Monday, January 21, 2013

A new book, a race, and random

Something cool:
I recently discovered that a new pregnancy book focused on fitness will be released soon! Kristina wrote this gem, and you can find it here on Amazon. I'm so excited for Kristina! And also excited that there will be a newer good book that tackles pregnancy and fitness. I ran through both of my pregnancies. With Kaylee, my first, I was nervous about running and basically stuck to about 35 miles a week of running (even though my doctor said it was fine to keep doing what I had always been doing). I also used the elliptical machine and stationary bike. With Emily, my second, I found "Exercising Through Your Pregnancy", which made me feel so much better about running while being pregnant. During that pregnancy, I averaged 45-55 miles a week, and ran 8 miles the day that I wound up giving birth. "Exercising Through Your Pregnancy" is a decade old though, and I've been wondering when a newer book would be written. And, well, here it is, "Fit & Healthy Pregnancy"!

Hearing about this new book got me thinking about being pregnant and running while pregnant. It would be great if we could get a whole slew of non-pregnant people to read a book like this. The important people around me supported me while I was pregnant and running, but there were still many people who felt the need to make comments insinuating that I was being irresponsible by running. You know, the old: "Is that safe for the baby?" The comment that clearly indicates that they believe it is not, in fact, safe for the baby. The sassy me always wanted to say something snide, but usually I stuck with something like, "Well, my doctor tells me it's safe, so I think it's probably fine..." And then I would be furious for the rest of the day. Those people really need to read this book! Right!? Anyway, you should really check it out, and spread the word!

I have a race this weekend:
Maybe two weeks ago I randomly decided to register for the Derry Boston Prep 16 miler, which is this upcoming Sunday. I am ever so slightly nervous. Like just a tiny bit...It is a notoriously challenging course, run in notoriously difficult conditions. But whatever, I've already registered...

Okay, I'm being a little dramatic. But when you read race reports entitled "practicing death one hill at a time" you start to wonder what you've gotten yourself into. The truth is though, I need this race. I've been running almost all my runs on the treadmill, which I believe helps keep this injury prone runner, injury free, but the fact is the treadmill isn't the same as the road. Since I will be running Boston in April, this race will give me a good idea how well my training is going. I have no idea what to expect for a pace, but I'm planning to find Raelyn and let her teach me a thing or two about the course. I met her on the start line of BayState. She ran about two minutes faster than me at BayState, and she's won Derry in the past, so I'm pretty sure she knows what she's doing. That's my race plan. Stick with Raelyn...There's not much else to say about that. The last two weeks I've run 70 miles (per week). I've had some good workouts, but I'm a bit tired. This week would have been a back off week regardless of the race, so that's good. I hope to run 55-60 miles (including the race).

Random:
I think my kids are fairly normal, but from time to time we find them running around pretending and yelling about the oddest things. Kaylee has (on more than one occasion) run around yelling that she's "hunting". Around Thanksgiving she was constantly pretending to "hunt" for turkeys. She even built a turkey trap with Nana. It was so weird, because we don't hunt or know anyone that does. We do eat turkey though, and we have wild turkeys in our yard all the time, so maybe that's where she gets it from. Yesterday she was pretending to hunt deer...When you add Emily to the mix, things really start getting crazy. We have this soft castle that includes a little princess, knight, and dragon doll. The other day Emily pointed out the knight and said "that's me, that's Emily". She pointed at the princess doll and said, "that's Kaylee", which is sort of funny because when they play "rescue" Emily is always "saving" Kaylee. Anyway, Kaylee heard her and  furiously yelled "I'm not a princess, I'm a bounty hunter!" Just for the record, the bounty hunter thing is a Star Wars reference. Kaylee has seen the original Star Wars Trilogy (once), and has several Star Wars books. But still, it was funny and odd to hear her yell it out like that. Of course, five minutes later they were fighting over who gets to wear mommy's powder blue scarf, so it's not all hunting, knights, and bounty hunters, but you know, they do keep it interesting. So I'm wondering if anyone else's kids pretend crazy stuff?

7 comments:

Karen said...

I'm glad my mom didn't blog the crazy games and things I did as a kid...but she does have some pretty humiliating home videos.

Good luck on the race this weekend!

Raina said...

Best wishes in your challenging race, Katie! I know you will rock it :)

That's funny about your kids. Mine pretend funny things too. Lately they have been pretending they are power rangers and doing a lot of fake karate. Which is fine, except it always leads to body contact and crying. ha. Hunting...perfectly normal around here :) We make bows and arrows with sticks and strings.

Ana-Maria RunTriLive said...

oh, you will do awesome Katie. You will win the race and set a course record (no pressure, ha!). Seriously, I think you will see that the TM is pretty accurate for you. You are getting so fast!

My kids is surely crazy, ha! He has imaginary friends, 'the guys" with whom he talks a lot about his day, or with whom he plays (no sibling here!). He is also so concrete to the point that even his imagination world has to be based on reality, e.g., you can't speed and not get a ticket:) Love kids:)

Good luck on Sunday! I am so excited for your race!

Colette said...

Good luck with your race! You will rock it as always- you have put in some serious training! Thanks for the book info. I did not run my 1st pregnancy b/c my doc had given me the 140 bpm rule for heart rate, which I think is outdated & my HR never stays under 140 when running even at a comfortable pace. This time around I was doing low mileage after my 1st trimester- 1st trimester wasn't going so well! I was glad to keep some of it up but my pace was super slow and my HR was hitting 170 even though I felt ok. On tired days, I just switch to inclined walk, spinning or snowshoeing. We'll see how long I can keep it up but I won't be hitting any of your 40-50 mile weeks while pregnant- I admire you for that!

Michelle said...

I didn't run through my pregnancies (For a couple of them I wasn't doing much running at the time) but I did do a lot of exercising. The last 2 I was doing spinning classes up until the day I had them and got many of the same/constant comments. Annoying. I started to get sarcastic and would answer the "Is that Ok for the baby?" "I hope so". Lol

Your kids are adorable and quite normal and imaginative. And that is a professional opinion!

Katie said...

@Karen: Oh no! Hopefully, I'm not scarring my kids! I do have some good videos that I won't post, but should be fun later...

@Raina: You know, we manage to have body contact and crying too (without any pretend karate).

@AM: Yeah, yeah, no pressure. I'm definitely NOT setting a course record, but who knows, I could win if no one else shows up. ;) Kaylee is similar with her pretend play too. There are tons of rules, and I'm all "well can't you just change the rule?" And she's all "no momma, it doesn't work that way."

@Colette: I wonder if your HR is just naturally high. My doctors didn't make me follow a HR rule, but b/c my HR is naturally low, even if they had, it wouldn't have mattered. I can run a pretty hard pace and keep my HR in the 140 range (which is probably another reason why simply defining a HR line isn't a great idea). Good luck with everything!

@Michelle: Hmmm, since you're a baby expert, it's hard to believe anyone would have the guts to give you a hard time. Though, I suppose they didn't necessarily know who they were dealing with when making their stupid comments. And Yay! My kids are mostly normal! :)

Kerrie said...

My almost 5YO is obsessed with Star Wars. We've only shown him "safe" clips from the movie but he has a ton of SW books. I've heard the bounty hunter thing before. Lol.