Pregnancy & Post Delivery Excercise

Ok, I have received a few questions about how/when I started back on the training path after having Samantha. Let me give you the brief blow by blow:

I was very active throughout my entire pregnancy with the 100% blessing of my doctor and all of those in his group. He said to continue doing what I was doing but not to push it. Now was not the time to try to improve performance. Listen to your body he siad. If it says "go run" then go run. If it says "do nothing" then listen to it do not ignore it. I did a pretty good job following that advice. Here is the low down per trimester:

First Trimester:

I gave up biking outside immediately. I'm horribly clumsy and crashing my bike terrified me so I took that risk off the table. At 5 weeks I gave up biking for several months. I woke up one morning during the 5th week and had pretty substaintal bleeding. Bright red blood. I thought this pregnancy was all over. I cried. We went to the doctor and had an ultrasound and saw a heartbeat. We were so relieved. That night I racked my brain to see what could have caused the bleeding. The doctor said it just happens sometimes. I remembered that the previous evening I had ridden my bike on the indoor trainer for 45 minutes. Needless to say, I quit biking for

months. I have an elliptical machine so I started spending more time on it. I was scared at that point and would do 10 minutes ont he ellpitical then a 1/2 mile on the treadmill. This continued with no ill effects and eventually I built up to where I was running 3 miles straight. I continued to run and felt great. No high intensity stuff though. I also continued to swim but only about once or twice a month.

Weight gain was approximately 2 lbs.

Second Trimester:

I "ran" the Disney World 1/2 Marathon. I had never done a 1/2 Marathon before and didn't intend to run the whole thing until we were 3 miles into the race. I can't explain how good I felt that day. It was amazing. We jogged really slowly and walked a few times but we finished and I never felt out of breath or fatigued. It is an awesome race!

The elliptical machine continued to be my best friend. I continued to do workouts where I was on the elliptical then the treadmill, then the elliptical, treadmill, etc. etc. I still stayed off of the bike.

Weight gain was approximately 8lbs for a total of 10

Third Trimester:

I continued the elliptical/treadmill workouts but towards the middle of the third trimester I decided to give the bike a try again. I started really slowly with a 20 minute ride and things went great. My running distance gradually decreased the 2nd half of this trimester. At about 36 weeks I started experiencing significant swelling in my ankles and legs. It gradually got worse. I went to the doctor every week so they could monitor me but I never developed pre eclampsia. I wore compression socks for the last half of the 36th week up until delivery at 38 weeks.

Weight gain: just shy of 15 lbs. 12 of them added during the last 2 weeks mostly due to all of the water retention. Total weight gain, just shy of 25 lbs.

Post Delivery:

While still in the hospital Travis & I started walking. We walked around the floor with Sam in the morning, around noon and again at night. It felt wierd at first - my belly was all jiggly and felt oddly like it wasn't really attached to me. Oh and I got winded fast and I'm not sure why.

On the morning we were discharged I talked to my doctor about exercising. He knows my workout habits because we discussed them at every single visit throughout my pregnancy. He gave me the same guidelines as he gave me during pregnancy. I can do whatever I want as long as I listen to my body. That meant starting out walking and making sure everything went ok there. I could jog/run whenever I felt comfortable. No swimming duing the bleeding period.

I took it easy. We walked a ton the first week. I started jogging 1 week after delivery and gradually worked up from there. I think it helps that I train in 3 different areas (swim, bike run). If I had been trying to run 30+ miles per week one week after having Sam I think I would have been in trouble. Here is a pic of my first post delivery jog:

I felt good so I jumped into the middle of a 12 week sprint tri training plan. It was hard but I kept my effort level within reason. The most difficult thing was finding the time to workout for an extended period of time. I wasn't able to do any long brick workouts and I paid for that on race day. I had no idea how much effort to put in on each leg. As she has gotten older it has gotten easier. She now takes decent naps. Prior to 7 weeks she would nap for a half hour or 45 minutes then be crying. That got a lot better over the last week or so. I imagine that training is going to be difficult until she is bigger but I will work it in. Travis & I want to do a 70.3 next fall so we will have to find the time to train. I wouldn't trade the hassle it for anything in the world! She is so amazing!

First Post Baby Tri!!!!

Today Travis & I competed in the Hickory Grove Sprint Triathlon. It was a 500 meter swim, 15.5 mile bike and a 5K run. This was my first tri post baby Samantha. It went pretty good. I wanted to be faster than last year and got really close (within 30 seconds). I guess, that isn't too bad for 6 weeks of training (Sam is 8 weeks old today). Why do we get greedy as athletes.....I should be happy I finished but I'm sure I'm preaching to the chior if there are any other triathletes reading this.

We started off the morning at 4:30am. We thought we would be out the door by 5am. This is another thing we are learning as parents. We don't set the schedule, Sam does. She woke up right when we did and of course she was hungry. She had eaten at 1:30am so we were expecting her to make it until 5:30am but as I said, we don't rule the roost here anymore. Needless to say we were out the door by 5:15am. Still pretty respectable but it didn't allow us time to pick up muffins and cinnamon rolls for the babysitter and her family. I'm taking her out to dinner Tuesday night and I should buy a gift card for them.

We made it to the race for packet pickup in good time regardless of our somewhat late start. It was chilly (50 degrees). Travis started at 8:04am and I had to hang out until 8:48am. I thought it would be good to get in the water so at about 8:30 I wandered in. BRRRRR! Water temp was 71 degrees and it took my breath away - I've only done two open water swims and both were in water that was 80 degrees. I'm used to the balmy 85 degrees of the pool. I'm really glad I got in. Most of the other women were in as well.

As for the rest of the race the only things eventful that happened were that I had a couple of people try to swim over me. I've been fortunate not to have this happen to me before and I didn't like it. Thank goodness for wetsuits. I will state again that I am never, NEVER, NEVER doing a race where wetsuits aren't legal. I guess the pro circut is out for me (as if that was ever going to happen). Then at the beginning of the bike I first couldn't get my shoe in. Then I got that all figured out but my stupid speedometer wasn't working. Then I did something stupid. I tried to push the sensor closer to the wheel while I was on the bike. You can probably guess what happened. I'm an idot - but someone was looking out for me and I just skinned my ring finger. I could have lost a digit! It hurt pretty bad and was bleeding decently but I continued on. The ride was hard. I haven't ridden all out effort wise for about a year. Time to pay my dues. I did go back and forth with another girl in my age group which was pretty fun. Toward the end of the bike she came up beside me and said "Please tell me you are a slow runner". I told her not to worry because I am slower than snot off of the bike. I then passed her again about a half mile from the end of the bike.

The run was hard as it always is. About half a mile in I decided to ditch the maximum effort as my heart rate was going pretty high. I also stopped looking at my watch. I still finished with a middle of the pack run time.

Overall, I finished 6th out of 43 in my age group and 44th of 171 women overall. Here are my times:

SWIM (500 meters): 10:47.9

BIKE (15.5 miles): 48:05.01

RUN (5K): 28:00.5

Total: 1:29:42.7

Now I have to decide if this is my one and only race this year. There is another one in our area in a few weeks. We'll have to decide.

As for Sam, she did really well at Rhonda's. She slept most of the morning - had a bottle at 9am and another around 12:30pm. She was a happy camper when we picked her up.

Sam's First Hiking Experience

We took Sam hiking today at The Ledges State Park. She did awesome. Daddy carried her in the Baby Bjorn and she slept pretty much the whole time.

We hiked for a little over an hour on the easy trails and then had a picnic lunch. It started raining about 5 mintues after we sat down to eat though and we had to finish lunch in the pickup!

4 Consecutive Hours of Sleep

I'm so excited...Sam slept from 10:45 pm to 3 am. That is 4 hours of consecutive sleep for me! I haven't slept for 4 hours at one time since June 26th. I'm so excited I probably won't be able to get back to sleep!

It's Hot Out & Sam's Bumbo Seat

Went for 4.5 miles this morning with Sam and was sweating bullets by the end of it. I finished the run by doing some pretty good hills in our neighboorhood. I was supposed to run strides but I think the hills were a good substitute.

Yesterday we went to the pool and I made it approximately 900 meters without stopping. Hopefully, I am ready for the 23rd.

Sam Update: She hates, hates, hates, hates tummy time. I was on baby center today and there was a post about the Bumbo seat. Several people have said they used the seat (with very close parental supervision) to help build neck control because their babies will not do tummy time. I then had to find us a Bumbo. We went to Kmart - no Bumbo. We went to Walmart - only in pink. We went to Babies R Us - only in pink and blue. We went to Target and bought a green one. I sat Sam in it right after she ate and she appears to like it. I was holding my hands around her head the whole time. She has decent neck control but I wouldn't walk away from her in the seat at this point in time. Here is a picture of her in her new favorite chair.

Madone 5.5

I'm so excited!!!! I got a new bike yesterday. It is a Madone 5.5 and it is awesome. I bought it at Bike Country. It was a demo bike and I got a really good deal on it. I feel bad about spending the money but yee haw!!! Went for a ride last night and wow it is fast. I can't wait to race on it! Here is a picture of a similar bike I found on the internet.

Getting Adjusted

Sam the Husker fan (she doesn't have a choice)

Ok long time no post.

I really want to get better at this.

I thought about updating with everything that I have been doing over the past few weeks but I think I'll just summarize by saying I have managed to continue my tri training. I am following the Triathlete Magazine Essential Week-By-Week Training Guide. I'm in week 11 for a sprint at Level 4. I jumped into this on week 8 after having Sam.

The program has been pretty tough. Today was a tempo run with 18 minutes at the fastest pace I could maintain for 20 minutes. This ended up being between 9 and 8:30 pace. These tempo runs almost kill me. I don't think I'm going to have a good run at Hickory Grove. We'll see. Tonight I really need to hit the pool and try to swim at least 400m non stop. We did an open water swim on Sunday morning after church and it went pretty well.

On to Sam, she is doing good. Yesterday at the breastfeeding class we go to she weighed in at 8lbs 8oz and she ate 3.5 oz in 30 mintues. I wish she would get faster (the lady I was sitting next to said her 7 week old daughter eats 4oz in 10 minutes) but it is her schedule not mine. I'm getting much better at accepting that. She is starting to smile and coo a bit. It is amazing how much time I spend trying to get her to do either one. Most of the time she just sits there looking at me like I am a crazy person - which I probably am.

Sleeping: Last night Sam ate at 9:45pm and slept from 10:30-1:45. I put her back down at 2:30 and she slept until around 6. This is pretty good but I can't wait until she sleeps 5+ hours straight.

Naps: I'm trying to make sure she doesn't sleep for longer than 3 hours during the day. So far so good although we came close. She slept from about 10:00 to 1pm. I started trying to wake her at 12:30 with no luck. At 1pm I decided to put her in her crib and go take a nap myself and like magic she started crying about 1 minute after I put her in the crib.

Weight: At my weekly weigh-in this morning I was at 124. I think I am back to normal here but I do have a little belly fat to lose yet and I anticipate I will lose a bit more after I am done with breastfeeding.

I plan on doing a weekly training wrap up on Sunday nights going forward. We'll see how that goes.