RWP - 36 Weeks

We are getting into the home stretch here - less than a month until D day!

This was such a good week for me! The weather was much more bearable and I was able to get out and moving every day this week. I won't lie, there are some days where I am just generally uncomfortable, but overall, I felt great this week. I decided to stop myself from speaking in absolutes - "my running days are over" - etc. I'm just taking things day by day.

My week of workouts:

Monday: walked 1.5 miles
Tuesday:  2.75 miles, ran .5 mi
Wednesday: 3.3 miles, ran 1.5 mi
Thursday: 3.5 miles, ran 2 mi
Friday: lots of walking in the city - Aquarium and the North End!
Saturday: 2.85 miles, ran 1 mi
Sunday: 2.7 miles, ran .5 mi

Total: 17 miles, ran 5.5 miles! At 36 weeks pregnant, I consider this a win. :) My only issues this week has been shin/calf pain and some reoccurance of piriformis/sciatic pain. I tried to add squats back into my routine but I think it's triggering my piriformis pain, so I think I am going to just stop doing them. I'm counting on my legs being strong enough from everything I've done to this point - the pain just isn't worth it. The shin pain is a little frustrating - I am going to get some new shoes and see if that helps. My current shoes are only about 4-5 months old, but after looking at the soles I was really shocked at the wear - they look like shoes of mine that are 1+ year old! I guess the extra weight wears them out faster? I also taught my classes quite a bit in them in my last month at the gym, so that also probably caused faster wear.

Otherwise we are just trying to make sure that we are prepared as we can be for baby's arrival! I'll technically be full term this week - crazy! We are also moving soon - so we are trying to coordinate a move as well, which is going to be tricky with a baby coming. Our movers come very soon to pack most of our household goods, and then we'll just be staying in our apartment with the essentials, waiting on baby D to arrive! It's a little crazy, but it has to happen, so I'm trying not to stress about it. We just have to make sure we're organized for it!

36 weeks - still wearing the husband's singlets!

RWP - 35 Weeks

I think the title of this may be slightly deceiving, but I'll go with it anyway!

I got in almost 14 miles this week... but only 1 mile of that was actual running. The rest was walking. The heat was killer this week and there was just no way I could safely run in it. Most days it way still close to 90 degrees at dusk! I also started to have some pain and discomfort this week so I erred on the side of caution and just walked.

Monday: Walked 2.5 miles
Tuesday: 2.75 miles, ran 1 mile of it
Wednesday: Walked 2.75 miles
Thursday: Off
Friday: My birthday! Off! It was also like the hottest day EVER in Boston. It felt like Vegas!
Saturday: Walked 3 miles
Sunday: Walked 2.6 miles

There were also some squats in there - I try to do 60 or so on most days (3 sets of 20).

I really thought my running days might be over, but I'm not so sure. We've had a break in the heat and I've felt pretty good, so we'll see what this week holds. Oddly enough, after 2 days of inactivity last week, I started to have some swelling and pain issues in my ankles, and ice/elevation was of little to no help. I got out and walked briskly on Saturday night, and the pain and swelling dissipated almost immediately. I think I function much better when I'm active!

I turned 31 on Friday - we kept it pretty low key. We went to IKEA, picked out a new sofa, ate some meatballs, and bought a dresser for the little guy. We shopped around a little more for him, and then ate dinner at my favorite restaurant in our neighborhood. I was in bed by 10. It was a good day, even it was 100 degrees!

Do you think I qualify?

Virgin Bloody Mary at brunch. So not the same without the vodka.

baby laundry! 

OMG Submarine outfit. SO CUTE

So, onward into week 36 - less than a month until my due date! I'm also hoping to actually get back to pictures of me in workout gear, it's pretty hilarious!

RWP - 34 Weeks

Another week down!

This week started off fantastic and ended with exhaustion. Pregnancy is so weird. One day you feel like superwoman and the next it's a monumental effort to even get off the sofa!

I only exercised 3 days this week.

Tuesday - Ran 3.1 miles. Best run I've had in weeks! The temps and humidity were unseasonably low and I am sure that helped. My third mile was at a 9:40 pace! I haven't seen the 9:00s in at least a month. I felt totally exhilarated and thought running was looking up for me!

Thursday - Ran 3 miles. Hotter and humid again, but overall it was fine. Probably walked 1 mile of the 3.

Saturday - 2.9 miles. were in CT for the weekend so we took advantage of having a high school track very close by. I went pretty slow and walked about 1 mile of it.

Friday I woke up feeling a lot of bladder pressure and I went to see my midwife. Turns out everything was fine. I guess I've been lucky to not experience that until almost 35 weeks! My best guess is that he's running out of room and might have shifted a bit to make me feel the pressure. I am measuring right on track and gaining weight like a champ (ugh). I have officially gained 25 pounds. I am right on track with it, but I was hoping not to get to 30 lbs - but it looks like it will be inevitable.

Insomnia got me pretty hard over the weekend too. It's really my own fault - I went out of town and forgot to bring my Unisom. I don't sleep well anyway, but being away from home makes it even worse. I slept maybe 4-5 hours a night (of very broken sleep). Combined with being insanely hot all weekend, I ended up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck on Sunday. I felt like a cranky toddler - on the verge of tears for no reason all day! haha. Turns out I just needed a nap and a good night's sleep.

I am feeling large and in charge these days. My belly is starting to 'round out' at the top, and his feet are reaching levels of my ribcage that I never knew were possible! Deep breaths are definitely not happening.

On a good note, I got my very own car this week! We sold my car when we left California, since having two cars in Boston wasn't necessary. Since we're moving to a rural area soon, we'll need to have two cars again. After weeks of searching, I went with the VW Jetta Hybrid. I love it!

