Hello, 2nd Trimester!

I was going to wait to write this post until a day when I actually got dressed like a normal human being, but reality is that I live in workout clothes, pajamas and scrubs. I can go weeks without even drying my hair or putting on “regular” clothes. So here it is …

Today I am 13 weeks (+3 days) pregnant. This is the beginning of the second trimester! Woohoo!

I can’t decide if time is going by fast or slow at this point. Day to day flies by, but the weeks are creeping. At this point I’m really anxious to find out whether this baby is another boy or a baby girl. I should know in about a month or so. My gut says girl. But my gut has been wrong before.

The last two weeks I have been feeling MUCH better than I did the previous weeks. I never had any major morning sickness, but my exhaustion level has been off the charts. Many days went by where I couldn’t do much of anything except eat and nap. I was too tired to cook, so there were lots of take-out meals. Thankfully, the exhaustion is now just mild fatigue and I’m able to cook and eat healthy meals again.

Exercise-wise I’ve stuck to almost a normal schedule. I’ve decreased my running mileage slightly compared to pre-pregnancy, but I’ve done something almost every day. This past week’s exercise looked like this:

Monday – 5 Mile Run
Tuesday – 50 Minute Elliptical
Wednesday – 5.2 Mile Run
Thursday – CrossFit
Friday – 2 Mile Easy Walk
Saturday – 8 Mile Run
Sunday – 4 Mile Run

Here’s how everything else is going down:

Weight – Gained 10 pounds. Don’t care.
Cravings – Cashews and cottage cheese.
Aversions – Meat (except ground) and all vegetables especially green ones. Thankfully this is over, made trying to stay Paleo impossible.
Workouts – Running and CrossFit, at almost my pre-pregnancy level. Getting slower with running, but still comfortable. Modifying some CrossFit moves and weights as needed.
Goals – To continue exercising as long as possible. To eat clean, healthy meals going forward with occasional indulgences. To not worry about weight gain as long as I’m meeting my exercising and eating goals.
Looking Forward To – Finding out if this baby is a boy or a girl, and feeling movement.
Special Moments So Far – Seeing baby move and have the hiccups on ultrasound. Finding the baby’s heartbeat on my home doppler at 9w3d.

Louisiana Half Marathon 2014

On January 19th, I ran the Louisiana Half Marathon in Baton Rouge for the third year! Ever since their inaugural event in 2012 this has been far and away my favorite race. Not only is the course really pretty and almost completely flat, but the weather is typically just right for running this time of year also. The thing that absolutely impresses me the most about Louisiana though is their Finish Festival. They really do it up right. Plus, this race was my PR race last year when I finally broke 1:40 for a half. Lots of good things going on in Baton Rouge.

This year was a little bit different though. The course, the weather and the finish festival were all the same as I expected, but this year I got to experience the Louisiana Half as a pregnant runner! This is a completely new thing for me, when I was pregnant with my son I was still in my obese, pre-runner days. I can say with confidence that I never exercised a single time during that pregnancy.

Quick down and dirty on how this happened and then back to the race: (Ok, not really … you know HOW it happened) but …

On December 9th, I finally bit the bullet and did something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, but never worked the nerve up to do until then. I went for a consultation with a Plastic Surgeon to see about having some post weightloss “work” done. He asked me about plans to have any future children and I told him the truth that Tim and I have been trying on and off for about 5 years to have another baby, but that after being on fertility meds, having surgery to clear out blocked fallopian tubes and a miscarriage that it just wasn’t happening for us. But I couldn’t promise that it would never happen.

Two days later I was ready to schedule my surgery and was about to take a large sum of money out of the bank, but before I did that I decided on a whim to take a pregnancy test … an lo and behold, it was positive.

I’m 12 weeks 3 days pregnant right now, I was just over 10 weeks when I ran the Louisiana Half. I had already decided a long time ago to run the race with Tim this year, but with the news it worked out just perfectly because I didn’t feel up to going all out anyway.

On race morning Drew, Lauren, Tim and I rode the free shuttle bus from our hotel to the start. We all gathered in the gear check building to keep warm before time to head to the starting line.

I have no idea why Tim is tickling Drew’s ear in the above picture.

Anyway …

The race was a blast as usual, and running with Tim was very comfortable … for the most part. There was that once when I had to stop and pee and then almost slung my uterus out of my body running a stupid-fast pace trying to catch back up to him. Uteruses are heavy.

Anyway again …

We crossed the finish line together in 2:11:something, a new PR for Tim!

We immediately headed the the VIP tent (one of the perks at Louisiana for being a member of Half Fanatics). The tent is full of fancy food, all kinds of alcoholic beverages, massage tables, a big screen TV broadcasting the finish line, etc.

I have to admit I was a tiny bit bitter that I couldn’t take advantage of the bottle of free wine, mimosas, beer and bloody mary’s. But I made sure to make up for it in food and CAKE BALLS…

We relaxed for a little while under the tent and watched the live finish line feed, until the time got close for Drew to be finishing. Then we headed over to watch him finally BOSTON QUALIFY!

That is a big deal, my friends!

A successful weekend all the way around, I’d say. Hopefully we can find a way to make it happen again next year!