Pregnancy, Fitness and Mind Abuse

 Since it is January and all I'm thinking again about fitness. I'm back on board writing down the things I eat along with A who is fantastically consistent at it and keeping track of my nutritional intake on Fitday.com's handy little iPhone app (I still sometimes use the more comprehensive website, so don't be shy, non-smart phonies!) and I'm weighing myself every morning.

Image by Justin Liew via Flickr

 I genuinely regret slacking off on my running and then throwing in the towel. Summer heat is a major enthusiasm killer for me and I think the time period where it really started to get warm out is when I quit. Lots of people think the idea of running in the cold is crazy but for me it doesn't seem nearly as daunting as running in heat. When you run in winter you warm up and feel okay but in July running sounds like a completely terrifying thing to me.

Pregnant with Nib, no real prenatal shots this time around yet.

Truth be told there are several factors at work with me and fitness. One of the last times I ever ran was when I was in Florida on vacation with my in-laws and I think the combination of social intimidation ("Let's all go for a group run!") coupled with warm weather ate me alive. I tried to feel brave but honestly, I wimped out and walked back after quitting part way through our planned group run. I've been thinking frustratedly lately about intimidation and fear and all the crazy triggers I have for panics regarding fitness and exercise (being watched, sweating, physical pain, falling, feeling embarrassed...etc.). Consciously, when I think about it I realize that none of those things is going to kill me, none of them are objectively bad and lots of them would maybe even have something good to offer me.

This is where a personal trainer in my back pocket would really come in handy. One of the great things about a trainer is that they can order you through the blocks you set up for yourself, believe in you ceaselessly, know better than you about limitations and safety and not allow you to fink out when things get rough even if the rough is mental. Anyone have any great ways to stay fit while pregnant and/or brilliant ways to be your own personal trainer and order yourself to keep on and develop discipline even though you're scared? I've love to grow this way.

Related articles

• 10 fears that keep people from the gym (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Pregnancies linked to a healthier heart (nation.com.pk)
• Tips and Workouts For a Strong and Fit Pregnancy (fitsugar.com)
• Chicago Personal Trainer Shares Most Common Fitness Mistakes (prweb.com)

Running: Part Deux

Image via Wikipedia

I am still running. I have been at it for three weeks now. I can scarcely believe it, really. That sounds terribly, horribly cliche but it is so true. Every single time I run I come home and spend a half an hour saying aloud to A, "I did it! I went running. Again. Can you believe it?" and pinching myself. I'm practically black and blue from all the pinch marks.

I am using the Couch to 5K program that I have heard much lauded. Several friends of mine have used the system to great effect themselves. It basically is a training system that is set up to take you from sedentary activity level to 5K running level in an entirely sane, baby step method. I never feel like I am dying when I am running now, (I always pushed it too hard, and too long on my own) and I am steadily improving and climbing the systems upping difficulty levels. I used to feel like my heart was going explode out of my chest and like my lungs were on being hit with a sandblaster, scrubbing them out of my ribcage with an acid fire. My legs would shake and I would sometimes get spotty vision and feel fainty. This program is hard but I never feel like I'm about to pass out and about as bad as it gets is feeling a little wobbly when am getting to the end and feeling occasional shortness of breath. Honestly, the worst part of running for me at this point is the voices in my head that cackle horrible downer comments in my ear as I'm beginning. I have found I can largely drown them out by listening to music. I also recommend search for iPhone apps for running as there are some wonderful tools out there. I use one of them to track when I should run and verbally coach me through my headphones as I go. I love hearing the British woman's encouragement, "You have only 15 more seconds of running remaining! Keep going!"

Last night I ran three times the length of time that I ran in my time out. I am really truly a runner and I can feel physically that, ever so subtle is happening to me. I don't really dread running nearly as much as I once did and the afterglow is positively crave-worthy. I thought everyone was making up that "runner's high" hokum but I'm telling you folks, it is a genuinely fabulous and very real phenomenon, at least for me. I come in and lie on the floor in the sunroom with the baby patting me or flop on the bed next to A while he "hmmm's" and "uhmm's" his way through some mysterious iPhone interchange and I levitate. I feel like my body buzzes and glows for a while after I come back. I have an immense sense of well-being mentally, I feel happy, even if the whole day up until that point has been a bust and I smile, for no real tangible reason. Somehow, the fact that I went outdoors and moved quickly down the sidewalk, making clomping noises like the local horse, panting out belches of steam and then came wobbling back to my own from door is enough to set my body at perfect equilibrium and solve all problems.

I have reached a not-to-be-believed stage in my life when I want to run! I can't wait for the next time I go out. I can't wait to find myself stretching out in the black night: the thud of the pavement below me, The Pleiades sailing overhead. I feel like such a grown-up: learning to love something that was my nemesis, being healthier, enjoying good things, making myself do something really hard. Gosh, it's good to be an adult, eh?

Next up, once the pavement is warmer and the hiking trails open?

Barefoot running.

Related articles

• Runner's High Is as Addictive as Opiates (fitsugar.com)
• Phys Ed: What Really Causes Runner's High? (well.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Last I Ran Barefoot, Yes, You Heard Right, Barefoot (momblognetwork.com)

Christmas Tree Heaven and The Chinook

Tonight, as I was running (Eep! Yes, still! More on that in a future post!) along the streets of our snug, sleepy neighborhood, I found myself dodging the occasional Christmas tree point or trunk. The snow is beginning to melt and all our holiday aboreal refuse is appearing again. A friend was telling me today that she found it so depressing, "I just want my Christmas tree to go out the door and off to Christmas tree heaven! You know? I don't want to see them all sitting there for so long." She makes me chuckle.

I have to say though that I am personally not nearly so down over the whole thing although I can see what she's getting at. Nobody wants things to sit and sit and sit. That said, our own personal Christmas tree hasn't been visible since about a day or two after I hauled it to the curb in early January. We've had so much snow, heap after heap of it with no real breaks that all the trees in town have been covered and not visible, let alone collectable for ages. I suppose the men who have to the to work doing the sticky, spiky job of tree collection were a bit gleeful about putting off their awkward chore. Nothing like a few months in a snowbank to make your opponent less confidently formidable. I'm glad to see the trees poking out the snow and see all those discarded holiday bits showing up on curbs again, just as glad as I am to the pale muddy grey of the wasted winter lawns. Melting snow is good. Spring is only 32 days away.

We have had a ridiculously, hooting, branch rattling wind the last two days. I know we're in the wrong part of the country and meteorologists all over would probably get fits of giggles to hear me say it but, I always think of the Chinook from The Little House books when we get a strong wind accompanied by warmer weather at the end of winter.  Yes, I did say warmer weather. We are supposed to have high mid-fifties by Friday!

In the meantime, I'm madly pruning that apple tree and the icicles, they are a-dripping!

Related articles

• Salvaged Christmas Tree Sleds - These Upcycled Sleds by Tom Hatfield are a Handmade "Treet" (GALLERY) (trendhunter.com)
• Snowbanks show their dark side (boston.com)
• 4 Ways to Recycle your Christmas Tree (mysweetgreens.com)

Run Carlie, Run

Well friends, I can't rightly believe it myself but, it's true...last night, I went running by myself, for the first time in my life.

I had made an amendment resolution that besides just doing yoga in the mornings, five days a week, I'd  do one aerobic workout on the weekends. A huge, huge thing for me to promise. I hate aerobic workouts. But friends, there are lungs and a heart, not just leg muscles to stretch and a mind to relax so I bit the bullet. It's a new year, it's a new me.

And yeah, my friend Sam has been inspiring my eyeballs out, AND my friend Anna, two non-runners who suddenly positively athletic. I had told myself that once it was warm out, I'd run outdoors like Sam was. (Barefoot running! So exciting!) Yeah. Barefoot running will be cool, and I sure can't wait for outdoor warmth again but if I'm doing an aerobic something anyhow...why not run now. And then I forgot about it. Heh.

And then there I was last night, reading a book in which a woman makes positive life-changes (one of which is exercise) and I remembered..."Oh crud. I was supposed to run this weekend. I blew that." And then, I realized it was still Sunday night and before I lost my nerve, I dug my old tennis shoes out of the closet, pulled on a sweatshirt, a scarf and a hat and bolted out the door.

I didn't do anything impressive. I went around the block. And I don't mean I ran around the block. I ran down one side of our block and I walked the rest, in slight pain from the running bit. It hurt and I felt fat and pathetic and super uncool but, I also was so proud of myself and the night wasn't nearly as painfully cold as I'd imagined and there was Orion winking brightly over the corner of our neighbor's roof. So, that was something.

I'm trying to block the memory of the searing burn in my lungs and just ride the high of finally being big enough to do something good, even if it's hard and scary. Next Sunday night, you know where I'll be.