Jazz Half Marathon 2019 race recap

I signed up for the Jazz half with a discount code before I knew I was pregnant, and as the day grew closer I kind of wondered how it would work out: racing a half marathon in the third trimester! But I figured that if I could still complete long runs of 10-12 miles, I'd be fine.
I went into this race really banged up. A surge of the hormone relaxin has wreaked absolute havoc on my feet and legs: my normally strong arches are lax and I cycled rapidly through achilles tendinitis, plantar fasciitis, and now arch-ankle-leg pain so bad I'm limping. I've been experimenting with compression wraps and things, but race day still had me in a lot of pain.

The day didn't start out well. A tropical storm hit New Orleans on Friday night, brining rain, wind, and storms. Its strength was completely unexpected, and took the city off guard. We lost power over and over throughout the morning, and when we got up at 5am, it was pitch black and we didn't have electricity. The storm was still going at this point, so as we groped around by candlelight for our race clothes, we wondered if the race would be cancelled. It was scheduled to start at 7, but my weather app showed the worst would be over at 7, so I guessed that it might just be postponed. I was right: as we headed to packet pickup, the rain and wind died down, and the race posted that the start would be delayed until 7:30. By the time the race started, the rain was a mist, and our biggest obstacles were fierce wind and a lot of debris on the course. The Jazz course is mostly on St. Charles avenue and through Audubon park, and all those oaks leave a lot of downed branches (sadly, Audubon lost one of its majestic oaks in the storm, actually).

I pushed myself back quite a bit from the start, knowing my limitations. Last year I ran this race in 1:27:04, which was a PR (and a surprise). This year the VDOT calculator predicted a 1:40 based on my recent two-miler. Although how accurate could that be? I was a lot more pregnant now! I decided to let my painful feet and legs decide how the race went. The race starts downtown, where GPS is useless, so my first "mile" beeped at 7:27...nowhere near the first mile marker. By mile two, I was really trying to let my feet warm up and maybe stop hurting so much, and I was mostly jog-limping. My GPS mile indicators were way, way off, as is typical, so I wasn't able to really on average pace readouts anyway. But by the time we got onto St. Charles Ave, I was starting to get a stride going, and at mile four I was at about a 7:50 pace (at some point, I rendered my Garmin splits totally useless by cleverly hitting "lap" at the mile marker. I was trying to get back on track so my autolap wasn't beeping so early. But I somehow also hit "stop" and didn't realize it for several tenths of a mile...eventually everything evened out what with GPS error and all, and by the finish my miles were *almost* on track, but basically my splits are useless!).

At the start

I run down St. Charles almost every week, so most of this race is very familiar to me. The only difference was that I was picking through a lot of branches on the ground this time. I got a chance to talk to teammate Paul, who came out to watch, and as I neared the park I got to see the leaders already coming back the other way. Power Milers were in second, third, and fourth for the men, and first and second for the women! I always like a chance to cheer my team on! Speaking of cheers, I was getting a lot of attention for running pregnant. It was really nice, because otherwise I was just another mid-pack runner. This gave me some motivation!

We reached the park after mile seven, and I love running through my park in a race. I was feeling a little better and started to pick it up. I passed two friends I'd seen at the start who had left me earlier in the race, and checked my time. A 1:40 was still doable, despite my slow start, but I'd have to pick it up. I was at 7:45 pace by the 7.1 marker (the relay exchange) and I'd need 7:37. There was Powerade on the course after the first few miles, so I grabbed some of that for some energy. And electrolytes - although it had cooled a lot since we got up - 78F to 65F by the race start! - it was still really humid from the storm.

I exited the park and headed back up St. Charles, trying not to think about taking a bathroom break (ugh!), and kept my pace up. I passed quite a few people in the second half: 35, actually, moving up from 97th to 62nd overall. It was definitely fun to hear the cheers then, because it's bad enough to be the pregnant runner, but the pregnant runner passing people? That gets A LOT of chatter! I can't really sprint anymore, but I did pass one more women right at mile 13, leaving me as 8th woman overall and 3rd in the 30-39 age group. I don't know how baby scored, but I did get two medals at the finish from the sweet and excited finish line volunteers...honestly, I rarely take medals anymore, but I took these so as not to be incredibly rude.

Getting a "Grace Thacker and company" from the announcer at the finish, ha! 

I finally got a bathroom break, but right away my ankle hurt too much to walk. Now that the race is over, I am on break to rest and heal. I don't plan for this to be a break all the way until the baby is born, but you never know. I just need to take enough time to readjust to all the changes that are creating all these injury situations and to let the inflammation die down!

Lessons learned from my 2nd trimester running

Well, here we are, already well into the third trimester, what do you know! Time flies when you're running really slowly. Just kidding, it doesn't fly at all! Here are some lessons I learned from second trimester running.

1. You will slow down. Period. Sorry.
2. But everyone is different. There are other pregnant runners out there cheerily holding paces you can't even remember seeing on your watch. For me, the second trimester brought a massive slow down, adding about 2 minutes per mile to my easy pace and similar slow downs to other paces, like about a minute to my 5k pace. But some pregnant Instagram runners I follow didn't see nearly so much of a slow down. It's totally individual.
3. It's not just about the weight gain. I gained 18 pounds in my first and second trimesters, which, sure - that will slow a girl down! But not two-minute-per-mile down. There's more to it than that. There's both decreased and increased flexibility, joint instability, lack of ability to use the core, increased blood volume, anemia, edema, fatigue, change in center of gravity, round ligament pain, and activity-induced Braxton-Hicks contractions. A lot of changes just make running more difficult! For me, I felt like I had to re-learn how to run every single day. I especially noticed that I no longer had the ability to use my core to propel forward. Apparently, I'm a big core runner, and rely a lot on hips, abs, back, and glutes. Well, forget abs, and without abs to tighten up front, it's hard to engage glutes. On a related note, I also have a lot of pelvic pain from osteitis pubis: a symptom I expected, since I have had it before. It often shows back up in pregnancy! This case is more severe than last time, and where my pectineus muscle attaches on the bone I've been getting pain and pretty severe swelling. I do think running exacerbates this...and I don't care.
4. Warming up helps. For me, the first steps feel terrible, like a completely foreign movement, and I have to stop and stretch every mile for the first few miles. It's very tough at first, and I don't "remember" how to run until about 5 miles in. I do better if I do some dynamic warm ups pre-run. I think this is mostly related to fluid retention; warming up gets some of that lymph and blood flowing.
5. You'll need new clothes! There are only very specific shorts I can fit in - they have to fit under the belly - and I sized up in bras right away. This made me feel pretty bad for low-income pregnant women. We want women to stay active during pregnancy, yet on top of all the other expenses pregnancy brings (not to mention having a child!), they would have to buy activewear, some of the most costly types of clothing. It's no wonder that low income is a predictor of excess gestational weight gain.
6. You will have to rely on feel. As my pace rose almost daily, I could forget pre-planned paces for workouts. It's all by feel. And the good thing is, I easily adjusted. You kind of know what level of effort "5k pace" is, even if it's nowhere near your "normal" 5k pace.
7. New aches, pains, and injuries are possible. I grew up going barefoot almost all of the time, and I have really high arches and strong foot muscles (case in point: a foot exercise is picking up a pen with your feet. I picked it up, turned it on, and wrote my name the first time...this is not a problem for me!). Yet pregnancy brings the hormone relaxin, and suddenly none of those key connections are as strong as they used to be. As my arches grew lax, I developed a bad case of achilles tendinitis and plantar fasciitis. Because my muscles were already strong, these were particularly hard to treat: this wasn't a case of strengthening solving everything (what did work: rest and an arch wrap).
8. You might actually start to feel better. I didn't actually stop having debilitating fatigue and nausea until the very end of my second trimester, and I started the third trimester feeling a lot better. Part of this could be that my hemoglobin made the superhuman effort to get up to 11.9 recently! Sooooo close to 12! And I can tell. I run most of my long runs in the 9-11 minute range, but if I get below that, it's a good day. I've run a lot more high 8's and low 9's since my anemia improved.
9. People think you're super human. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for any encouragement as I plod around the park, but it kind of amuses me that NOW I get cheers. Not when I was finally able to put all the pieces together and actually run some PRs: now, when I'm trundling around with clearly no object other than my own enjoyment!

2019 Blue Doo 2-mile race

If at all possible, I try not to skip this race: it is a fundraiser for Tulane prostate cancer research, and this department is one of my primary clients. I know firsthand how much they need the money to continue the lifesaving research they perform. And I love how this is a way to keep your dollars strictly local: I'm not funding a national organization with layers of administration and staff, I'm giving money straight to the doctors who may save the lives of my own friends and family.

And that's why I dragged my 5.5 month pregnant self to a two mile race! This race is on Tulane's uptown campus, just half a mile from my house, so I jogged to the 5pm start as part of my warmup. I did two miles to warm up, and decided against strides. I should have done some, but it was crowded and I felt silly. Actually, I already felt silly without the strides. I was wearing my racing crop top, and I really dislike that it draws attention to my pregnant stomach. It seems like I'm trying to make a statement or get noticed and I'm not...but I have no choice, because my racing singlet doesn't fit at all anymore! I wouldn't be uncomfortable except a stranger asked to take my picture of my belly before the race and I was like..."Oh, no thank you...." and that just made me feel so weird! But I shrugged it off and got up to the start.

This race starts on a very narrow path, basically a sidewalk, and creates a huge bottleneck right away, so I carefully assessed where I should start. Yeah, I'm slower now, but I'm not get-behind-the-walkers slow. I squeezed past a few people to get in about the sixth row of runners. And some guy condescendingly cautioned, "Watch it, mama, you might get run over up there." Eh, I'm pretty sure I won't get run over by you and your type II diabetes, buddy. Not that I blame him for protecting his place at the start: since this is a fundraiser kind of event, you do get those kids and walkers and weekend warrior types who don't appropriately self-seed, so you do have to watch where you line up. Which is what I was doing, too!

It had rained just a few minutes before the race started, so the surfaces - including areas of slippery brick - were wet, but unlike last week, the rain brought blessed coolness. It was only a little over 80F at the start - I've run this race when it was nearly 100, so this was a nice change. I was a little concerned about my footing in my Zoom Fly SPs, especially since this course has a ton of twists and turns, but I was still thankful for the cool rain!

We started, and I saw all my teammates ahead before they basically vanished from view. As usual, there was a little surge of youngsters who pushed ahead, but by the half mile mark, they had faded, the crowd had thinned, and we were all running steadily. Most of this course is tricky - narrow pathways, sharp turns, and a campus full of college kids make it challenging. I took extra care on sharp turns, and kept my footing on the bricks, too, so the rain didn't end up creating too much of a problem. I was running by "two mile effort" feel, but every so often I glanced at my overall pace. I was at 6:55 at the half mile mark, which was faster than my estimated 7-minute pace. There were two women in front of me in blue Guidos singlets (another local running group) and I told myself that if they were still in front of me at the mile mark, I should try to pass them.

Approaching mile one was a tough section of the crowded campus, and I had to dodge some students, but I felt ok as I passed the first mile in 6:49. I was a little worried that mile one was too fast. Right after the first mile is my favorite part: a straight out-and-back section that lets you see the other runners. Normally I wouldn't be able to say much while racing a two-miler, but this time - why not? I cheered all my teammates! I noticed Brock and Casey were running together in 2nd and 3rd, and Michelle and Paige had 1st and 2nd wrapped up. Then I rounded the hairpin turn and headed the other way. Ugh, that turn. I always lose so much time there. This time was no exception: a peek at my watch said my lap pace was 7:10!

Oh, heck no, I thought. And I threw in a little surge to get my lap pace back down to the 6:40's AND pass both women in blue who were in front of me. For the rest of the mile, I passed two more people, but I ended up in the same position, because two people passed me! One was my friend Dewey, who saw me ahead at the turnaround and was not thrilled with the idea of being beaten by a pregnant girl, and the other was a guy I passed right near the end but who out-sprinted me at the finish. I like how this race finishes, with a long straight section (the rest of the race is nothing but twists and turns). You can see the clock for a good 400 meters. But I no longer have ANY kick at all, so it didn't do me much good this time! At least I didn't slow down; in fact, I ran a negative split with a chip time of 13:33. I had estimated 14 minutes before the race started, so I was pretty pleased with that. And I also finished a distant fifth female, which is nice (thanks for not showing up, other fast girls).

The Powermilers turn this race into a competition between two mostly balanced teams of runners, black team and white team (our colors), but having a pregnant lady on team black apparently hurt us, since we finished 2:30 behind team white by cumulative time! Ha! Sorry, guys! Otherwise, we had a great night as a team, taking most of the top spots, and our ladies went 1-2. Another fun night at the Blue Doo, and I didn't totally embarrass myself!

Run to Remember 5k

I have mixed feelings about racing pregnant. On the one hand, I want to continue to do things I enjoy, and that feel normal to me. But on the other hand, it seems kind of pointless...I'm only getting slower, and races probably won't benefit me in any way. However, this race definitely did have a benefit of some sort: it was a fundraiser for the Coast Guard Foundation, which cares for the families of fallen Coast Guard members. As a former Coastie brat, and teammate of the race director, I knew I should support.

My teammate Rachel is from the midwest, and therefore doesn't mind driving. It's a midwest thing, I tell you. You plan a visit with a friend from Ohio and start looking for flights, and they give you a startled look and tell you it's only a two-day drive, why fly?! So anyway, Rachel drives an HOUR AND FIFTEEN MINUTES one way to join us for workouts on Tuesdays and Sundays, which never ceases to amaze me. So I figured I owed it to her to drive that distance once to come to her race! Actually, not race. Run. It was an untimed, bib-less run. But measured to a perfect 5k, so kudos to Rachel for that, which can be hard to accomplish for a small race run in neighborhoods!

The run began with a short memorial service at 10am, so we started running around 10:30. In Houma, Louisiana. In early September. In other words, it was incredibly hot. We had rain in the morning, and unfortunately it stopped shortly before we got going, and a brilliant sun poured down instead. Steam rose around us and we got the worst possible scenario: almost 100% humidity AND bright, hot sun! It was mid-80's, but it felt a lot hotter. I realized that my sunscreen was totally gone after my sweaty warmup, and I hadn't thought to bring more. Not surprisingly, I got a toasty burn.

I knew from my warmup that my legs were pretty tired. We had a tempo workout on Friday of 5xmile at tempo with 60-second jogs. I ran those miles faster than usual, and I was feeling it! I figured I could probably run around 7-minute miles, even on tired legs, but it turns out that the heat was a factor, too. We started  with a simple,"Go!", and were running on grass before moving onto the roads in a subdivision. This course was entirely within a subdivision, and there was absolutely no shade at all at any point on the course. We were being baked. Rachel was lead bike, and near her ran a fellow Coast Guard officer. She was joined by a few Power Milers, but no one was racing, since it was an untimed event. I ran a hard-tempo feel, and tried to keep the lead bike in my site: there were arrows on the course, but I could see myself missing one and spending the rest of my life wandering a subdivision in Houma, passing identical McMansions for days and asking if I'd already passed Garfield street, or was it Coolidge street? Indeed, the course was - well, boring. Just a lot of the exact same for the whole thing! The only change up was the start on grass and finish on gravel. I was surprised that my pace was around 7:10; I felt like it was a little faster, but eh. That's life these days. I ran almost exactly even, picking it up a little for the final mile, and ran 22:06 by my Garmin. The last 0.2ish was on a gravel drive, and I lost my footing and almost fell, but I caught myself. Thank goodness. I did NOT want to be the gigantic pregnant lady sliding through the gravel and creating a scene! Ha! It didn't feel like a 5k, but then  - it wasn't a real race, and since I was totally alone, sore, tired, and puffy, I think defaulting to a tempo was to be expected.

Power Milers represent! Rachel is on the far right. I'm the pregnant one on the ground.

I'm glad I ran, though. I have a few other races coming up: the Blue Doo (another cause I simply MUST support!) and the Jazz Half (I registered ages ago so now I'm on the hook for 13 miles in my 3rd trimester, lucky me). I needed a low-key "race" to rip the bandaid off and get back into the swing of things. Got to get used to pacing when you're slower and all that! It's actually harder than it seems! It was also great to see Rachel shine as race director: she's such a dedicated member of the Power Milers, balancing hard training with long drives and a military career, and we're lucky to have her. We always joke that she's the youngest and most mature member of our team! Putting on a race is a big endeavor, and I was pleased for her that everything went so well and that all the participants had fun.

UNO cross country opener

This year, the University of New Orleans did something pretty cool: it turned its first cross country race into an open event. Any team or individual could register. I hope they get more publicity the second year (first year events are always hard!), because that's such a good idea! When else do you get to race on a cross country team once you're out of college?
UNO's coach and assistant coach are both Power Milers, so our club put together a team. Mostly because I pressured them into it. It turns out that no other club teams entered, only college tams, but we can certainly work to change that for next year!
I had intended to run this race to support UNO athletics (it was a fundraiser - and cheap at that; $15 for an individual entry). We couldn't field a girls team: too many of us were busy that night. But I thought I'd trundle out there anyway. I wasn't worried about finishing last or something; it was just for a good cause! But unfortunately I had a really stressful and busy week, and the registration deadline passed without me even thinking about it. This is really not like me, so I'm blaming the baby. A baby is very convenient like that.
I still wanted to spectate, so David and I packed a snack and headed out. We got there just as the girls race finished and with plenty of time to watch the guys run.

Headed to the line

The cool thing about cross country races is that they tend to be on repeat loop courses for the sake of space. That also means good spectating. We joined some other team members and spent the race dashing from side to side of the 5k course!

Kenneth runs in Zoom Flys on the grass!

What was cool was watching their strategy. The college kids almost dropped our guys at the beginning, but after mile one, we were back in the mix. Slowly our guys - probably with the benefit of age - worked their way up; Casey finished thirteenth overall as our top finisher, and I was impressed to see Pat finish strong, moving well up in position from his place at mile one. Kenny also ran well in his very first cross country race...and not wearing spikes!

I know this had to be a tough race, because it was a million degrees out (ok, well, low 90's). And super humid. I was hot just watching them run! But our team ended up 5th out of 8, which I think is pretty impressive against a bunch of college kids. Next year I hope we can run a women's team as well!

The 2019 Power Mile

After my experience at Greek Fest, I knew a PR was out of the question for the Power Mile. My club puts this race on, and this year we moved it up to the first of June. We were hoping for cooler temperatures compared to the end of July, and maybe more crowds, but actually we just ended up with a less-acclimated field!
There were other changes this year, too: a new double-loop course on Carrollton Avenue, which omitted the sharp right turn at the finish that the old course had, and an afterparty at Rock 'n Bowl (a bowling lane/bar). I'd worked packet stuffing and early packet pick up the week leading up to the race, and on race day arrived early for day-of packet pick-up. I knew it wasn't going to be a good day for me. That morning, since I wasn't running early, I suggested to David that we go on a leisurely walk with our morning coffee. And I felt terrible. I was weak and faint and had to sit down. We cut our walk short, and I went to bed for some of the day. By the time the race rolled around, I was very happy it was only a mile!

