Running Through the First Trimester!

(*** Spoiler Alert ***)

In case the title didn’t give it away … we are having a BABY! Woo hoo!

Shortly after my I posted my last training log in June, we found out that we were pregnant! I had just started adding back some quality workouts and I planned to do weekly training log posts, but as soon as I found out, I immediately switched over to only easy running. There’s only so much to say about an easy run and since most of the people who are interested in those details follow along on Strava, I didn’t really see the need to continue the weekly posts. Also, we weren’t planning to “announce” the pregnancy until the second trimester and it would’ve been really difficult to write a post and not say anything!

I mentioned this previously, but in case you missed it, we experienced a pregnancy loss in February. It was far more devastating than I could’ve imagined. When we found out we were pregnant again, we were obviously super excited, but at the same time, we were a bit guarded. Right off the bat, things were looking a lot better. At 4 weeks and 2 days, my hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin (i.e., the pregnancy hormone)) was 3,589! As a reference, last time at 4 weeks and 2 days, my hCG was only 49. The high hCG level this time around was a REALLY good sign!

I got the hCG numbers back on a Tuesday. I had to do a double take when I opened the email with the results because it was so much higher than I expected. We were able to let our guard down ever so slightly when we got those results. As soon as we did that, on Friday of the same week, we had another scare. As a warning, some of these details might be TMI, so if you don’t care to read about baby stuff, feel free to skip this one! At 5:30 p.m. or so (of course these things don’t ever happen during regular business hours), I started bleeding. This time was different from last time, as it was a gush of blood with no pain, instead of light spotting with cramping. We went back and forth about what to do and ultimately decided to go to the hospital.

At the hospital they did bloodwork and an ultrasound. My hCG level was 11,273! What?! I was blown away. I thought for sure that it would be lower. The levels are supposed to double approximately every two days, which meant that I was still right on track. The ultrasound tech was able to find the baby and a very faint heartbeat. It was very, very faint (not measurable) and only visible if I held my breath, but that made sense given that I wasn’t even 6 weeks along yet. There wasn’t a good explanation for the blood, but otherwise everything seemed to be okay. Phew! They told me to take it really easy for a few days and to follow up with my OB first thing on Monday.

After a couple of days of nothing but rest, I was going stir crazy! Why does the idea of rest seem so appealing until you are forced to do it?! Thankfully, on Monday my doctor gave me the A-Okay to go about my business and carry on as usual. My hCG level at that point was 36,067. Another great sign!

At 8 weeks, we got to hear the baby’s heartbeat for the first time. It was STRONG, clocking in at 170 bpm!

At 10 weeks, we did bloodwork to find out the gender! Richard’s sister and her kids were in town and we wouldn’t see them again until Thanksgiving, so we wanted to surprise them with the gender while they were here. As it turns out, we surprised not only them, but also our parents. They knew we weren’t supposed to find out for a few more weeks and at first everyone was super confused that we were trying to tell them that we already knew we were having a BOY!

At 12 weeks, we did more bloodwork. This time the test was to analyze the genetic information that was in my bloodstream from the placenta. It screens for certain chromosomal abnormalities that could affect the baby’s health and development, such as trisomy 21 (Down syndrome) and sex chromosome aneuploidies (SCAs, abnormal numbers of X or Y chromosomes). I’m super thankful to report that all of the results were within the normal, expected ranges. Praise the Lord! We’ve got a ways to go, but so far it seems like Baby Allen is very healthy and we couldn’t ask for anything more.

Baby and I have run 592 miles together so far! We’ve also walked 39 miles, done 10 hours and 15 minutes on the elliptical, done a decent amount of strength work and been to 5 Pilates classes. While I’m trying to stay as active as possible while I can, I am also trying to take it easy and not push myself too much. Pre-pregnancy I was running 60+ miles per week, so this is actually a decent cutback!

For those that are interested, here are the weekly deets:

Week 01: 51.5 miles
Week 02: 55.6 miles (coincides w/ Training Log – 06/06/21)
Week 03: 61.9 miles (coincides w/ Training Log – 06/13/21)
Week 04: 44.1 miles (coincides w/ Training Log – 06/20/21)
Week 05: 21.0 miles + 35 minutes elliptical + 45 minutes strength
Week 06: 38.2 miles
Week 07: 43.5 miles + 20 minutes elliptical + 30 minutes strength
Week 08: 32.8 miles + 140 minutes elliptical + 30 minutes strength + 75 minutes Pilates
Week 09: 40.5 miles + 125 minutes elliptical + 30 minutes strength + 75 minutes Pilates
Week 10: 53.8 miles + 30 minutes strength
Week 11: 45.8 miles + 30 minutes strength + 45 minutes Pilates
Week 12: 53.0 miles + 45 minutes Pilates
Week 13: 47.8 miles + 30 minutes elliptical + 45 minutes Pilates

Since I didn’t know I was pregnant until 4 weeks, the first few weeks were business as usual as far as regular training goes. I started adding more cross training in during the next few weeks. At one point, my plan was to alternate running w/ the elliptical during the work week. For example, I’d run on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and on the weekend days and I’d do the elliptical on Tuesday and Thursday. That plan worked well for several weeks, but unfortunately the COVID numbers in our area started really ramping back up and I felt like the best decision was to avoid crowded indoor spaces. We found a pretty nice elliptical on Marketplace last week, so I actually have that as an option at home now as well. I haven’t used it much yet, but I am glad to have it.

So far, running is going pretty well! My average “pregnancy pace” is around 8:50. I did run one sub-7 minute mile during week 12 (a 6:58!). I felt really good one morning and I surprised myself by running a sub-8 minute mile without consciously increasing my effort at all, which of course got me thinking and wondering if I could easily dip under 7 without too much effort. I was able to do it, but I was definitely working a bit. I don’t think I’ll make a habit of that by any means, but it was fun! I’ve been doing a “long run” of 10 miles pretty much every week. Last week I increased that a little bit to 12 miles. I’m tossing around the idea of doing 14 this weekend. It would be 14 miles for 14 weeks pregnant. You know I love a good play on numbers!

That’s it for now. Thanks for following along! There’s going to be quite a lot of changes over here in the months and years to come. I have a feeling this is going to be the biggest, best adventure of them all!