Well, well, well … here we are with less than one month to go! I know it usually seems like pregnancy flies by to everyone except the expectant mother, but I gotta say this one seems to have flown by for me as well.
I am currently 36 weeks pregnant and am also currently recovering from COVID. How lovely?! Thankfully, I seemed to have turned the corner for the most part. I do seem to have some lingering symptoms that randomly make an appearance, but from what I’ve heard, this is normal (ish). As far as my sickness went, I got what I thought was either just a cold or allergies (well except for that I don’t have allergies (insert facepalm)) during the first week of January. I had a runny nose, watery eyes and was sneezing like crazy for a few days. Those symptoms went away fairly quickly (two to three days tops) and then I felt fine for a few days.
About a week after the original symptoms started, things took a turn for the worse. This time I had a sore throat, cough, headache, chills (but no fever), body aches and a lot of general fatigue. I tested positive on January 14th. Those symptoms hung around for about a week and now the aches and fatigue seem to make an appearance every third day or so. Granted, I don’t know how much of the aches and fatigue are related to being 36 weeks pregnant vs. recovering from COVID, but my guess is that it’s some combination of the two!
I debated whether to post the bump progress picture or not, but honestly I love seeing these when other people post them, so I’m just going to assume that others of you out there are also interested. Gotta give the people what they want! Ha.
I have a few thoughts about the growing bump and body changes in general that I will go ahead and over share as well. When I took the 6 week and 12 week photos, I legit thought that I looked pregnant. What in the world?! Perhaps there are some body image issues lingering around that I had no idea I was still dealing with pre-pregnancy. At this point, I have gained between 25-30 pounds, which is right within the “recommended” range. Side note: there are plenty of pregnancy weight gain calculators out there if you care to compare your progress that way.
I tried not to really nit pick the data as far as that goes. It gets really tricky sometimes because I truly love data and numbers, but I also know myself well enough to know that there *is* such thing as too much of a good thing on that front sometimes. I assumed that seeing the scale climb up and up (and up some more) would really mess with my mind, but I am happy to report that it didn’t bother me as much as I expected it to. The most important thing all along was that baby boy was growing appropriately and it feels really good knowing that I have given him a chance to do that. While I might not be in the best shape of my life from a fitness perspective, I actually do feel like I am healthier than I have ever been. I realize that probably sounds very cheesy, but I am okay with that.
This year-to-date, I have only run 22 miles. I have taken 9 complete rest days (we’re talking < 1k steps per day on those days). This is probably more rest days than I’ve taken during entire years in the past! While I still *can* run, it doesn’t feel good during or afterwards, so it seems silly to continue trying. For those of you who just don’t like running, I totally get it now. I don’t like it right now either! Ha.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t ready to get back into running though. I haven’t expended a ton of mental energy on what the postpartum “comeback” will look like yet, mainly because I don’t really know when I will be able to get back into it. There are way too many variables that I can’t control! Whenever the time does come, I think I’ll be ready! After about a year and a half to two years of no “serious” training (as defined in my brain by my pre-2020 training logs), I am starting to get the itch to get back to it. The bottom line is that I’m excited about the fact that I am excited about it (if that makes any sense!).
This year-to-date, I’ve done 99 miles on the elliptical, which I guess isn’t too shabby. The weirdest thing is that in the exact same amount of time, I can do either 5.5 miles on my home elliptical (Sole E95) or 11 miles on the gym elliptical (Life Fitness 95X). They are different brands and the style of the machines varies slightly as well, but even after about 6 months of using both, the difference seems crazy to me! When I first got the home elliptical, I couldn’t stand it because I knew how many more miles I could get if I did the same time and for the most part gave the same effort at the gym.
Recently though, I have tried to really embraced the home elliptical for what it is. I still get a killer workout in! I would actually venture to say that I have to work harder to go half as far at home than I do at the gym. It reminds me of doing a tempo workout on a really hilly route or with a headwind or with some other perceived obstacle in the way. Your data might not *look* as impressive to the outside observer (i.e., the Strava stalkers), but in actuality you nailed the effort and your fitness is higher than it appears! It also reminds me of how vastly different treadmills can be. One can make you feel like a gazelle effortlessly gliding through the desert sands and the another can make you feel like a hippopotamus trudging through thick mud. Maybe the secret is to embrace our inner hippo in training and then run like a gazelle on race day!
Thanks to the aforementioned love of all things data related, here is a tally of all of the pregnancy activities thus far (mid-May through today (late-January)):
- Walking: 124 miles (longest was 5 miles)
- Running: 1,124 miles (most of these miles were in the first and second trimesters and the longest run was 14 miles)
- Elliptical: 569 miles (longest was 17 miles)
- Pilates: 17 classes
Whew! It’s been real. I’m more than ready to move on to the next phase of meeting and loving our baby boy!
For any of you mother runners out there who have worked with an amazing coach that was knowledgeable in all things postpartum, please hit me up in the comments with recommendations! Feel free to drop in some non-stressful advice re: raising a tiny human as well.