We are family

To borrow a phrase that Zdenek used recently, all is (still) quiet on the Eastern front. The +1 seems to be enjoying his/her current abode, and has made no indications that he/she is ready to face life in the Big Apple outside the comfort of my uterus. It could still be a long haul from here. I'm due tomorrow, but don't feel anything close to it.

In fact, I'm feeling remarkably good, and as a result, Zdenek and I have enjoyed a lovely "staycation" together this week. It's the first Christmas we've spent apart from our families, but, as Zdenek reminded me last week, we are family. And so we've indulged in a week of great baking, cooking, and eating; logging 8-9 hours of sleep each night; strolls through the piles of snow that fell on Boxing Day; daily runs in Central Park together (I'm still running 4-5 miles each day in sub-10 minute/mile pace!); shopping and movies (we've now seen every major contender for this year's Best Picture); and one very lavish lunch at one of New York's finest establishments. Best of all, unlike some vacations, this one has been completely void of any arguments, drama, or stress.

Though one of the members hasn't been brave enough to show their face, this family has had a most memorable Christmas vacation together.

This is only a test

With the holidays fast approaching and my due date looming, Zdenek and I have been contemplating the “ideal” day to have the baby (as if we have any choice in the matter). An earlier arrival might suck for the little one who has to share his/her birthday with the Christmas holiday every year; on the other hand, it would be good timing from a work perspective for both Zdenek and me. A later arrival, however, means a few more days to enjoy life without a crying baby in the room, and sometimes this seems even more attractive than the 2010 tax credit we’d earn if the delivery day comes before the year is through.

Recently, though, I’ve been leaning towards “later is better,” if only because I feel entirely unprepared to look after a baby. I know what everyone says: You’re never ready. You’ll figure it out. Instinct takes over. Once it’s your baby, it will be totally different. But still, I can’t help but feel that, despite the hours of “baby care” classes in which we’ve invested and the books I’ve sifted through, I won’t really have a clue what I’m doing.

To frame things in a perspective to which I can relate, I’ve tried to compare the first few months of baby-rearing to running a marathon: I’ve done the work to get here. I’ve read the books and followed the plan. Now we’re in taper, and I’m starting to feel antsy and achy and unprepared. I start to question whether I should have put in a just a little more effort along the way, or if there’s anything I can do between now and game day to improve my chances of a strong performance. The coaches will tell me that there’s nothing more to be done; now I just need to give it my best effort. When race day arrives, adrenaline will probably get me through the first bit of the course. By the halfway point, a small bump in the road is going to feel like scaling Mount Everest. Two-thirds of the way in, I’ll start to question whether I’m cut out for this at all, and soon after that, self-doubt and exhaustion may lead me to swear under my breath that I will never, ever do this again. And then, I’ll somehow stumble across the finish line (often leaning over to one side), too tired to contemplate the feat I’ve just accomplished. Some time later, when I’m recovered and things are back on their usual schedule, I’ll marvel at the experience and remember the thrill of it all, and the suffering will have seemed a small price to pay for such a rewarding outcome. And so I’ll decide to do it again (perhaps even seven more times!).

Over the weekend, when I mentioned my self-doubts to Zdenek, he offered a different analogy: “Don’t you remember the feeling in university when you’d walk into an exam feeling totally unprepared and like you were going to bomb it, and you ended up acing it instead?” I don’t know if Zdenek feels as confident on the inside as he’s appearing to be on the outside, but either way, I’m glad that one of us isn’t stressing too much about this. Because at some point last night, when I again became overwhelmed by the daunting task that lies ahead of me, the only things that eventually lulled me back to sleep were Zdenek’s incredible patience and his calming words (if I haven’t mentioned it enough, let me again say that my husband is the world’s greatest). This morning, as he headed off to work, exhausted both physically and mentally but not complaining one bit, I told him that he had proven himself capable of soothing someone in the middle of the night and sacrificing his own sleep to so. By his own analogy, he had aced the test. Which makes me incredibly lucky to be in his study group.
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P.S. Yes, I'm still running, and it still feels pretty darn good. I ran 6.5 miles in one shot on Saturday, but decided to stop there due to thirst (apparently dehydration brings on labor, but I try to restrict the liquids when I'm running). Here's a photo of me in my new running gear:

