Survival Shuffle

Getting through your next workout to get through life.

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Hello, Old Friend

11 weeks post-partum

Weight: 173 lbs
Waist Measurement: 39 inches
Clothing size: 12 (non-maternity)
Blood Pressure: 122/80

Things have not been going as planned. My body has not been behaving as it should.

To start with, there's the backwards progress on my weight. I have diligently counted calories in and calories out. The math tells me I should be losing about a pound per week. I am not starving myself, and I am not eating junk. I eat 6 small portions throughout the day. I have gradually upped my running mileage to 25 miles per week and have missed nary a workout in weeks. Yet I've gained a couple of pounds. Yes my waist measurement is smaller and I no longer need maternity clothes, but that has more to do with my internal organs migrating back to their original homes than with fitness.

Then there's my running. I consider it a minor miracle that I have perservered with my workouts considering how consistently poorly I am running. A 12:00/mi pace is an outright sprint. A five mile run feels like 20. And disturbingly, a good easy run leaves me feeling like collapsing, while a bad one leaves me dizzy and lightheaded.

All in all, this comeback is harder than advertised, further complicated by my higher than necessary weight gain during the pregnancy, and complications at the end. In short, I'm having trouble hauling around 30 extra pounds, while my heart is having trouble accomodating physical activity at this weight - delivering oxygen to all that extra tissue on a lower than normal supply of red blood cells.

Last week was promising though. Last Tuesday I didn't feel like collapsing for the first time after a run, although the pace was slow - 3 miles in 36 minutes. On Wednesday I did a slow 5 that didn't leave me as sore as a 20 miler might have a year ago. On Thursday I did 3 on the treadmill without having to slow the pace from 12:00/mile. On Saturday I was scheduled to do 5 miles at "marathon pace" - whatever that is these days. I knew I would probably have a heart attack if I did that, so I decided to see if I could do an 11:00 mile for just two miles. I did 10:40 for two miles, which felt like a tempo run, and left me exhausted, but excited. My legs do in fact remember how to move at pre-preggo pace. Then Sunday's coup was 8 miles at a steady 12:30 pace. I did not have to shuffle at all during the run, and felt good allt he way through the end. I could not have run another step, but I didn't feel drained either.

So some progress. I started to believe I might actually be able to finish MCM, and resigned myself to simply running slowly for the next 6 months. I decided to erase my expectations, just put in every mile of the training plan, and see what happens.

It's against this background that I set out for my run tonight. I've caught a slight cold from my daughter who brought the germs home from the cesspool of daycare. I'm tired and sad that I had to send her to daycare today because I have no vacation left after my maternity leave. The house is a mess and hasn't been cleaned since the birth of the baby. In short it's one of those nights that I just didn't feel like running.

But I resolved to do every mile of the training plan. And every mile I will do.

I set out just thinking I'd shuffle around our community lake, a roughly two mile trail, and tack a mile on the street. But within a hundred yards I start to notice the great running weather - unusually cool for this time of year, low humidity, low gray clouds, and a cool breeze that promises rain. Since the entire population of Washington evacuates the area for July 4, I have the trail virtually to myself.

Within a quarter mile I notice my legs. The stride feels strangely familiar, like an old friend I haven't seen in a very long time, and have trouble placing. I feel like I'm striding well, maybe at pre-preggo easy pace. But my body's been playing tricks on me, and sometimes a 12:00 pace feels like a 10:00 pace, so I try not to look at my watch. Just keep running at an easy pace that feels good.

Since the miles on this trail aren't marked, I don't know exactly where the first mile is, but with the hundreds of times I've run this trail in the 7 years I've lived here, I have a pretty good idea. And it appears I clocked it in somewhere between 10:00 and 11:00. Can't be possible, I feel too good. But I start to get excited.

OK, I think to myself, don't get your hopes up. Don't push it for the sake of clocking a fast time. Remember your goal - finish feeling good.

I get to a bridge over a small stream, roughly 1.5 miles, and I've clocked that in about 16:30, just 30 seconds slower than my fast run the other night. I still feel good.

Well here comes the test - a long climb of several minutes away from the lake onto the street. I start to slow down. I remind myself just to keep going. Slow the pace and shorten the stride, keep the effort level. I come off the hill and pick it up again, still feeling good. I get to the corner, about 2 miles, and look at my watch. 22 minutes. I'm keeping up a steady 11 minute pace.

At this point, still feeling good, I decide I can pick it up a tiny bit and push it through the end. I pass the park entrance again and realize a have a great shot at finishing in 32 minutes. I have two more hills to power through, focus on the corner up ahead, and stop my watch. 31:30.

I stand for a minute. I don't have a need to bend over and pant. I can continue to walk the 100 yards back to my house. I'm in no danger of passing out. I feel like... I just finished an easy 3 mile run.

And I made a 5 minute improvement over the time I ran on the same course last week. Close to pre-preggo pace.

Well I'm certainly glad I went out for that run. Who knows what happened. A normal post-partum return to form perhaps, but I'm inclined to thank Hal Higdon for scheduling a "pace run" the day before a long run. Perhaps that hard work last week, combined with normal post-partum changes is the source of the improvement.

Or perhaps it's my decision to let go of obsessing over performance that let me go out and have a good time running.

In the spirit of that decision, I won't question it, I'm just going to go with it and take everything one run at a time. I have 5 scheduled for tomorrow night. Perhaps I'll be able to maintain the same pace, but perhaps I won't. Either way I'll be happy because I finally know my old self is in there somewhere. Hello, old friend.