It's on like Donkey Kong: My first post-partum run, breastfeeding woes, and my super tentative race schedule!

Great news, I got the green light to start training (albeit slowly) from my physician!  It has been six weeks since Soren was born and 80+ days since I broke my toe after tripping on some luggage.  Before I ran, I promised myself that I would stop as soon as anything felt "off." A little tiredness would be fine, but if I felt any sharp pains or anything beyond the ordinary I-haven't-done-this-in-awhile-so-things-might-be-creaky, then I would walk, plain and simple.  I have yet to experience a running-related injury in my (admittedly relatively short) ultrarunning career, and now that I have to take care of a newborn, I want to make sure that I keep it that way.

Quick Long recap of my breastfeeding experience so far:

(If you have no interest in breastfeeding, just skip this because most of it will be gobbledygook.  Or if you experienced breastfeeding issues and don't want flashbacks, you really should skip this section!)

Time for full disclosure here - things have been really hard the past six weeks.  While I have been able to get in a walk here and there and have been super lucky to have family visit so that I am not totally isolated, my life has been pretty dominated by baby Soren and my breastfeeding woes.  My experience has been far from unique, but still . . . it sucked.  Thankfully, I have a husband, friends and family who have been incredibly supportive - I don't think I would gotten this far otherwise!

I am not going to get into the nitty gritty details of my labor/delivery, but thanks to a horrific case of PUPPP during my 39th week and getting only a couple of hours of sleep per night due to the terrible itching, we decided to induce Soren.  Nearly 48 hours later, the induction was declared a failure (Soren was stubbornly staying asynclitic and more importantly, I was running a fever and not making sense) and our son was delivered via c-section at 1:55 p.m. on January 1, 2016.  (We weren't even close to having the first New Year's baby, hah.)  Because I had so much fluid pumped into my system, my milk didn't come in until ten days later and to this day, my supply isn't all that great.  

And yes, for you breastfeeding nazis, I am pretty much doing everything I can in the hopes that my supply will increase.  I make Soren latch for hours, pump, pump, pump all the time, drink tons of water, eat oatmeal, and take about a million herbal galactagogues (fenugreek pills, fenugreek tea, moringa, shatavari, and motherlove more milk special blend concentrate).  While my analytical side is horrified with the complete lack of any scientific method in determining what will make my body produce more milk, the emotional mom side is me is totally fine with the "Everything But the Kitchen Sink" method because it seems to be working.  The other day, I finally pumped nearly enough for a full day's worth of milk for Soren - and that didn't include what Soren managed to drink from my breast.  

Oh, I forgot to mention: I was blessed with a child who latches (thanks to a tongue tie revision - before that, my nipples were bloody and raw, awesome!), but just eats . . . so . . . slowly.  Like, drinking half an ounce in half an hour slowly.  At that rate, it would take him hours to finish a feed, which just isn't feasible.  So, my lactation consultants recommended I do what is called the triple feed which goes something like this:

(1) Weigh Soren.  Breastfeed Soren for 30 minutes.  If I think the feeding is going well, I'll let him eat for an hour.  Weigh Soren again to determine how much he has drank.  Sigh inwardly because it's usually a dismal amount.
(2) Feed Soren with my expressed breast milk.  If necessary, feed Soren with additional formula.  Burp Soren.  Get him to settle down so I can use my breast pump.  The Mamaroo has been super helpful in this regard.
(3) Pump for at least 30 minutes.

Note that the above doesn't include diaper changes, skin-to-skin bonding/tummy time, and general mayhem (fussiness, an especially explosive diaper, super spit up that needs to be cleaned out of Soren's hair, etc.), so on average, each cycle takes about 1.5 - 2 hours.  And then Soren is hungry an hour or so later.  If you've followed me this far (I'm amazed if you have, because this is a running blog and not a pregnancy/breastfeeding blog), you're probably wondering when I managed to get sleep.  Well, I pretty much didn't unless Rob helped with the feeding and the diaper changes, which my amazing and awesome husband definitely did.  However, Rob had about a million things that he also needed to take care of, so he couldn't help with every feeding.  From all the combined naps I took during the day, I got about 4 hours of sleep.  A few weeks of the above was turning Rob and me into zombies.  

In any event, we met with another lactation consultant and she gently suggested that perhaps I needed more sleep to produce more milk.  We tweaked the schedule a bit and while I still pump at least five hours a day, I do it mostly during the waking hours so I can sleep while Rob does Soren's night feed.  So, for the past few nights, I've had at least *five* hours of pretty much interrupted sleep, making me feel pretty invincible.  This invincibility inspired me to re-start my blog and gave me the energy to run again as well!