Recipe for a perfect winter morning

A perfect morning goes something like this:

1. Waking up after eight full hours of sleep.
2. Seeing the first dusting of snow on the ground.
3. Heading out for a 4.5 mile run with my husband in the cold winter air.
4. Having Central Park mostly to ourselves because New Yorkers can't handle it when the mercury dips below freezing.
5. Running a relatively easy ~9:20 pace without needing to stop once.
6. Enjoying a bagel with Nutella for breakfast, while laughing out loud reading this.

Does it have to be a competition?

This morning I enjoyed one of the easiest runs I’ve had in several weeks. I ran just over 4.5 miles without needing to stop once, and my pace was just shy of 9:30 min/mile. Of course, I felt like I was absolutely flying around Central Park -- it’s funny how 9:30 feels like 7:30 did only ten months ago. But I don’t mind; I anticipate I’ll have 7:30 days again at some point. On the weekend, I ran just over 6 miles on my own (at a bit slower pace and with a couple of walk breaks). By the end of it, I was still feeling strong and relatively light, and I almost considered tacking on another couple of miles. But then I figured that it’s better to quit while I’m ahead, because the last time I ran over seven miles I paid for it dearly. I’ll consider today’s run proof that my prudence did not go unrewarded.

I’m just over two weeks away from my due date and, to be honest, at times I get worried that perhaps I’m feeling too good (or rather, not poorly enough). Aside from a whole lot of kicking and squirming that can sometimes make me yelp out loud, I feel mostly fine. While I certainly prefer my non-pregnant state, I really don’t have much in the way of bloating/aches/pains/fatigue/inability to sleep. Of course, all of that could change at any moment (watch this space), but sometimes I think that maybe I should feel worse, because that would mean the baby is feeling better. Could this be true? Is it possible for us both to feel healthy and happy at the same time? Or is comfort (as sleep is sure to be in a few weeks) a zero-sum game between me and the +1?

Still going...

I am delighted to report that, at 36.5 weeks and only three days away from being officially “full term,” I am still running. This morning, despite grey skies and extremely windy, frigid weather, I was all too happy to be out there on the bridle path, looping the reservoir and breathing in the fresh air. I have been able to avoid the gym for almost a week now, and the longer I can stay away, the better.

Yes, it is slow running, but I think it’s still a moderately respectable 9:45-10 min/mile. True, I have to stop and walk from time to time and at very unpredictable intervals (sometimes I can go 15 minutes trouble-free, but sometimes I need another break after two minutes), but I figure that’s the least I can do for the sake of my internal organs. No, I’m not doing the distance to which I am accustomed, though I did manage 11 miles over the weekend (over two days, but who’s counting?) and four more this morning. And while I know I look extremely cumbersome / unattractive -- I wear some combination of Zdenek’s large running shirts, my tights, and a large support belt under my waist -- at this point, I am beyond caring. I’ve accepted that it has become (and will surely continue to be, even after the +1 arrives) a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, and taking it day by day.

Not with a bang but a whimper

I laughed out loud this morning reading a NY Times article about cycling and running injuries. The author, who compares the mental and physical tolls of cycling and running injuries, describes her recent cycling accident (emphasis mine):

My crash came 8.9 miles into a 100-mile ride (of course I knew the distance, because of course I was watching my bicycle computer). My friend Jen Davis was taking a turn leading; my husband, Bill, was drafting — riding close behind her. I was drafting Bill when a slower rider meandered into his path. Bill swerved and I hit his wheel. Down I went.

The first thing I did when I hit the ground was turn off my stopwatch — I did not want accident time to count toward our riding time. Then I sat on a curb, dazed. My head had hit the road, but my helmet saved me. My left thigh was so bruised it was hard to walk. Worst of all was a searing pain in my left shoulder. I could hardly move my arm. But since it hurt whether I rode or not, I decided, like an idiot, to finish the ride.

The next day I went to a doctor and learned, to my shock, that my collarbone was broken. Running is my sport, I thought, and no ride is worth this.

It appears that the author and I share more than our love of biking and running. We also seem to share an obsession with times and logs, and, of course, a sometimes tragic inability to know when to call it a day.

My own story began last Sunday during my usual long weekend run. I have happily kept up 30-40 miles per week through this whole pregnancy, and my long runs have averaged 10-12 miles without any apparent consequences (other than a voracious appetite). Beginning around week 25 (for the uninitiated, a pregnancy is meant to be 40 weeks), I started to think of my running in terms of weekly goals: Just get to week 26. Okay, see if you can still be running at week 27. Wouldn’t it be amazing to run 10K at week 30?

So there I was, at 34 weeks and a few days, enjoying some beautiful weather and the company of my husband in Central Park. Only the week prior I had run over 11 miles in one shot and felt great, and I had already put in 17 miles over the course of the current week, with a full rest day on Saturday. Sunday’s run was sure to be a breeze.

And it was, until about mile seven, when I stopped for a drink of water. Suddenly, I felt a stiff pain creep through my pelvis and down the fronts of my legs. I tried to start running again, but it took some time to get the gears going. Once I was moving, though, the pain went away, and I was running carefree for a couple more miles. But then, at the next water break, I again was overtaken by a crippling stiffness, bordering on pain. I started moving again, ever so slowly. Within a few hundred feet, I was feeling fine, and vowed to not stop again for the rest of the run. (In fact, when Zdenek and I needed to fill up our water bottles, I asked him to run ahead and do so quickly so that I wouldn’t need to break my stride.)

Over 10 miles later, I returned home for a pancake breakfast and cup of coffee. Everything seemed okay, until I tried to get up from the table and found that I couldn't. Once I finally did manage to prop myself up, I could barely walk. I spent the rest of Sunday immobile on the recliner until we finally made it out for a 20 minute walk at 6 pm at a pace that would be too slow for most 90 year-olds with walkers.

For the next three days, I rested completely, waiting for the ability to bend over to put on my socks to gradually return. On Thanksgiving Thursday, feeling mostly better, I headed out for a very cautious two mile “run,” but found myself once again in the chair for the rest of the day (this time even worse off than Sunday). For the following three days, I returned to the gym that I haven’t set foot in since May and set myself up on the elliptical machine for 45-50 minutes at a time. I tried to convince myself that I can enjoy working out indoors (I can’t, but I can tolerate it when I have no other option).

Fast forward to today and I am finally feeling 95% heeled. I rolled out of bed in the darkness of the early morning and ran another slow two miles (this time with Zdenek, who is battling his own injuries these days!). I confirmed that I can still run, but it’s at such a slow pace that it hardly seems worth it. I am actually at the point where I can get a far better workout inside four walls, and running isn’t as fun as it should be. While I might still log some miles between now and "the end," I'm guessing they will be few and slow. I suppose I overdid it, and now I have to pay the price.

But I take solace in the same NY Times article, in which the author goes on to say:

With running, even though I realize that I and others who got injured could not have prevented our injuries, somehow I blamed myself. It was “overuse,” even though overuse is apparent only in retrospect, as you cast about for a reason why you got injured.

Yes, I could have taken it easier and perhaps gotten three or four more weeks of increasingly slow running in return. Maybe if I had stopped when the pain kicked in at seven miles last week, I’d still be running three or more today. But the past eight months have been some of the most enjoyable and rewarding running I’ve ever known. Running frequently and long has kept me sane and happy and given me a sense of control that I thought pregnancy would surely rob me of. I never imagined I’d be in this kind of shape heading into the final stretch, and I’m thankful for every 10 mile run that got me here.

I got injured because I love running and how it makes me feel. And that's okay by me.

It runs in the family

I think the NYC marathon has made two more fans