It's common knowledge by now that my running has decreased significantly, both in speed and distance. I would be lying if I said this doesn't bother me at least a bit. 2015 was, by far, my personal best year of running. I worked really hard and that hard work actually paid off (who knew that can actually happen sometimes?! :)) and that's a hard high to come down from. Going from a year of successes to a year of uncertainty and not being able to keep getting "better" running-wise is a bit disappointing. BUT...the trade-off is definitely going to be worth it :).
In spite of the pregnancy, I was able to keep having decent race performances up through Canal Connection in November...and I guess the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day really wasn't too bad either. Once November was over (around 18 weeks pregnant) things tapered off even more and it became evident that I needed to accept that fact that running really HURT and it was ok to back way off. I had made an early goal of seeing if I could make it to 500 miles of running while pregnant, but things really stalled in December and January. Seeing as things had become genuinely painful running-wise, I decided to start listening to my body and "made peace with" a decreased goal of 400 miles.
Then I got the crazy idea to try to run a mile a day of my third/final trimester starting on Friday, February 5th (28 weeks). That first week I ran 12.1 miles and a mile or more every day! The second week started off with a bang...on day one after sitting on the couch for 4 hours working through a tricky stats assignment for class (after working a full day) I didn't manage to get out and run my mile. Darn it all! Streak...RUINED! The next day, though (this past Saturday), I decided to punish myself by running 5k at a harder effort.
Lately I've been pretty satisfied with keeping my pace between 10-11 minutes for a mile. It's still SO weird to be "ok" with that, but it is truly all I can manage at this point (and even so I have often felt like absolute garbage after a run!).
Saturday was cold but clear. My first strides outside just felt GOOD. I'm truly grateful to be where I am...far past the halfway point in a HEALTHY pregnancy and still able to get some workouts in. I ran through the parking lot of our apartment complex and turned left on Linden to head toward the Constitution Trail. The trail runs under Veteran's there just about three tenths of a mile from our apartment. I turned right on the trail to run out toward the silos. Mile one was 9:53. Sub 10? Yesss! I decided at that point to fight for some negative splits (NEVER something that comes easily for me).
Mile two started and after just a minute or so I regretted making the mental goal to run negative splits. I found myself fighting to stay under the 9:53 pace that I had run that first mile in. Some gusts of wind tried to take me out as I ran on the portion of trail that has fewer trees. I turned around at 1.55 on my watch and headed back toward home. Mile two ticked off in 9:50, a bit of a struggle but under 9:53 (albeit barely).
Mile three started and welcomed me with more tree cover. I dug deep and tried to speed things up. Mile three things started clicking and I just felt GOOD. I even felt non-pregnant for a bit which was kinda awesome (not that I don't want to be pregnant of course ;)...but I didn't feel large and clomp-y ;)). Mile three wrapped up in 9:05...woo hoo!! It's been a while since I was able to pull that off!
I wrapped up my 5k in 29:45. Satisfied, I went inside the apartment and rolled my calves a bit on the foam roller...they've been TORN UP lately thanks to this daily running nonsense and having to haul around 35+ extra pounds! My pregnancy mileage has made it up to 411.9...just 88.9 miles to go to 500. I have 10 weeks and 3 days to go until our due date so MAYBE I will hit my goal yet!
I'm planning to try to *run*/shuffle through our local St. Pat's 5k in about a month and am looking forward to seeing many of you there! My goals are as follows: (a) to FINISH!, (b) to NOT COME IN LAST! :) and (c) to finish in under 30 minutes. This training run gave me the confidence that these goals are well within my reach!
happy running! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment