Body after baby

This isn't a post about snapping back to pre-baby weight or anything, so don't get scared...not that there is anything wrong with that kind of post; I wish I could write one, I just can't because I'm still not there yet! This post is actually about those changes that are impacting my running, and how I am dealing with them.

I started back running just shy of two weeks after delivery. I've now been running for about 3 months, and have started to feel somewhat back to normal (if a bit out of shape), so it's a good time to look back at what has changed, what never changed, what has improved, and what needs work. 

1. Pelvic floor. This is the #1 hot topic for postpartum runners it seems! There is a real risk for urinary incontinence in postpartum runners (or non-runners!), and many women try to prevent this with preventative exercise during pregnancy. I am lucky that this was not a problem for me at any time, pre- or post-birth. And honestly I never did any of those exercises, either! I am sure this is a mix of luck, genetics, and form/posture that naturally tightens all the right muscles; regardless, it allowed me to return to running quickly and with few issues. 

2. Lower back. My lower back started hurting at the end of my pregnancy and it got so bad at 40+ weeks that not only was running completely out of the question, I was in pain all the time unless I was in the pool. I would jog in the pool to allow the water to support my extra weight and it was heavenly! While the severe back pain went away the minute I gave birth, lower back pain crops back up at the end of long runs and after hard workouts. I think this might be related to overall reduced core strength, plus plain old damage to my back. I have been terrible about getting core work in, honestly, but I plan to do better! I dropped abdominal workouts entirely for my whole pregnancy and for the weeks following birth because I was afraid of diastasis recti. And then I just got out of the habit. I need to do exercises like planks, supermans, and pilates 100s to strengthen that whole area. 

3. SI joint. I stopped running a few weeks before giving birth because of left SI joint pain. And the weird thing is that my left side never hurt again...but my right side has started inexplicably falling out of place. I will pick my leg up to take a step, and I feel the SI joint slip out of the correct position! Not at all pleasant. I can usually get it back with some stretches (a great one is squatting with one knee bent and the affected leg straight out to the side, foot flexed; bend at the waist with a straight back and rest your forearms on the ground in front of you. You can move your arms closer to the affected side as tolerated). I have no idea what the best long term treatment for this is and I'm kind of just hoping it goes away! 

4. Core. Probably the culprit here! As I mentioned above, I've slacked off here majorly. And my muscles are still trying to return to normal. I really need to just buckle down and do the core work! I know I have some damage to watch out for - I don't want to worsen it - but overall it's just weakness causing the slack muscles.

Any tips for strengthening lower back and core? Any SIJ exercises or tips? 

Training log: Power Mile

You know what would be fun? A training log! It's not a race report, but it's more fun than moping about the lack of race reports. And since this is the first time I've trained for a mile, it will be helpful for me to look back on later.

The race: a track mile, probably held at the end of August, hopefully as a private race with our club (granted restrictions are lifted to allow it). If not with other competitors, then as a time trial.

The training: The Power Milers are group-coached by the incomparable Jimi Smith, and since I like to follow directions, I do whatever Jimi tells me to do!

Audubon Park: where most of the running happens

Now, last week, there was a little pause in the training. Our club is separating into two groups: one is training for a fast track mile, and the other is doing some pre-marathon conditioning. The thinking behind this group is that marathon training will start in the fall, and people who feel a bit out of shape or unprepared can join this group to get ready for the longer, harder workouts to come. The group comprises runners who were injured or took a long time off after a race or who lost fitness. And I thought that maybe it should include post-partum runners, too! So I briefly abandoned the mile and joined this group. But then I reflected on recent workouts, and saw a distinct pattern of improvement. This made me change my mind. Why jump ship just when I'm starting to see my work pay off? Plus, I question whether we will really have a marathon in the winter: there is just too much up in the air to devote basically two training cycles to one marathon.

Monday: Easy run plus 8 strides. 7.2 miles.
Tuesday: Tempo intervals. I did this one in the morning, alone, since I wasn't sure if the group would be meeting in the evening or not. We had some logistics to work through to comply with the state and city's phase one reopening requirements. It was six 4-minute tempo repeats (90 seconds rest) followed by five 90-second accelerations from easy pace all the way to mile pace (90 seconds rest). My tempos were at 6:19, 6:25, 6:17, 6:27, 6:15, 6:20. They felt smooth and easy, actually. I have no idea if I did the accelerations right, or not - accelerating evenly over 90 seconds is hard! 9.5 miles with warm up and cool down.
Wednesday: Easy with the stroller. 5 miles.
Thursday: So this was while I was temporarily in the pre-marathon group, and the workout was listed as ten miles easy. I did it on the levee, where I always do my midweek long runs, but I think my brain associates the levee with moderate to aerobic progression running. The run felt easy, but the 7:29 overall pace pointed to probably more effort than the instructions called for. But this is the run that made me text coach, because it really did feel quite easy, which made me think that I didn't need pre-conditioning afterall. 10 miles.
Friday: Well. Until Friday humbled me. After a bunch of good workouts, I knew as soon as I opened the front door that this one would be hard. It was 81F with 88% humidity, and the sun was bright overhead even at 6:45 am. The workout was ten to sixteen reps of (90 seconds at 2 mile / 5k pace; two minutes jog), but I was positive 10 would be enough. I managed to complete the workout, but it was a struggle from the get-go. Paces were 5:59, 5:48, 5:49, 5:49, 5:56, 5:54, 6:12 (probably Garmin error  - too slow), 5:42 (probably Garmin error - too fast), 6:02, 5:58. As you can see, I started out too fast, and paid for it later! with warm up and cool down, 8 miles.
Saturday: Easy stroller miles plus 10 strides. 6.5 miles.
Sunday: Long progression run. Moderate pace, closing with some 85% marathon pace effort. Another hot and humid morning, and public water fountains were sorely missed! I was very happy to see some low-7 miles that actually felt a bit easy, even on a hard day.
I was HELLA AGGRAVATED that the group started early and didn't tell me. Well, actually, on time - but we met half an hour later last week, and another member and I were talking and he told me 6:30. I showed up at 6:30 and they were gone - so I ran the opposite direction and met up with them, but that meant I missed our water stops. We are currently stopping for small bottles of water at two members' houses to keep everything safe. I was aggravated and thirsty. Thirteen miles in the 80s and humidity in the 90s with no water isn't fun! 13.27 miles.
Total: 59.5 miles 

Running in Phase 1

As of last Saturday, New Orleans is in phase one of reopening (the state reopened Friday night, but New Orleans likes to be ornery). With new guidelines in place, we have some framework for our group runs.

• We don't have to wear a face mask when exercising
• We can run in groups with social distancing
• Groups are limited to ten or fewer

How we're making that work: 

Plenty of room to spread out on the streetcar tracks

• To get the group back together, we compiled lists of smaller training groups based on pace. These smaller groups each have a group captain. The captain chooses a location for the workout, and posts it on our Slack channel so each group can avoid the others. It is also the captain's responsibility to enforce city and state requirements. 
• We're also not doing group beer anymore! It's missed, but probably not COVID-safe! 
• Our long runs aren't separated into smaller groups because of the nature of the group - we self-separate by pace and end up in groups of 5-6 generally. There is plenty of room on the route to spread out appropriately. 
• Our workouts are all time, not distance, based. This is because it would be very difficult to stay six feet apart on the track, so this gives us the option to take it to the roads. I miss the track, but I personally like this because I know exactly how long the workout will take! Ten 3 minute repeats with 1 minute rest is 40 minutes! 

How are you handling workouts? What restrictions have you had to work with? 

Four months: fitness now

Almost four months since baby, but over a year since real workouts! By May of last year, I was already slowing and struggling, so it has been a minute since I've been in real shape. In a week and a half the babes will be four months, but I have time now, so I am taking stock of my fitness at the (almost) four month mark!

I'm not totally back yet. But I think I might be almost back. Not to peak fitness, but to baseline fitness. Surprisingly, my endurance has lagged a little in the comeback (usually that's my strong suit). I've struggled on long runs. Workouts, however, have mostly gone well, and I have hit my paces. They're not the paces I was hitting last year, but they are paces I would have been very proud of, say, four years ago.

I pulled up my Final Surge record to take a look at some workouts from last year. I was in great shape last April and ran my marathon PR, but just prior to that buildup, I was really struggling. I compared my current times to the time right between "terrible marathon, anemic, sick and slow" and "Improving, PRs, running fast".

This kid better get used to being sweaty.

Last week, I did an aerobic mid-week long run of ten miles at 7:13 pace. Looking at an aerobic run from 2/22/19, I ran a nearly 9-mile aerobic run at 7:11. So I am getting close. It's hard to compare workouts, because we are doing short stuff right now and were in a marathon buildup last year, but my k's in February of last year were around 3:55...in the 6:20 range. They were supposed to be at 10k pace. That's what I'm hitting right now for 5-10k pace intervals, but I suspect that's more like my 5k pace than my 10k pace for sure!

My long runs are NOWHERE NEAR the hard marathon workouts of last year. In January I ran an 18+ miler with the last few miles at 7-flat, 7:37 average pace and later a 15 mile workout averaging 7:27. I haven't gotten to 15 miles yet post-baby, and a fast run with a hard finish is quite beyond me right now. My farthest so far is a bit over 14 miles, and it was 7:36 pace, but without the benefit of a built-in workout - most miles were around the same pace. Not the same!

Interestingly, I am feeling a little stronger in regards to injuries. I've been injury-free since coming back from baby, even though any comeback is risky. It could be that some problem spots have healed up with my long time off from the sport, or it could be that I am running lower mileage (but only slightly - I've been in the 50s, near 60 mpw). Another interesting component here is that I am doing much less other fitness activity. I don't have as much time for a lot of the hip work I used to do, and fitting in even short home workouts is harder now. The gym is closed, which means no heavy weight lifting, no cross-training on machines, and less karate. We are taking a weekly karate class via Facebook Live, but the classes are much less intense than in-person classes. Maybe I was just doing too much? I like to think of all those little things as being preventative of injury, but perhaps I was stressing connective tissues etc. too much.

Obviously, I am hugely lucky to be able to run as much as I have in the past few months, and I'd be remiss not to acknowledge that without David's willingness to keep the baby in the mornings - and often also for the rest of the day! - I couldn't get these miles in. I have run 633 miles since the baby was born! Definitely couldn't do it without him!

Beach babe

We were super duper lucky to be able to take a beach trip this weekend despite the COVID lockdown! David's parents have a house in Bay St. Louis with a private beach. They have not been to this house, meaning we could take advantage of a place to stay AND go to the beach, even though public beaches were still closed. What an opportunity!
We only went for a day - honestly, that's enough beach for me - but we had a great time. We packed up Friday night and drove the hour and fifteen minutes while the baby slept. We brought some snacks and breakfast, but decided ahead of time to get takeout for lunch and dinner - the house has not been used in so long that any cooking is an ordeal; you have to bring every single thing you need: oil, salt, pepper, etc. I just didn't want to do that much packing for a day trip!

We got to Bay St. Louis at about 8:30 and I put the baby back to bed (his bedtime is eight, but he woke up when we went into the house). The baby bed situation ended up being a fiasco - we had to move him downstairs after he went to sleep, because we realized that the air conditioning was out upstairs and it was 82 degrees! I had purchased a Baby Dome for him to use as a travel bed - and also because I thought it was a cool thing to have if we went to the park or even at the beach. It's like a mini travel playpen. Well...it's also incredibly uncomfortable if you stupidly put it on top of a hard rope mat. I made that little mistake and didn't realize until the next morning that you can feel absolutely everything through the thin cushion at the bottom. It was like sleeping on gravel. Poor baby woke up FOUR TIMES that night, and this is the kid who never wakes up at night! Ugh! I was remarkably fresh the next day all things considered, but I know he wanted more sleep! Luckily I figured the problem out and moved the Dome for his naps the next day - and then it was fine.

But anyway, back to Friday night: we brought wine and snacks and had movie night with The Last Dance, the ESPN special on Michael Jordan's last season with the Bulls. So far I am loving the docu-series. I grew up in the Bulls/Jordan era and appreciate the deeper look into their story.

Pre-run coffee

We got up at our usual six on Saturday and I ran some bridge repeats over the bay before joining David for breakfast. I had made banana bread to bring and grabbed some fruit and yogurt, too, so nothing that required complicated cooking. I just wanted to relax! We read the paper and ate on the back porch while the baby napped, but I woke him up so we could go to the beach before it got too hot.

Sandy toes!

The bay beach isn't as nice as an ocean beach, but we still had fun. The water was too cold for real swimming (and it's really shallow there anyway) but we played in the sand. Once baby got brave enough (water and sand are weird when you're only three months old!) we sat him in the shallow parts that had warmed up in the sun. And of course, David took a million pictures! After the beach, we got some takeout from one of the beachfront restaurants and ate outside again (I would have loved to be able to eat at the restaurant on the water! Ah, someday we will again!). I was looking forward to baby's next nap to do a karate class. Our gym is offering streaming classes, and the Saturday karate class was perfect timing - mid-nap. Plus, this house has an open floor plan that is almost like a real dojo! David and I both took the class, and I hope I am slowly regaining some of the flexibility I lost. I have a lot of work to do to get back to where I was in karate, and the remote classes, while an excellent option under the circumstances, aren't as good as being taught in person. Who knows when gym classes can resume, though. We wrapped up the trip with a long walk in the neighborhood and along the beach, then pizza in front of more ESPN (replays!). 

King of the beach

Shallow splashes! 

It was such a nice break to be able to safely get away. We saw no one except ourselves the whole time except food pick up, and David masked / gloved for that. So it was a safe excursion. And just not being in our house was great fun. Even just sitting up front in the car together felt exciting. It's amazing what a few weeks of quarantine will do to you!

A Power Mile

For the past two years, I've raced the Power Mile in the summer: the only one-mile race in New Orleans, put on by my club, the Power Milers.
Here's my mile PR and here's the day I ran a mile after one of the worst days of morning sickness ever. Not fun!

This year, it's up in the air. Who knows when races will return, and when they do, how will they have changed? Who will have the discretionary income to register...or, equally important, to sponsor? The likelihood of the race returning this year is slim. But that doesn't mean we can run a mile.

It's official: we have something to train for. The Power Milers are training for a fast summer mile! I am unreasonably excited to have a training plan. For one thing, I haven't followed a training plan with a goal race since Boston last year. And for another thing...everything is just more exciting now (I had to run an errand this weekend and got silly excited for it). It's a way for the team to stay connected, have something to talk about on Slack, and share a common goal. Workouts start up soon, and I can't wait for the focus.

The mile will probably be run on the track, as long as tracks stay open, and will be at the end of summer. Details are understandably up in the air: will we be running alone, or can we meet as a group? Or just a few people at a time? We don't know yet, but the good thing is that a mile is pretty adaptable. We could do it on the road, we could do it on the track, we could do it with spectators, we could have competition, we could do it alone. Of course, best case scenario would be to run it almost like a race, with each other to provide that extra incentive to run faster. But if that's not possible, I think the mile would be easier than, say, a lonesome half-marathon or 10k. I can imagine doing a track mile alone with David and baby watching from inside the oval and using their cheers to motivate!

Back at track

With all the impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on everyday life, maintaining a normal schedule is hard or impossible. But I have tried to stay as close to regular life as possible (rabbit trail: should I say "old life"? Will the old regular ever be regular again? I venture it won't - at the very least, we'll think twice about shaking hands!). It's not that hard for me, since I am still going to work, so I have that daily and weekly cadence to my life. But I recently decided to return to my workout schedule. I had been making modifications to allow me to take the baby running on days when David has him at home, but we talked about it, and he doesn't mind keeping him a little longer so I can run on the way home from work. I went back to my old schedule of grocery store and track on Tuesdays (although I am now buying two weeks of groceries at a time to reduce trips to the store). That meant that on Tuesday David had the baby all by himself for twelve hours! While working! But they managed - luckily he's a really good kid, and he's obsessed with his dad! 

Weather cold enough to layer up with my
Buffalo marathon half-zip. That's a race
I would do again...if we ever race again! 

With no formal training plans, and no assigned workouts, I had to come up with a workout (we aren't  meeting anymore, so the Powermilers aren't providing workouts. But I hope that changes. I'd love to have some "maintain"-type speedwork posted! I'll have to mention it to coach Jimi!). Some of us in the group were messaging about this topic, and someone suggested a 600's workout. It was one I missed right after the baby was born, but I looked it up in Final Surge history, and decided to give it a go. It looked easy on paper: six to eight reps of 600 at 5k pace, 200m float, 200m hard, with 400m jog rests between reps - but I knew anything fast would be tough, given how long I've been out. I lucked out on the weather, though. The storms the rest of the south experienced just brought us cold weather! 

This was the first track workout back that I planned to complete as written, ie no modifications, the entire workout, and at speeds that don't embarrass me. I even wore fast shoes - I changed into my New Balance 1400s after warming up. And it went ok! The track wasn't crowded, and most people were cognizant of others enough to make room (it was actually better than the park on some days!). I could stay in lane one about 75% of the time I was running fast. And except for starting too fast, I did well. My 600/200's were: 2:10/40; 2:12/42; 2:14/40; 2:14/42; 2:14/42; 2:17/41. I don't love that 2:17 I finished with (it was 6:10 pace; the 2:14s were 6:02 pace) but at least I got it together for the final 200! I definitely could not have done eight reps, though: so there's plenty of work to be done. 

And that's the wonderful thing about running. Your progress doesn't have to be measured by races: you can run alone and still check off goals. You can get faster, you can develop different muscles, you can run farther. Just because there is no race on the horizon doesn't mean I am not enjoying progress!