Oops, sorry for all that.  Now back to my run:

My first opportunity to run was this past Saturday.  Although I had been up since 4:30 a.m., I felt awesome when 9:00 a.m. rolled around and my husband was able to watch Soren.  I practically bounded out the door, I was so excited.  I decided that this momentous run would happen . . . on a treadmill in my building's gym.  I didn't want to run outside because a) Too many times in my life, I have lost track of time and distance while running and then had issues coming back; b) I wanted to be close in case Soren needed me; and c) It was really, really, really cold outside.  

Okay, I'll be honest, the last reason was probably the main reason.  Also, unlike most people, I actually like running on a treadmill.  At least, in the past few years, it's been really easy for me to reach this blissful, zen-like state, especially when I'm banging out a speed workout or doing longer interval workouts.  

Besides being excited to run in general, I was also stoked to try on my new sneakers!  This is my first year of being an Altra Ambassador and the lovely people there had sent me a free pair of Olympus 2.0s.  Since I had good experiences with previous iterations of the Olympus, I was curious to see what the differences were.  Granted, the Olympus is a trail shoe and I was going to run on a treadmill, but I could at least figure out whether I liked the fit.

My new Olympus 2.0s - aren't they pretty?  Baby Soren for scale.

My goal was to run/walk a 5K without feeling any tiredness or pain.  I knew that based on my previous post-partum jaunts that I could at least briskly walk a 5K without any issue, so my goal was properly modest.  I set an easy pace on the treadmill and took a drink break every half mile or so.  Normally, I drink every other mile, but from all my research, it seems that the main killer of breast milk supply is either dehydration or fatigue.  So I drank up.

During my run, I played some cheesy music (think 80s and 90s pop) and boom, seven or eight songs later, I was finished with my 5K.  I definitely could have gone for longer, but I wanted my first run to be a completely happy one.  And it was!  My legs felt relatively fresh and core pain was nonexistent.  The only issue I seemed to have was being slightly out of breath any time I tried to up my pace, but I think that has to do with my lingering additional pregnancy weight, which hopefully should be a non-issue in the next six months or so.  Not that I am weighing myself every day, but it seems that the old wives' tale is true regarding breastfeeding and post-partum weight loss.  I haven't been doing anything special to lose weight, but it's coming off slowly.  

Check it out, yo.  This 5K time would certainly not win any age-group awards, but at least I wouldn't come in last place!

Now that my first run has been successful and I do not perceive any major biomechanical or structural issues, I feel okay about posting my race schedule for 2016.  So here is my tentative schedule for the next few months, let me know if you will be running any of these races.  

Time to get training!

March

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Rock and Roll DC Half Marathon

April

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Umstead 100 - 50 Mile Option

Sunday, April 17, 2016

MORE/Shape Women's Half Marathon (Pacing the 2:30 group)

May

Saturday, May 21, 2016

AirBNB Brooklyn Half Marathon (Pacing the 2:30 group)

June

Saturday, June 18, 2016

The Great New York 100 KM Running Exposition

July 

Saturday, July 16, 2016

Vermont 100 Endurance Run

November
Sunday, November 6, 2016
New York City Marathon (Pacing)

Starting Fresh . . . Sort Of. And a tentative list of goals.

Alrighty gang, it has been well over two years since my last post, which is terrible, terrible, terrible thing since lots of wonderful, wonderful, wonderful things happened.  However, instead of scrapping my old blog and starting anew, I decided to revive this one.  True, I am not running as much as before, but I still feel like a joyful ultrarunner.  So what if I took a little break from ultrarunning due to my pesky c-section recovery?  It's all good!  After all, my last 100 miler took place literally two weeks before I got pregnant and my next ultramarathon (Umstead!) is scheduled in a few months.  I am totally registered and everything - we even have a hotel booked!  In case you couldn't tell, I have relatively big plans for 2016 and I want to make sure I do everything I can to keep myself accountable.  

For the two or three people who are not immediate friends and family reading this page and do not know all this already, here is a quick recap of my life since my last post:

Life highlights:

(1) Rob and I adopted Yossarian, a floofy miniature golden doodle who can outrun us any day of the week and has the awards to prove it.

As I type this caption, Yossi is curled up at my feet.  Such a good dog.

(2) Rob and I got married.

Best day of my life until January 1, 2016.  (See No. 4.)

(3) Rob and I decided that we liked our current city so much that we bought our first home together.

Hooray for marital debt! ;)

(4) Rob and I welcomed our first son, Soren on January 1, 2016.  Although technically Soren was due on that date, it still boggles my mind that we have a January 1st baby.  And no, we weren't even close to being the first baby born in the year :).

Many people have said that one day I will pay for this photo.  Guess what?  I've paid for this photo and then some in all the hours of sleep I've missed since this little dude was born.

And now for some running highlights:

(1) Did not complete the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning in 2013, alas.  But I swear, as Cthulhu
 as my witness, I *will* complete it one day.  

(2) Ran six 100 mile races in 2014 and 2015: Rocky Raccoon 100 (2014 and 2015), Umstead 100 (2014 and 2015), TGNY100 (2014), and Vermont 100 (2014).

Pre-race photo at VT100 2014.

(3) Rob and I ran two races during our honeymoon in New Zealand and Hawaii, the Kepler 60K Challenge and the Honolulu Marathon.  The Kepler Challenge was Rob's first ultramarathon trail and he rocked it.  And the Honolulu Marathon was his first back-to-back weekend marathon!

My first ultramarathon was nine relatively flat loops in Central Park.  His involved climbing up and down a mountain.

(4) Ran my first sub-23 hour finish at the 2015 Umstead 100.

(5) Paced a bunch of races including the NYC Marathon and the NJ Marathon.

(6) Was selected to be an Altra Ambassador.  

Altra sneakers are the *best*.  And I'm not just saying that because they're giving me free and discounted sneakers for 2016.  I probably would have given up running if not for these amazing sneakers.

The absolutely silly thing is, I wrote about many of the above events, but didn't choose to hit the "publish" button because I get so incredibly self-conscious about my writing.  Well, I decided to change all that.  Not the feeling self-conscious part - I know that I will always feel that way.  But I decided to start publishing my posts again.  As I mentioned before, I have some major running goals for 2016 and I believe making them public will make them more likely to happen.  

So what are these goals?

As most runners know, we have goals and then we have goals.  In every race, I have a Goal A, Goal B, Goal C, and a Super Secret Goal Z.  Goal A is usually something pretty basic; Goal B is something a little less attainable; Goal C is juuuuuust out of my reach; Goal Z is a goal that most people would laugh at me for even considering.  For example, during my last Umstead 100, Goal A was to finish happy and healthy; Goal B was to finish in under 24 hours; and Goal C was to finish in under 23 hours.  Unfortunately, I can't tell you what my Super Secret Goal Z was, otherwise it wouldn't be Super Secret.

So here are my tentative goals for 2016:

Goal A: Recover well from pregnancy.  C-section healing is no joke and I cannot stress enough how serious I am about making sure that I do not impede my overall progress by being too impatient with getting back into full-on running mode.
Goal B: Get back into my 2015 pre-pregnancy running shape by June.
Goal C: Finish a Western States qualifier (Hopefully Vermont 100!)
Goal D: Finish a Western States qualifier in less than 24 hours.
Goal Z: I'll let you know if it happens.

When does my post-partum training start?

A lot of the above depends on how well my six-week check up goes with my doctor tomorrow.  That said, I am feeling pretty optimistic that she is going to give me the all-clear.  Therefore, my hope is that my official training will begin tomorrow!  And I can't wait!  Although my core muscles are still incredibly weak (hardly unsurprising since I had major abdominal surgery), my legs, despite running zero miles since Thanksgiving (This was not entirely pregnancy-related; I happened to break my toe while tripping over luggage), feel pretty awesome.  I discovered that because my body has gotten so used to carrying additional weight, I have become an excellent speed walker.  I am hoping that my newfound leg strength for walking will translate to faster running as well.

 And that's it for now.  Wish me luck for tomorrow!  Cannot wait to get back to real training again!  

So! Excited! To just go out and ruuuuuun.

Peanut Leap Cascade at Palisades Interstate Park. 

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Workout Types(s): Trails and strength training (a.k.a. lifting heavy garbage bags)

Miles: 9+

Where: Palisades Interstate Park

Notes: Good times.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Workout Types(s): Road running

Miles: 8+

Where: Central Park

Notes: My Morton's Neuroma hit by mile 6 and it was unpleasant, but I was pleased because it normally starts by mile 4 when I train on roads.

Training notes:

Alrighty, I am back in business and am re-entering Training Beast Mode.  As of this weekend, I am officially done with the winter ills and am so (!) excited(!) to go out and just ruuuuun.  

Saturday 

My run on Saturday morning was glorious.  Besides crashing a couple of times (I was a bit overeager in hurtling down a hill), I felt really in tune in my body and managed to find this wonderful rhythm with my legs and feet that made me feel like I could run forever.

If you want an intense workout, going up and down these cliffs is a seriously good time.

Trail connecting the Shore Trail to the Long Path.

Sadly, I had to cut my training short as I had plans to volunteer with a local trail organization doing post-Hurricane Sandy clean up.  One of the requirements for Western States 100, Vermont 100, and Wasatch 100 is to volunteer at least eight hours either at an ultramarathon or with a trail volunteer group.  Eight hours is a pretty small time commitment, but I think the race directors' objective is to encourage ultrarunners who have never volunteered before to start because once you do, it is really difficult not to want to volunteer again.  When you volunteer at a race, you really appreciate the work involved in making sure the race is a success; when you do volunteer trail work, you realize how much effort is necessary in maintaining the paths we love.  Also, it's fun!  I always meet the most interesting people and I always learn something new, running and/or general life-wise.