The race has several heats, and I decided that it would be fun to pace David for the open mile. He wanted to run 7:00 and I was happy to help before my race started. Not something I would do before a real race, but totally ok under the circumstances of being 10 weeks pregnant and having been sick ALL day.
Sub-7:00 was kind of a lofty goal... and David wimped out, resulting in some on-course dramatics from the two of us hams.

Anyway, he pulled off a 7:10, which was still a huge PR, and we certainly had fun!

After the open race, I had a break before the "elite" heat. I jogged a little more to stay warmed up before scooting back into the starting corral. I politely got in a back row - I'm a little bitter about it, but I've accepted that I'm no front-packer these days.
I do love a good mile race! I knew I had to temper my expectations, but still - there was another runner I know who moved ahead of me by the first 400m, and I knew I should be faster than her, even pregnant. I ran the first quarter in 1:24 and told myself to hang on to that and I'd be ok. I rounded the corner at the halfway point and heard my split: 2:48. Great! I could sense I was slowing, though. I ran the next quarter in 1:25, and finally eased past my "competition", but struggled to hold the pace. I couldn't really find an extra gear, and ended up running 5:49 gun time. At first, I was disappointed. I ran 5:38 last year, and promised myself sub-5:30 this year. But I knew I couldn't compare and quickly shrugged it off.

Not as fast...but clearly working pretty hard nonetheless! 

The best part about this race was that I felt pretty good afterward, and could actually eat the race food with no ill effects. We had a great time at the after party! We're not sure if this race will live for another year, but I think the runners really enjoyed Rock 'n Bowl, and it was great to have an all-inclusive venue that took care of drinks, food, and music for us. It did increase the registration price - $45 for day-of registration, which is so high for a mile! - but I think it was worth it for a race, all-you-can-eat food, all-you-can-drink beer and wine, live music, and a race. Hopefully we can put this race on again next year, because we had a lot of fun!

Getting some distance back

I am still coming off a long break, slowly working back to some running distance. Oof, July really took it out of me. Pregnancy complications and treatments for them made the "easy" second trimester start out pretty hard, and I took a while to recover. One of my problems lead to an electrolyte imbalance, with hypokalemia. This made me very weak, and it got worse because my blood volume suddenly expanded (normal in the second trimester). I spent a lot of July tired, with anemia and floppy muscles. Not to mention the catheter for part of the month...can't run like that! So there was a lot of not just missed running in July, there was also a lot of just feeling crappy.
THEN I was super slow when I could run, so altogether there just hasn't been a lot of distance over here.

Once I was feeling well enough to run again, and didn't have any crippling hamstring injuries, I stupidly jumped in the long run after just a week back. Not smart! Thirteen miles exhausted me, and I felt insanely sore, like I'd lifted heavy weights. I used the next week to build mileage gradually before attempting any distance again. The following week wasn't as bad. I did 14 miles, and I actually had a slightly better pace from the week prior. Still slow - I'm running mid-9's now. But the distance didn't beat me up like the week before.

Super glad I bought a few bigger tops and sports bras that somewhat fit!

Last week, I decided to throw in a midweek semi-long run. I think midweek longs are so important for a successful weekend long run: I try to always run at least half my weekend distance at some point during the week (usually Thursday). I was a little worried about joining a group due to my newfound slowness, but I met a bunch of ladies for about ten, and it ended up being fine. They were taking it easy, too, and I actually ran sub-9 average...this is so rare now!

I'll try to keep the mid-week distance up a little, but the limiting factor is time. Adding 10 or 15 minutes to my run due to slower pace does mean I have to plan a little better, get up when my alarm goes off, and not dawdle at the water fountain. Not a big deal overall, but just something to be aware of. Long runs, meanwhile, are still on the table for now, just done smartly and with some pre-planning!