The Bump & The Car

I also had a lovely baby shower this weekend! My dear friends in CT threw a BBQ-baby shower this weekend. It was fantastic! It was great to see them and celebrate with them! This baby is so lucky and blessed already. :)

baby practice!

How cute is this? 

The whole crew!

I mustache you a question!

Guys, I have to admit, I am feeling myself slow down. And I fought it at first, but I'm considering caving into it. I walk so much slower, it takes me a few tries to get out of the car, and I hang on to every handrail on stairs and ramps. I mean, loading the dishwasher is painful and exhausting, ha. My head wants to keep exercising, but my heart doesn't. So we'll just see what this next week holds.

RWP - 33 Weeks

Another week of pregnancy in the books here!

This was a good week! I had more good days than bad days, which is always good. We had the mother of all heatwaves here in Boston, so that kind of sucked, but I worked around it. I am just not willing to chance overheating these days, and seeing as how it was in the 90s for 5 days straight, my workouts had to move mostly indoors.

My week of workouts:

Monday: Ran 3.5 miles
Tuesday: Ran 3 miles
Wednesday: Bike trainer, 11 miles, 35 minutes
Thursday: Off, 4th of July! I ate burgers and watched fireworks instead. :)
Friday: Gym - Elliptical 30 mins, 25 min strength training, 15 min recumbent bike
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Ran/Walked 3 miles

So almost 10 miles on foot and 5 days of workouts! I will call that a major success at this stage in my pregnancy game. I took a good bit of walk breaks, but overall it was still mostly running (very slowly) so dammit, it still counts as running!

33 weeks. Now wearing my husband's singlets (glad he doesn't like sleeves either)

I also enjoyed doing the elliptical and bike at the gym (and the glorious A/C) but woke up Saturday generally feeling terrible, along with excruciating left piriformis pain. I've battled this pain since February - I think it began with overuse from teaching fitness classes (when I was probably doing 200+ squats and lunges a day) and never really resolved itself. I've tried stretching and foam rolling, but none have really offered me anymore than very temporary relief. I caved and made an appointment with a massage therapist this week - hopefully she can help me work it out out a bit. I really want to stay active as long as I can! I could deal with the pain up until now because it really only bothered me in specific positions - particularly bending over or standing up (putting on shoes and socks has been painful for a while). But this week it hurts just to sit or to even sleep on the affected hip, so it was time to get professional help.

I also got my very own car this week! This is very exciting in my world because we've been a one-car family for 2 years now - we sold my car before moving to Boston. Now that we're having a baby and moving to a much more rural area soon, I will need a way to get around with the baby. After several weeks of online research and going to a few dealerships, I decided on the Jetta Hybrid. It is beautiful and I love it! I only had a few requirements - I wanted excellent fuel economy, leather interior, and navigation. This fulfills all those very well!

Obligatory new car photo

Onward to week 34! Time is really flying by!

RWP - 32 Weeks

I am happy to report that Week 32 went much better than the past few weeks! I mean, I can't lie - I am uncomfortable as hell at times. I am relatively short and short-waisted, so this baby is coming up into my ribcage and making it hard to breathe! But for the most part, everything is good. I just feel like a whale and I am sort of horrified that I still have 7 weeks (or even more, SHUDDER) to go. haha.

So my week of workouts looked like this:

Monday: 30 minutes bike trainer (continuous hill climb), strength workout (Kettlebell Squats, Rows/Presses, Lunges, Pushups, Dead lifts)

Tuesday: 20 min bike trainer

Wednesday: rest

Thursday: Preggo brick workout - Ran 3 miles, 20 minutes bike trainer

Friday: 45 min bike trainer (slow, heavy climb)

Saturday & Sunday: rest

I have been battling bad head cold + chest congestion + cough all week, so it made workouts somewhat challenging. Saturday in particular was really awful - I was severely congested AND had a recurrence of first-trimester-like all-day nausea. Apparently this is quite common in the third trimester. NOT FAIR, pregnancy. I thought I done with that mess! 

Also, until I wrote this blog post, I REALLY thought I'd run twice last week. Pregnancy brain strikes again. The one run felt really good - I have taken to walking about 1/4 to 1/3 mile to warm up, and then in my 3 mile loop I usually take 1-2 short walk breaks (>30 sec). When running, my pace tends to hover right around 10/min miles, which I'm totally okay with! I haven't been a huge fan of my support belt lately though - it seems to irritate my round ligament pain more. I still wear it but I've worn it looser and it felt a lot better. Everyone is different!

Where did my shoes go? 

I intended to run yesterday, but we had an all-day childbirth class, after which my husband decided that it was time to go buy ALL the newborn essentials. Ha! I guess that class made him realize that this baby is real and coming soon! So we had a fun jaunt to Target late yesterday afternoon. We also had to jaunt back when we realized that we'd somehow left two bags of goods at Target (that was not so fun). Also, on this note, WOW diapers are expensive. We are planning on starting to use cloth diapers when he is about 6 weeks old - my super talented seamstress mother is making them! We also ordered a stroller and a bassinet/playard. Now I just need that BOB jogging stroller and I will be good to go! :) Also next up on our agenda - buying a second car. Babies are expensive, yo!

2-in-1 Stroller (we ordered this green one) It's an umbrella stroller, and:

infant seat snap stroller. We figured we'd get a lot of use out of it!

We plan on having him sleep in the bassinet in our room.

Now, this is next on the wish list!

It's also officially July - how did that happen already? July is special because it's my birthday month. :) Also, I can now say, I'm having a baby next month! Yikes! I am super excited but also VERY nervous!

Now, let's see how long I can keep running. 33 weeks tomorrow!