Getting instructions from Palisades Interstate Park trail supervisor Christina Fehre.

This past weekend, I was fortunate to volunteer with an AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps team who came all the way from Ohio to help out with post-Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.  We worked with Palisades Interstate Park trail supervisor Christina Fehre to help clean up the debris washed up along the Shore Trail.

Garbage ready to be shipped out.

And there was quite a lot of it.  I personally collected two large garbage bags completely filled with mostly plastic bottles of all types.  Other items collected were tires, barrels, styrofoam, insulation, plastic bags . . . it made me sad to see so much trash along the trail, but I was really glad something was being done about it. 

Lugging along a garbage bag along this rock scramble was entertaining.

We found some makeshift swings.  We weren't sure if they were sturdy, but they looked so inviting! 

We were scheduled to work for only four hours on Saturday, but there will be future volunteer trips as the weather gets nicer.  Next weekend I am supposed to volunteer with the Bearclaw group at Longpond Ironworks State Park, but since I want to do some major mileage this week, my plans are still tentative.

Sunday

Sunday's run was uneventful.  I ran the Central Park loop and reservoir loop and saw a few folks along the way, including Rick Thiounn and his fiancee, Lauren Healy as well as Stephen England, another Western States-bound runner.  My Morton's neuroma on my right foot started to act up by mile 6, but it wasn't nearly as excruciating as before and so I was able to finish my run.  I think my regimen of acupuncture/serrapeptase/physical therapy/change in footwear is working.  That being said, I am still visiting a podiatrist later today because it never hurts to get another opinion. 

Alrighty, so this week should be a blast.  Lots of climbing, lots of running, and lots of strength training.  I can't wait!

So here is my blog, it exists!

Beginnings are so difficult, but here goes:

I am starting an ultrarunning journal.  Actually, that's not quite right.  I already have a running journal, but it consists mostly of quantitative data.  A typical entry would read, "I ran 10 miles today.  One toe nail fell off."  Pretty dry reading, if you ask me.  I have decided that now that I am going public, I will be a bit more descriptive, not just because it makes for more entertaining reading, but so that I can get better feedback on whether my training is working or not.  

Normally I don't give a hoot about my training as my normal training modus operandi has been just to go out and run a lot and see what happens.  But this needs to change.  The real reason I am going public with my blog is because for the first time in my ultramarathon career (all three years of it, I am still a total newbie), I have tackled on a project that I think may be a wee bit much and will require not just a lot of training, but quality training.  

I am going for the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning, kids.  That's right, I am making the valiant attempt of running Western States, Vermont, Leadville, and Wasatch, all in one summer.  It is either going to be epic and awesome, or just . . . I don't even want to think about it.  Admittedly, while my head is still a bit dizzy thinking about all those races, I have never felt more serene and focused.  This is what ultrarunning is all about - stretching your absolute limits.  And then stretching them some more.

I probably should have posted my first official entry on January 1, but life got in the way. (I slept through a good chunk of New Year's Day.  Don't ask.)   And as it is, I haven’t really done anything that exciting, running-wise so far this year. 

But I have to begin somewhere.  So here is my blog - it officially exists!

Actually wait, wait.  I did do a cool running-related activity last weekend . . . I ran a neat trail race at Watchung Reservation with the awesome folks at NJ Trails, but gosh, that was so last Saturday and it just doesn't seem to fair to write about it now.  I am going to make a rule (that I will probably break) that I will not write about anything that happened more than a week ago.  That will either (a) force me to write more or (b) inspire me to do lots of cool things so I always have something to write about.  Either way, I win. 

This blog is still very much a nascent idea, so I have no idea what direction it will take.  But there will be stats.  And pictures.  Oh, and lots and lots of running.  Speaking of stats . . . 

Today’s Stats:

Miles ran: 5Kish

Where: Around my neighborhood.

What I wore: North Face fleece, long thermal undershirt (it's my favorite thermal that I have been wearing since high school, it's so ridiculously soft), Nike running tights, Icebreaker socks, turtle fur scarf, gloves 

Sneakers: Super muddy Brooks Ghost 5.  I should probably clean them.

How I felt: Cold.  Oh, and my knees are still purple and feeling weird from the tumble I took on Saturday because my Microspikes got caught in some brush.  

What I thought about while running: How I need to run more.

Notes: Kept my run short because I have some solid long runs to do this weekend.

So here is my first ever public blog post.  Thoughts?  Comments?  Anyone planning on running these races?  I sure could use some company!

I'm off to have an adventure, folks! Wish me luck!