Turning the corner?

After being terribly sick last week, I’ve felt cautiously pretty good since Friday. A few bouts of nausea and random vomiting, but nothing like the constant, consistent nausea and puking I’ve had since about Week 5. I’ll be 10 weeks on Thursday, and except for the randomness factor, I’ve felt pretty awesome the past 3 days. At the same time, my face has totally cleared up and I’m no longer getting zits… let’s hope this first trimester nonsense is winding down a couple weeks early, eh??

It’s been another busy week. I took Friday off as kind of a “birthday celebration” which actually meant preparing for the bridal shower I was hosting at my house on Friday. I went non-stop from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. at night; up again on Saturday at the same time, but did get to bed a bit earlier that day. DH was out of town for the bachelor party, so I was left to my own devices. I knew something was up because I haven’t had that ravenous, got to eat now or I’m going to puke and kill someone at the same time feeling I’ve been having from the beginning. As I was making desserts on Friday night, and the rest of the food on Saturday, I hardly taste tested anything. I just wasn’t interested in food! Now, why can’t I be that like when I’m not pregnant and/or dieting?! Same thing Sunday and Monday… got randomly sick at times, but not too hungry at all. Wishful thinking.

All that to say, I’ve now been thinking the past two days that my excuses for my lack of exercise are over. I don’t have a sinus infection anymore, my stomach has tamed itself. I’m not randomly falling asleep in the evenings for 3 hours, and gosh darn it, the weather is awesome! With all of my excuses shot, it’s time to get out there and get regular about exercising. It’s not that I plan to do a lot, it’s just that my inner lazy person has taken over. With all of the busy weeks/weekends we’ve been having, it’s hard to get yourself out there and exercise when all you want to do is take a minute to catch your breath and rest. SparkPeople has a great BabyFit website dedicated solely to exercising and eating healthy during and post-pregnancy. It’s time to get regularly back in the game while I still can!

Last…some pictures from the marathon relay. If it looks like I’m hurting in the second one…it’s because I am! :)

 

29 candles

Whew….gettin’ old! ;-)

Went present shopping on Tuesday night. I thought it would takes us awhile since I really had no clue what I wanted, just figured I’d know it when I saw it. Ended up with a beautiful aquamarine and diamond necklace and earrings – it was between this and a citrine and diamond ring, but DH gave me a pink sapphire ring on our first dating anniversary, and it’s too special to me to not wear every day. I don’t wear a lot of jewelry so I feel extra fancy now!

Off to work for 10 hours. What a way to spend my birthday!

Colorado Colfax Marathon Relay – I did it!

I have been a bad blogger lately – May is a busy time of the year for us. Between Mother’s Day, birthdays, race season kicking off, and summer BBQs, things get really hectic. We don’t have one free weekend in May!

With that in mind, I wavered when I switched my half marathon registration to the marathon relay for the Colorado Colfax Marathon two weeks ago.  This would definitely be a chance to have a weekend at home with no plans. But I also knew that if I missed another race, I would be disappointed in myself. So I quickly assembled a team of four to race in the marathon relay – not as grueling as a half marathon, but definitely something that I feel would be exciting and fun without putting my body through the torture of 13 miles.

I was really blessed with feeling GREAT on Saturday and Sunday – hardly any puking and nausea. I could have used the break, too. The weather SUCKED! It started raining on Saturday and didn’t quit until mid-Sunday! We stayed the night in Denver just down the street from the race start, and stared out the window most of the evening. Rain!  Everywhere! We were up at 4:30 to get to the park by 5:10 where we refused to get out of the car until we absolutely had to. My husband ran Leg 1 (3.27 miles) and it was chilly waiting for him at the exchange zone, but once I got running, I quickly appreciated the 40 degree weather and light mist. I ran 6.37 miles for my leg of the race, and thoroughly enjoyed all of it except the last half mile which was all uphill. For Denver folks, I ran from City Park, down Colfax to the Platte River, where the course took us on a nice paved path for several miles. I popped up by Elitch Gardens and ended my leg at Invesco Field. It was a nice, easy run and I averaged an 11:30 pace – not the fastest but not the slowest I’ve been, either.

Our team finished in 4:08 which is a GREAT marathon time in my opinion! We were 92nd in our division (out of 230) and 207th overall (out of 480 teams). The fastest team ran it in 2:23!!! Buncha sprinters, I tell ya. :)

I don’t have photos yet – waiting for the pro ones this Friday. I’m SO happy I did this; I had a great time and it revved me up for racing as much as I can for as long as I am able this year. I felt a little twinge of sadness when I realized I will not run any half marathons this year, but it’s ok. As long as I can keep running, I’ll be ok.

With that, I am off to go look for my birthday present! My 29th birthday is on Wednesday, but what do you get for the girl that doesn’t want to buy clothes since she won’t fit into them in a few months, nor needs new running shoes or gadgets, and can’t get a massage in the first trimester?

Why jewelry, of course. :)

Wednesday ramblings and a race recap

Do you ever have weekends that are so busy that you need another weekend to recoup from the first? That’s definitely me. And as I write this on Tuesday night, I STILL need a recovery weekend! Monday is certainly no way to ease into the work week, if you ask me. I was so pooped Monday night that I conked out on the couch for 2.5 hours. I never nap in the evenings, and since I’m such a light sleeper, I have to be in a very quiet place when I sleep. Not so yesterday evening… hubby had the TV turned up loud, but I was out like a light once I got my pillow and blanket.

Have I mentioned reason #782384 why I love my husband? Thursday night, I was lamenting about how I wanted to run a 5k on Saturday, but I would be the “slowest and fattest person there,” which I knew wasn’t true, but man, I sure felt like it at the moment. He listened to me complain, and then politely told me to stop whining, he knew I really wanted to race, and to go and sign up because he knows I’ll regret it if I don’t. I love this man! He always gives me the push that I need to just get over myself and go for it!

So Saturday morning, I raced in the Take 5 in the Garden 5k. That’s a tough course regardless; being pregnant and feeling like walking up the stairs is a chore made it worse. But I got out there, and I’m so happy I did it – Saturday was beautiful and sunny, a gentle breeze, so me and 1200 of my closest friends tackled Garden of the Gods, a ridiculously hilly course. But I had a lot of fun, and finished in 38 minutes which I think is a great time regardless of being prego and taking it easy! I’d be happy with that time even if I wasn’t knocked up!

My neighbor, Steve, also raced – he’s running legs 3 and 4 of our marathon relay on Sunday!

Coming up on Week 8 of my pregnancy, I’m around 137 pounds these days. The sickness still sucks, but I’m managing. Some days are terrible and some days aren’t bad at all. I did get an anti-nausea prescription for the really bad days, so at least I have that in case I need it. But other than that, I am feeling pretty good. The weather is warming up around here, and my next appointment is in 5 weeks where we’ll get to hear the heartbeat!

Happy hump day!

Houston, we have a heartbeat!

Monday, hubs and I went to have our first ultrasound – it was amazing, and that doesn’t even describe it!

I couldn’t stop smiling the entire time, and to be able to actually see it's little heart beating left me speechless! Yay! There’s really a baby in there!

I had another appointment on Tuesday for a complete physical. That went well and they took a look at my ultrasound results and said everything looked great. My blood pressure has dropped even more to 106/68 which is the lowest it’s ever been.  The ultrasound measured me at 6w4d which is pretty much what I expected. I go back one more time next week to meet with my OB, and then I get a month off from doctor’s appointments. Woohoo!

The all day sickness has turned into barf an hour after eating sickness and dry heave at random times in the evening. It is not cool. I was down to 136 on Monday, and I asked the nurse practitioner about it, who just told me to eat whatever I can right now. Sounds like the important thing is staying hydrated. There’s no rhyme or reason to getting sick – what’s fine one day is not fine the next day. I still won’t eat eggs…that’s about the only consistent thing. Oh, and I love bagels because I’ve yet to get sick after eating one.

Anyway, I am still totally miserable with this cold. I left at noon on Monday and didn’t even bother going in to work on Tuesday.  Now I don’t feel so bad about bailing on the race – this stuff sucks.

Happy hump day!

Colorado Half Marathon Recap

I won’t beat around the bush – I DNS’ed (Did Not Start).

Friday I came down with a nasty, nasty cold. We drove up to Ft. Collins anyway on Saturday, me still determined to run the race. I felt increasingly worse on Saturday, and on the drive up, kept thinking that if one more thing happened, I would take it as a sign that I wasn’t meant to run this race. Well, that “thing” ended up being not sleeping AT ALL the night before the race, due to someone who obviously was participating in the same race on the floor above us in the hotel literally stomping around in their room until midnight, and then up again at 4 a.m. to get ready. When my husband woke up at 5:45 and realized I’d never gotten up, I told him I was too sick and too tired to race.

Truthfully, I felt like if I was just tired, or just sick, or just pregnant, I would have still ran. If I didn’t have to care or worry about keeping the kiddo healthy, I would have surely said to hell with it and still ran. I don’t care, I will put my body through a lot of crap when it comes to running because it’s just that important to me to finish what I’ve trained for. But when you’re housing another human being, suddenly you are worried about what putting your own body through hell does to that other person. I was too worried, and felt that if I ran on zero sleep, plus an obviously beaten down immune system, that I would very quickly reach the point of total body exhaustion. And I didn’t want to get there.

But you can believe I threw myself a big pity party about it and cried some big crocodile tears. I know I can’t control getting sick – it’s just bad luck. I know I can’t control noisy people above me – it’s just the luck of the draw. But it still totally bums me out and gosh darn it, I feel defeated! There are few things more frustrating to me know that I am capable of doing something, but for one reason or another, can’t.

Some races just aren’t meant to be. I swear, I will sign up for this race again next year, for the third year in a row, and I WILL run that half marathon! It will give me good motivation to get my body back post-baby.

Regardless of today’s outcome, I read some very wise words from Beth @ Shut Up and Run!

Two possible attitudes moving forward:

I failed. Why bother? Screw it. I put in all that training and for what? It’s just not worth it. I’m not meant to run marathons. I won’t try that again.

OR

This was a challenge. It wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. My body didn’t like 17 miles of downhill and it seized up on me. But, this is only the beginning. There is always another race.  This disappointment will not be my only memory of what a marathon is. It will not define me as a runner. I’ll create a new memory on a different race day. It is mine for the taking and the only people who fail are those who fail to try.

If you read my previous blog for awhile, you know that when I fail to complete something, it just motivates me to try harder. While I do have another half marathon in two weeks, I’m strongly considering switching to the marathon relay with a neighbor and my husband making up the relay team. We have to work out the details, but I am really excited about this possibility – I’ll probably run two legs of the relay and total about 9 miles altogether. I’ve always wanted to do a marathon relay, and I can go into it with zero expectations. Since I ran the Colfax Marathon last year as my first half marathon, I am afraid I’ll give myself high expectations to beat my time last year. So we’ll see moving forward, but I will always, always keep moving forward.