What will 2013 bring?

As January reaches its half, Janathoners are full in action and all other runners train and make extensive exciting plans for the upcoming season, I am sitting in my bed, taking it easy and missing all of it so much. At the same time, I am living the nicest period of my life ever: the baby seems to be developing fine, we are almost at 34 weeks and despite my fear how a huge baby head will pass through a narrow opening somewhere down there, I cannot wait to welcome her to the world.

But where does it leave my running? Shouldn’t I make plans myself too? With 12 kg additional weight (compared to summer 2012) and the weekly pregnancy gym (synonym for meetings with other preggo’s and talking about how scared/happy/excited/tired we are) being my only exercise this might be a bit of a daring proposal but here it comes:

For my 40th birthday, I’d like to give myself a marathon. It does not have to be exactly on my birthday, it does not even have to be any official race. I just feel that – providing we stay healthy – the 42.195 km distance must be within my reach this year.Hopefully now that, in the middle of my hibernation, I have posted the thought out loud, once I am physically able to re-grab my running, the motivation will come instantly.

Happy running all of you :-).

Preggo Running VII. – Epilogue

26-28 weeks: All went well throughout the second trimester and then yesterday (at 28w+1d) I returned from a routine gyn check with a new unexpected diagnosis: short cervix. Apparently, it is something that happens to many pregnant women as the baby is growing and her head/body/fluid press against the lower end of the womb. The one good remedy here is resting. Resting from work, from stress, from any physical activity. So here is my newest challenge: how do I go from full time job and active life to bed rest in 1 day?

Not quite sure about that, so far I survived one day in bed – with my notebook and telephone next to me (what would one do without WiFi?).  Lazy days began… and finally I might have time to read all your blogs and comment on your posts :-).

Preggo Running VI.

24-26 weeks: My belly grows. No doubt about that. Luckily my recently invented strategy (1 Hour a Day) seems to be working quite well. Last week, after almost a year of running 4-6 times a week, suddenly I only went for a run only twice! My belly was getting harder as I ran on so I realised I needed to take some rest. However, I managed to spend about 8 hours with exercising. So hopefully my physical condition won’t be deteriorating all that quickly….

Weight gain: 9 kg from the start of pregnancy.

Working Girl

I walk a lot. Well – at least I walk more than I did before. To save time, I tend to combine ‘business and pleasure’ so many of my walks include downtown Leiden or Amsterdam work-related trips. The Netherlands is not America so people do look surprised when watching me entering the office and quickly switching my walking Salomon’s for proper leather ‘business woman’ shoes. Smallest of my problems…    As the matter of fact, it makes me feel a bit like Melanie Griffith in ‘Working Girl’:

Preggo running IV.

20-22 weeks: As many of you know, we have spent last week in the Alps. As V was busy with her ski instructor training (Anwarter), I had all the time to work, eat and… run. My daily routine consisted of 1-2  hours of early morning (6.30 – 8.30) running and geocaching and then working and eating and walking – until it was time to go to sleep again. This scheme did me good. I managed to run 40 km that week and until now, I actually feel very good.

Total weight gain: 7 kg

My running has reached a point where anything faster than 8.5 km per hour is not comfortable, however, maintaining the snail speed of 8 km per hour is quite nice, actually. Walking/hiking is good, too. And here it the evidence: last Saturday (when many of you ran marathons all over Europe) we took a little hike from the Hinterglemm valley to Forsthofalm: