Running Lately

Right now I'm in a bit of uncharted territory for me. Navigating running postpartum after Elise was familiar as I had also done it after Carter was born. I had a feel for what to expect and how hard I could push. Elise is now 16 months old. By the time Carter was 16 months old I had already gotten pregnant again, had a miscarriage, and was preparing to try again. It's exciting hitting this new point where I'm fully recovered from giving birth and the sleep deprivation that comes with that first year of your baby's life. The only reason I get less than 7 hours of sleep at night is if I get up really early to run before Ty leaves for work or we go to bed too late. Ty was going into work at 6 or 6:30 meaning he would leave the house by 5:30 or 6:00 so I had to be out for my run and back by then. For now he's back to regular hours which means he leaves by 7:30. That makes it so much easier for me to get up and out for a run before he leaves. I usually get up and run in the morning before he leaves 2-3 times per week and do the rest of my runs with the kids in the stroller. It just depends on what we have going on in the mornings. It has been so nice running after the sun rises instead of when it is dark when I do run before Ty heads to work!

I love my runs with both kids and the dog. I also love my runs just me and the dark early morning.

I've gotten used to being cautious with intensity and volume of running due to pregnancy and coming back after child birth. I'm slowly starting to realize I can amp it back up now. My body responds well to hard workouts and seems to recover quickly although still not as quickly as my college running days but I'm sure some of that has to do with age. I've been building up my long run over the course of the summer and will max out at 12 miles which I have already hit twice. My weekly mileage has been closer to 30 miles most weeks with my highest volume week at 30 miles. I'm planning to add speed work back in next week after my 10k coming up this weekend. I made a bit of a mistake thinking I should do strength training every day. After 5 days in a row and a struggle of a 10k tempo (which I hoped for 7:15 pace but barely held on for a 7:22 average) I realized how silly that was. I took a week off from strength training to help my legs recover and I will add it back in next week. I love summer and pretty much everything about it except the mosquitoes that infest our backyard but I'm getting excited for fall due to all the awesome runs we have coming up! After my 12 mile run this past weekend I'm getting even more excited for my fall half marathon. My goal has been to beat my time of 1:35:43 from last fall at 8 months postpartum. Looking back at where I was at this point last year I'm confident I can do that. Last year at the beginning of August my long run was built up to 10 miles at 8:52 pace. This past weekend I ran 12 miles at 7:59 pace, so I'm about a minute per mile faster than where I was last year. It wasn't until toward the end of September last year that I ran 12 miles in 8:01 pace. Last year my tempo run was up to 3.5 miles with an average pace of 7:39. Last week I ran a 10k tempo with an average pace of 7:22. My 5k back in July was already down to 6:45 pace. So I'm feeling really good about where I am! I'm even hoping to squeak a bit closer to my all-time PR of 1:31. I feel confident I can break 1:35 and would like to drop as close to 1:30 as I can. Then maybe I can go for sub-1:30 in the spring. 

My 10k tempo after 5 days of strength training which meant tons of squats!

We are still up in the air about a 3rd child. If we decide to stick with 2, I'm entertaining the thought of running a full marathon in the fall of 2017. My last full was in the fall of 2009! I ran a full in fall 2008, spring 2009, and fall 2009 and burned myself out. I've always felt like I have unfinished business with the full since I had an amazing first marathon and progressively worse experiences in my following races, running my 3rd with a sinus infection and bronchitis. It was not pretty. I'd like to go into it just to finish but part of me is so desperate to run the sub-3:40 I knew I was capable of. Before my 2nd marathon I ran 22 miles of a marathon relay as a training run at a pace that would have meant a 3:27 had I finished out the last 4.2 miles at the same pace. I actually even thought about finishing out for the full marathon even though I was only signed up for a two-person relay with my friend running the last 4 miles, but I decided to stop because I figured with a few more weeks and a taper I could do even better during my goal marathon. But then I was hit with 30+ mph winds on race day which resulted in a slower time than my first marathon! At times I feel like it is a goal I should give up on, but right now I am feeling a yearning to go for it again. We will see what happens! 

And just because he's running and he's so darn cute!