at me altogether in the course of conversation, staring at the ceiling, the floor, or over my shoulder so as to avoid catching a glance of the growing belly ball. I never realized a pregnant belly would cause such eye aversion.

Larger than Life

Today marks 26 weeks of the pregnancy training schedule. In just 14 +/- weeks, the schedule culminates in the all important event: the birth. Since the last post, we've had many appointments, including an ultrasound that was also attended by husband's father and mother. During this special visit, it was determined that there is a strong chance that a little runner girl grows within. Of course, we won't truly know until she makes her appearance, but the evidence seems fairly conclusive.

The most common question people ask a pregnant woman now, in my experience is "how are you feeling?" How should I be feeling? Large. I feel large. I'm guessing the next doctor's appointment on Monday will reveal an overall weight gain of 15-17 pounds thus far. This weight gain has been a good exercise in the fact that after we birth this child, I would like to lose the weight with a return to my pre-pregnant weight. Hopefully chronicling the uncomfortable feeling of girth will be a strong catalyst towards reaching this goal. While my diet has not exactly been stellar (good food liberally peppered by ice cream and candy), I have been making a strong effort to exercise 5-6 days per week, despite the fact that we're suffering from stifling temperatures in the southeast. While I haven't been successful in dragging myself out of bed in the early mornings, I have been able to hit the pool for lap sessions in lieu of running/walking. My "runs" have degraded to a shuffle, with walking all of the uphills on my normal route. On the weekends I've started strictly walking, or running some, then walking. I feel relatively good and blessed.

When folks ask how I'm feeling, my response would probably be "tired." While I feel good, I haven't slept well in about the past month and a half. No position is comfortable. Frankly, it seems way too early to struggle with this issue. This discomfort is further complicated by occasional bouts of heartburn. This sleeping difficulty has led to husband and I sleeping separately so that at least one of us can get a decent night's sleep. The reality is that it will probably be another 6-8 months before I am able to get a full night's rest. If only I could escape my own body for one night.

Nonetheless, the growth of this child-to-be is amazing. Ideally as a harbinger of her future life, she is active in the womb, most frequently during the day. As I sit at my desk at work, she'll thud, kick and squirm around as I work. She acts up 3-4 times per day. Sometimes I wonder if it's the click of the keyboard that stimulates the activity, or if it's just that I'm seated and still. Fortunately, we're not to the stage where she's so big that's she's engaging in rib-kicking, nor is she overly active at night. The overwhelming feeling right now is that I just can't wait to meet her. I anticipate this birth more than any marathon or event in my life. It is just so amazingly special to share this creation with my husband. We're so looking forward to her future.

Running for Two

After a long absence in attending to writing, I've finally grasped a few morning moments awaiting the pest control man to attend to this blog.

I've engaged in a new forty week training program which culminates in an event far more difficult than a marathon. The interesting thing is that the event director doesn't give any indication of exactly when the event will occur, nor how long the event will take. Nonetheless, I'm training as vigilantly as possible. I'm officially running for two. We expect the first addition to the clan in early December. Right now I'm approaching the halfway point of twenty weeks. So far the pregnancy has been without many of the primary discomforts such as morning sickness. However, I've learned the hard way that I can't eat the same quantities at one time since my innards are slowly getting squished by the growing fetus. In addition, I can't eat much in the way of heavy Italian food because it gives me heartburn. My two current food cravings are Taco Bell and spinach. The spinach fascination is a pure mystery. I have not purchased spinach in the grocery store ever in my adult life until the last four weeks. Now I can't seem to get enough. On weekends I'll emerge from a nap and heat up a bowl of frozen spinach. It's now become my snack coming home from work.

I've received or purchased several books on the whole pregnancy business as well as post-pregnancy business. Many of these books, with a few exceptions, essentially try to scare the mother-to-be. They should distribute What to Expect When You're Expecting and Babyproofing Your Marriage as birth control. Here is a brief synopsis of those two books: What to Expect... while providing good information, highlights all the things that you should not do or eat and the many things that could go wrong during pregnancy. Babyproofing... essentially foretells that your marriage will be a sexless hell after children, so parents-to-be may as well prepare for it early, consider the strategies offered, and except fate. However, I would highly recommend Your Pregnancy Week-by-Week, and The Expectant Father for dad-to-be.

One of the amazing facets of pregnancy is the sense of community it creates. The first sense of community has been between husband and I in that we are growing something together. The second sense of community has been with family. My mother seems extraordinarily excited about the impending birth and would like to be present for the big event. Although this child is not my mother's first grand, it will be the first "traditional" grand. Other siblings have been less traditional about their approaches to child rearing. I've talked more with husband's family in the last several weeks than in the many years we've been together. Their reaction to our informing them of the family addition was absolutely priceless. It involved screaming, laughter and surprise. Thankfully we captured this moment on video tape. Each time we watch it husband and I both smile. Other people who are already parents are quick to offer a plethora of advice from "buy toys with volume controls" to "make sure you have lots of onesies." One woman who absolutely amazes me already gave us a box stuffed full of maternity clothes, a cradle and prenatal yoga DVD. This woman has been through such painful adversity in terms of children, and yet she is the one person who always asks how I'm doing.

The responses from friends and co-workers have been varied, though. Most people react with surprise. A couple of people cried. One person said "congratulations, you're f***ed."

The interesting thing is that the second question people ask me (the first being "have you been sick?) is "are you still running?" I think it's funny that people are anxious to know about my running life in the midst of this creative process. Proudly, I can still respond that I continue to do something akin to running. I've stopped wearing a watch because my pace has slowed tremendously. My mileage is only at around 20-25 miles per week. But I'm still hitting the streets. I'm also subjecting husband to the torture of living with a morning runner as I've been getting up at about 5:15 a.m. to get a run in before work so that I can avoid running in 80 degree weather in the evenings. The dark morning quiet has been beautiful and filled with gallivanting bunnies and chirping birds flitting through the neighborhood. The early morning runs also illustrate the regularity of our lives, as I see the same cars blowing through stop signs and speeding through our neighborhood at the exact same time each morning. The most difficult part of running right now is the hills. The hills reduce me to a near crawl. But at least I'm out there. My plan is to run until it becomes uncomfortable. I'd like to make it through until Labor Day if possible. There are many women out there running much more than I am much further along. Some women even run on the day the go into labor.

Husband has been fantastic through this process. He's been to every appointment we've had. I haven't done a great job at stressing that I'm just the vessel for this child-to-be, but it's true. We are in this adventure together. I think that when a woman is pregnant, the future father's role is often de-emphasized. People should engage dads-to-be more in the conversations so that they feel more a part of the pregnancy portion of the journey.

All in the Family

So much has happened in the past month and a half. Some things I can write about. Others, I can't write about now, but hopefully will be able to reflect upon soon via prose.

We are in recovery right now from a brief family visit from my sister and my mother. I've never had an extraordinarily close relationship with my family. I've always kept in touch with my mother, but siblings are another story. Three of the five children in my family left the confines of western Massachusetts to pursue other life opportunities and typically never look back. Sister has remained in Massachusetts for her entire life and in the past few years has become a traveler. During this visit, sister basically drove me nuts. She's never wrong. She knows everything. She is a veritable expert. She mothers my mother. It's so strange. One night I was venting to husband in exasperation, and fortunately he grounded me with my own words. "She's compensating," he said.

Whether we realize it or not, we're all searching for that happy medium. Life is indeed all about excess and deficiency. Though my sister never graduated from high school and had children at painfully young age, she's an intelligent woman. She probably feels the need to prove that she is indeed intelligent despite taking the road less traveled in life. I suspect she takes opportunities to deride occasionally to make herself feel better ("this neighborhood is kind of cookie cutter," "you're not one of those chauvinists, are you?"). However, in my consideration of my sister, I need to remember not to judge (lest ye be judged). Rather, I need to attempt to understand.

On the flip side, my mother seemed relatively happy, which is a beautiful thing. I think she's content that her daughter and her husband are in good place in life. Hopefully she's sees that her daughter has a strong friendship and relationship with her husband. Maybe she even sees what friends see about us: that we actually enjoy doing things together. It's amazing how family can be so simultaneously vexing and warming at the same time.

In running life, I continue to muddle along. No races in sight. My goal is to hit 1,000 miles this year. That's it. It may end up being more difficult than it sounds....