Showing posts with label pregnant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pregnant. Show all posts

15 August 2011

legs, legs, and more legs...

and toss a little core in, would ya?

Going with mixing it up this training cycle was one of the best decisions I have ever made. And again, I really can't thank Patrick and Big Daddy Diesel enough for their urging me in the bike direction. It has saved me. Riding my bike has integrated beautifully into my training regimen.

Keeping my fitness level up while recovering from the few mishaps I have had over the last couple of weeks has been easy, largely due to the bike and P90X. While my running miles have been cut, my bike miles and plyo hours have increased, and my overall fitness and strength has not been compromised.


I love the P90X Plyometrics workout. Must be because I am a mother... and it IS the Mother of All P90X Workouts ;-) It is an hour of jumping, leaping, hopping all with quiet, cat-like landings. You sweat like a mother. And you wish your mother was there to pick you up off the floor and give you cookies when you're done. Or maybe a big glass of that recovery drink stuff my husband swears by but I have yet to try.

In addition to the Plyometrics, I have been using the X-Stretch workout a ton. After my physical therapist practically ripped my hip capsule open the other week, the X-Stretch has helped further the range of motion in that joint. Finally... it moves! My PT also prescribed core work, so I have turned to Core Synergistics... also part of the P90X series. As my core has gotten stronger, I have finally added in some of the resistance parts of the workout. The B-Lines® resistance bands are working better for me than hand weights at the moment. I just need to hide them from my kids. They enjoy snapping them at each other... which really can hurt!

These workouts are all intense... as Tony Horton says... "this is P90X, boys and girls... the X is for X-treeeme!" I do what he tells me to... I do my best and leave the rest. While I am not fully up to speed with all parts of each of these workouts, I find them manageable and infinitely enjoyable.

I did do these workouts for awhile when I was pregnant with my fourth baby, but when it got too intense, I switched to the Power 90 In-Home Boot Camp series... until I was huger than a beached whale and could hardly get my socks on let alone work out :P I am simply amazed at how some people (myself included during in my other pregnancies) are able to work out pretty intensely (or at all!) for their whole 40+ weeks of being pregnant. Just wasn't happening at the end there with Miss C.

On Saturday night, I did my first longish run since the beginning of the monkey-wrenches... 6.27 miles in one hour. While it didn't feel effortless, it wasn't at all tortuous either. It was even and very consistent (thank you, new Garmin, for telling me that!)... though at the end I swear I must've looked like a Baby Huey-esque, 3rd-string high school football player trying to muster some speed for tackling drills or something. I am seriously crediting my biking and my dates with Tony H and P90X for how well it did go...never mind that last bit about Baby Huey!

Bring it.

If you do P90X, you get that last part... it's kind of an inside joke :P

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Today is the last day to enter the Hood to Coast Movie DVD giveaway. Click here or see the sidebar for the link to enter. This is a great movie... even if you aren't a runner. I can't believe it is less than 2 weeks until I will be running in the Hood to Coast Relay myself!


Tomorrow is the last day to enter my Match the Rack contest. Click here to see if you can figure out which boobs are whose? There will be prizes!

25 April 2011

The Slacker Runner...

The Slacker Bunny I wrote about yesterday moonlights as a Slacker Mommy who also does a few shifts a week as a Slacker Runner.

When I make reference to myself as a Slacker, please understand that I really am NOT a slacker... I just like to conserve my energies ;-) And sometimes I do slack :P

Back to the running...

Yesterday was supposed to contain a 10-mile run. With the wisdom of my PT backing the decision, that was turned into a 6-mile run. At the request of my cranky hip, the run didn't happen.

This hip is sooooooo annoying.

There are a few runners who read this blog who have had or who currently have hip stress fractures. This is not what I have, thankfully. I don't know what is going on with this hip o' mine. Maybe it is a stress fracture... but I really don't think so. Well, I hope not.

The pain started back in 2000 when my oldest child was 4 months old. I began having these weird stabbing pains. It would feel like someone shot me in the butt... with a gun with a real bullet. My whole leg would buckle underneath me and then the pain would be gone. So weird. And it wouldn't happen again for a couple of months.

The shot-in-the-butt, leg-buckling thing started to happen more frequently by the spring of 2001. My body was afraid to walk, so it started to limp. I decided, in my infinite wisdom, to start training again. "That'll teach it!" was my thinking... or something like that. I started rowing again and running and weight-training.

Then I got pregnant again. Which was a good thing :)

I ran until I was 5 months pregnant... November 2001. I remember that last run so well because it was the last time I would run for over 8 years. After Baby X was born, I struggled with hip pain almost constantly. I will say that not only did it super suck to live with chronic pain, but a limp is so not sexy.

Finally in 2007, I found THE physical therapist. Enter Nina at SOLPT. She beat that scar tissue into submission and got me full range of motion and regular-looking and -feeling walking. Seriously, I think she is a miracle worker. I remember one time I said something like "... well, I know you've seen worse..." She looked me dead in the eye and said, "Ummmm, actually... you were pretty bad." So I could walk without a limp and wear shoes instead of slippers and we started talking about running again... which thrilled and scared me at the same time.

Then I got pregnant again. Which was a good thing :)

We were able to keep things from regressing during the pregnancy, but any progress was minimal. I was able to maintain that stasis for a good bit of time. Then at the end of last summer (2010), I ran after one of my kids as he headed for certain peril. Did you see that? I RAN. I was so surprised. I could run!

And that began my running renaissance... which led to this blog.

So when my hip starts to feel tweaky or cranky, I really need to listen to it. I don't want to sit out this fun game called "LIFE" for another second. Eight years is way too long.

11 January 2011

Stylish Blogger Award? lol

I know it must have been the snot-sleeved little black tee I wrote about here that got me 'nominated' for this dubious honor!  lol  Stylish, indeed.  *snort*  don't they know who I am?  

But I love this tag game.  Because I have so many stupid erroneous facts to share!  So... many thanks to Amanda@Runninghood for giving me this opportunity to spew forth present a few interesting tidbits about meeeee!

In case you are unfamiliar with how this goes down, here's what needs to happen for this to work:
  1. I must make a post linking back to the person who has nominated me for this prestigious award.
  2. I must share 7 things about myself.
  3. I must pass on the honor to 10 new bloggers I really like.
  4. I must contact these bloggers and tell them they've been awarded this Stylish Blogger Award.
Whew!  What a lot of work!  I don't know if I am up to the challenge... especially after my tempo run ;-)  but I'll give it a whirl...

Got #1 out of the way... thanks, Amanda!  On to #2...

I've done this before here and I just put a bunch in a comment here on Diary of a Midlife Cruiser, but as I said I have a lot to share!

1.  I liked being pregnant!  yes, it got very, very old toward the end... ready-to-do-anything kind of old...
 even ready-to-end-it-all kind of old...
but I found that making a whole person inside of my own body to be just about the coolest thing imaginable!  I will forever miss the feeling of a baby moving around in there...

2.  I love Halloween... or any excuse to be in costume!  My most memorable costumes have been... oh, wait... this is a 'family' blog  ;-)  oh, heck... why not?

Pregnant dominatrix
(but must admit the previous year's was the best of all time and I can't find the pictures)


3.  I have breastfed all 4 of my kids.  I am a huge advocate of breastfeeding... but do not pass judgement on those who prefer not to or can't or whatever.  I have been a human dairy bar continuously since September of 1999.  And that may skeeve some people out... but hey, that's me ;-)  I will feed my baby whenever hungry and while that may sound awfully 'in-your-face', I am not like that about it.  I am not a flasher... I am discreet... sort of.
(not entirely sure how discreet this would be considered... on the Seine right across from the Musée d'Orsay... no benches so I just sat in the stroller... but you can't see my boob, so we're good, right?)

4.  I really miss real treats... especially ones with wheat.  Something has happened in my body and I now can't eat wheat without becoming cranky and getting a 2- or 3-day migraine.  Not worth it.

Eating the yummiest pastry known to the human race... a Réligieuse... cream puff-like base filled with chocolate custard, coated with chocolate glaze and topped with a smaller cream puff thing also filled with the chocolate custard and the two are attached with whipped cream
(and I look greasy and spacey because I am severely jet-lagged in this picture... nearly 24 hours in transit with 3 kids ... just eat the dang thing and crash)

5.  I was a really messy kid.  (my husband would argue that nothing has changed)  So I am not too terribly particular about how my kids keep their rooms... most of the time...

6.  You all already know about this:

from that last '7 random things' tag (see link).  Me, Fidel and my rowing partner... 1991 PanAmerican Games held in Havana, Cuba.  We came in second to the Canadians.  Bummer.  What a blast that was!
(what I am not showing you is that we were also in People Magazine... my partner was a big story... 42 and the mother of another competing athlete... it was the same issue of People that featured Jeffrey Dahmer... nice....and we were also on Wide World of Sports)  but this is such a fun one and everyone always gets a kick out of it... so I'm showing it again :P

7.  I am way smarter than I seem ;-)  and you'll just have to take my word for it!


Crikey!  Now to pick some other bloggers...

  1. Kelley from Kelley's Break Room
  2. Lee on the Run
  3. KD from Life-Inspired by the Wee Man
  4. NattyBumpo
  5. Danny
  6. Elkton Runner Girl
  7. Table for Seven
  8. GetRealMommy
  9. Krumpledwhiskers
  10. Catey

These are all people I want to know more random things about.  So if you are on the list and it is overwhelming to you to participate... fine... be that way (pout).  Nahhhh, I totally get it.  Don't sweat it.  But if you are cool with being a Stylish Blogger, please let me know more about you... either just in the comments here or in a post on your blog.

Pretty, pretty please!

I'll need to notify them all tomorrow... I need to go to bed... New Year's Resolution and all ;-)


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