No cancellations

At this time last year, it seems that I often wrote about a desire to cycle as much as I possibly could because I knew that the fall could turn to winter at any moment. It’s only two weeks into September and thus far the temperatures have been near-perfect: cool mornings, warm days, and plentiful sunshine (except during Monday morning’s mucky ride and Monday night’s drizzly run, but those are different stories). It will probably be at least another month before a cycling jacket and booties won’t suffice to keep me warm during a morning ride. Unfortunately, there’s another clock ticking away that compels me to cycle as much as I can, because who knows when I’m simply going to be unable to reach my handlebars anymore?

So far, though, it’s been smooth sailing, and I can’t really complain. (Zdenek, of course, feels that I complain way too much, but I did that before I got pregnant, so I can’t imagine why things should change for the better now that I’m hauling around a baby-to-be 24/7.) I am still running and cycling as much as I would ever want to, and enjoying it equally well. (This morning, I even managed a full loop of the Park in sub-9 minute miles, which is a pretty decent pace for me these days!) And even when I eventually can’t cycle anymore, I know this will probably be a good thing, because it should free up a few additional mornings each week for some much-needed rest.

When I found out I was pregnant a few weeks before my Rhode Island marathon, the first thing I purchased was a book on exercising during pregnancy. I chose a scientific, well-researched book -- despite its 1980s photos -- written by a leading physician in the field who pioneered studies on the effects of exercise on pregnancy, childbirth, and maternal and fetal health. I read the book cover-to-cover in a single evening and still refer to it from time to time. Happily, everything I read reinforced that the best possible thing I can do is exercise frequently, intensely, and especially in a weight-bearing activity (i.e. opting for running instead of swimming). As one reviewer of the book quipped, “If women couldn’t exercise strenuously throughout pregnancy, the saber-toothed tiger would have finished off our species a million years ago. Finally a book that confirms this.”

Study after study in this book details that women who exercise (frequently and intensely) throughout the duration of their pregnancies have easier pregnancies and deliveries with fewer interventions and complications, give birth to leaner (but not underweight) babies, gain less weight themselves, and go into labor, on average, 5 to 7 days earlier than non-exercisers (this may, though, mean a Christmas baby, which is the only thing worse than a New Year’s baby). The catch, however, is a big one: women who stop exercising at some point during their pregnancies not only lose the aforementioned benefits, but are actually often worse off than those who never exercised at all!

I’m thus approaching December 31 as my goal event. Having run a marathon in my first trimester and kept up my cycling and running 6 to 7 times per week since then, I really need to avoid slacking at this point lest my performance suffer horribly when I make it to the starting line. I’m not, of course, blind to the reality that a million things beyond my control may curb even my best efforts in this regard and that all of this will become increasingly difficult as I become increasingly large. I also know that even a dedicated running regimen is hardly a guarantee for a trouble-free delivery (case in point: Paula Radcliffe’s first delivery, which she documented in some gory detail in an issue of Runner's World a couple of years ago).

But for now, I need all of the pleasant fall weather I can get to make running and cycling as easy and enjoyable as possible, for as long as possible. More so than for any other training I've done, it really is a case of needing to finish what I started. While the ultimate date of the event is subject to change without notice, it definitely observes a strict no-cancellation policy.