Pregnancy running: Weeks 29-34

5 more weeks down, now just 5 to go!

Week 29: 39.2 miles, 3 days off. Long run of 11 miles which included some fartlek work with Claire, one of my high school athletes, and Nate pushing the stroller. From the beginning of the workout, I could only see Claire’s back! They circled back to me on the easy segments. Man, I love doing hard workouts with people. I can’t wait to 1) be doing hard workouts again!, and 2) to be able to recruit the army of individuals I’ve amassed here in Northfield to do these crazy workouts alongside! Soon enough, right?!?

I had a 4 mile run the next day where I had more pelvic pain than I’ve had before, then a cramp in my lower abdominal at 3.66 that caused me to stand, then walk, for quite a while. I haven’t had a lot of pelvic pain during pregnancy running before so it’s hard to know what is runnable and what isn’t.

Week 30: 20.2 miles, 4 days off. A rough week, mentally and physically. Monday’s run of just 4 miles included 5-6 walk breaks. I also wasn’t really into the run from the beginning – I didn’t want to start! Tuesday’s run I did the “quality” Meghan suggested (cruise intervals) but cut the mileage from 8 to 6 just because it was so much harder than usual. Sigh. I did get my 10 miler in, 9:15 average, but that was the only highlight from the week.

Week 31: 29.1 miles, 2 days off.

Workout highlights #1: Monday’s elliptical workout. Nate was called in for an emergency patient so I hit up the elliptical while the girls watched The Magic School Bus in the workout room. The meat of the workout was 7x(5 min med/2 hard/2 easy). It was a LOT of fun. I often forget how much I love working hard on an elliptical!

Workout highlights #2: The next day I started off with the option to get my 9 mile long run done. It went really well! Crazy how up and down running while pregnant can be. The next day I felt really tired and took a lot of walk breaks during 4 miles easy, but I’m not surprised given the hard day followed by a long run day.

Week 32: 28.6 miles, 2 days off. Probably one of my better training weeks!

I felt more pelvic pressure on my long run, which is now 8 miles. Not necessarily pain like 2 weeks ago, just pressure, to the point where running downhill was really uncomfortable. Maybe baby has dropped? Other than that, though, a wonderful run through the Carleton arb with Nate, and only a couple of walk breaks!

Later in the week I did a reverse ladder fartlek. 3-2-1-1-2-3. On the last 3 min interval I decided to extend it to 800m. I clocked a 3:22! I’ll take it!

Lastly, I also had an elliptical workout on the schedule, but decided it was too nice outside not to run so I attempted it outside. Instead of 4×7 mins hard (which I know is too long to go hard while running these days), I did 4×7 mins up-tempo. I was pleasantly surprised to run 7:45, 7:33, 7:38 and 7:30 pace. I didn’t feel the weight of baby as much, nor the uncomfortable pelvic pressure.

Week 33: 27.6 miles, 2 days off. One of my fartlek workouts went really well, moving from 1 min at 7:00-7:15 pace to 1 min at 8:00 to 1 min easy for 21 mins. The second one? I attempted while pushing the double stroller (Nate was on a long bike ride). Holy quad strength workout! I did it, but didn’t even look at paces or HR afterwards. There was no way there was much change in pace or effort on the “on” segments. I just can’t push that much weight effectively anymore! But, we succeeded in timing the end of the run with the end of Nate’s bike ride so he rode the last 1.5 miles of the run back home with us.

Week 34: 29.8 miles, 1 day off. The 6 mile long run this week did not feel great. My legs felt a little swollen, almost a burning sensation in my shin muscle from time to time? I took multiple walk breaks and pace was 9:30+. The next day’s 4 miler felt great, go figure. 4 miles at sub 9 pace.

Mid-week Nate and I did a 5 miler with some hill sprints at the end (HA – I would have liked to have watched myself!). I felt so good. Two of the middle miles were 8:45 and 8:15. I didn’t feel the weight of baby as much and my lungs feel more normal sized. This run had me imagining what running without 20lbs of baby weight might be like! The world passes by so much quicker! Maybe I won’t feel so heavy and stuck to the ground! Maybe running won’t feel like such a quad-dominant movement and might actually feel fluid. I can’t wait!

Then on Saturday a TNC client came down for help pacing her 5 mile virtual race. She has improved tremendously in the last 6 weeks so we were attempting to extend her previous 5k PR pace to the 5 mile distance. Knowing I couldn’t run 5 miles at her pace, I ran to the 2.5-miles-to-go point and joined her (at a distance) then. She was slower than goal on the gravel so had a little ground to make up with me. We dropped 7:10s for 2 miles! With .5 miles to go I didn’t know if I could keep up. At .3 miles to go I nudged her to GO! Not only was I spent, but I don’t have an extra gear now to kick anyway. She went – and nailed an amazing new PR. Super proud of her, and glad I could be a part of it. I just LOVE coaching! I wonder if I had a bigger smile on my face the rest of the weekend for her PR than she did!

— And that brings Baby P’s mileage total to 1571.1! (vs. Anna’s pregnancy through 34 weeks at 1853.1) (Between weeks 35-39 with Anna I only ran 19.5 miles total, so my mileage tapered off dramatically, especially considering 3.1 of that was the day before she was born, per tradition)

In baby news, we are getting ready for his arrival! We started putting clothes into drawers and assembled the crib and changing table. Luckily we didn’t find out the gender with Greta so had a lot of gender neutral clothing for her that now we can reuse. The girls’ clothing they have outgrown is all in our utility room waiting for the day we can have a garage sale. Someone asked if I was really ready to get rid of it… you know, in case we decide to have 4? I had not considered keeping it until that comment (even though I’ve had a bit of anxiety over being “done”)…. I don’t know! Good thing we couldn’t sell it now if we tried… but in general, I’m hoping that I feel complete as a family of 5 after baby arrives. Please tell me the decision will be easy?

(Part of the anxiety is that if I have another C-section it would make sense to have my tubes tied right then, so ideally I’d have the decision made going into the procedure)

I am so thankful we, as well as family and friends, are all healthy & doing well. I can’t wait to meet baby, but will try not to wish the next 5 weeks away!

Your turn:

How has your training been through quarantine? More than usual? Less? Are you feeling just as motivated, or finding it hard to get out the door?

Then, for those that have been there before, did you also feel a bit of anxiety around potentially being “done” with kids?