Pregnancy week 35!

Running/Training:

This week I was able to run a 5k to support a St. Olaf XC runner who was hit by a bus earlier this year. She is one tough cookie, and is making some great progress to get back to her old self. Her attitude is amazing, especially considering how much she’s been challenged to overcome, both physically and cognitively. 

I was just hoping to walk/run the course, but then Carrie Tollefson, her husband, and their two kids in a running stroller came up next to me. “Hey, Momma!” Carrie shouted. We immediately started chatting. I asked about coming back to running after baby and she gave me her story. She took off about 3-3.5 weeks after each baby, and after her second was able to get back to 3-hour marathon shape within 10 weeks of training (keep in mind, folks: Carrie is a former 1500m Olympian). She asked me if I would consider trying a marathon post baby.

That’s when I told her that I was hoping to use the 13 months post-baby to try to hit sub 2:43. 

The conversation changed a little bit. She was honest about the pressures about getting back to top-speed (self-imposed pressure, some sponsorship pressure) and how your body is going to rebel physically against my progress every so often, but to keep calm, take a half a week off, and then get back to it. We also talked about how the balance of the energy to breastfeed, the utter sleep deprivation (can’t wait?), plus the stress of training are really difficult to balance as an athlete.

It was SO nice to be able to get a no-nonsense account of running post-baby from a high level athlete that has been there. Plus, anyone that knows Carrie knows that she’s just plain awesome :). Wish I would have had my phone so I could have taken a picture!

I was able to finish in 28:10, which I was really happy about considering it was on an XC course and I took multiple walk breaks!

Not much other news training-wise. Some days are good, other days not so good. Yet other days I’m completely unmotivated to run :). I don’t recognize myself…

Life updates:

In other news, Nate has donated many evenings to practicing his violin. He is the solist at my brother’s wedding (on the 20th). I have loved listening to him practice. There’s just something so beautiful about live violin music.

Nate practicing for the wedding. I couldn’t ask for better background music – or for better dress, for that matter? 🙂

I’ve joined him a couple of times, although I can’t claim to be anywhere near the violinist Nate is. It was fun to be able to play together!

Pregnancy:

On the pregnancy front, things continue to be more of the same, as in: more puking, most every day. Insurance has decided that I can only get 18 anti-nausea meds per 30 day period (even though you can take them every 6 hours if you’re feeling super nauseated). 

I’ve been out of meds for a couple of days, and Wednesday of this week was one of the worst days I’ve had. I was sick from the time I got out of bed and threw up 3 times before Nate even came home. I would try to be productive, but had no energy… and if I tried to convince myself that I did have energy to do something, I’d quickly realize that I couldn’t convince myself out of the ever-present nausea and would be forced to sit down to calm my stomach. 

*Sigh*

I have always prided myself on my ability to be productive, so days like this are hard for me to accept. I’m hoping my energy levels rebound a little after baby – but then I guess I’ll be balancing other energy needs?

Fast forward to 9:00 Wednesday night. Nate got back from ski practice and I could tell I was starting to go downhill (if that was even possible after feeling so energy-less and nauseated throughout the day). I threw up again, and I just generally hurt. Nate called the on-call doc, we tried her advice but I threw that up as well. We decided to go into the clinic after-hours. 

There I was given anti-nausea medication and two bags of fluid and still didn’t have to go to the bathroom. The nurses were impressed… most would have to go by then, much less a very pregnant person. I must have been pretty dehydrated.

It makes me even more thankful to be filling in my nutritional gaps (which I’m sure are huge, despite trying to eat healthy! You can’t digest what you can’t keep down, unfortunately 🙁 ) with Nutrilite’s Double X vitamins. At least there’s a chance baby might be getting what it needs?

We got home after 1:00 that morning. Poor Nate was up and at work by 6:30 the next morning. Prep for the upcoming sleep deprivation?

I think that’s about it for this week’s updates! I have a draft post written for the Baby Olympics, but our home internet has been struggling lately… and since photos will be the highlight of that post, it’ll have to wait a few more days.

Have a great weekend, everyone!