Progress

It's been a long time since the last running update (or any update for that matter).  I thought I'd share a little of the progress made over the past six months since my first postpartum workout.  You can read about that first 30 minutes on the treadmill here.

 

I haven't devoted as much time as I would like to my training, but somehow, snuggling a baby always pulls rank over running on the treadmill at 5am.  Despite having a disjointed and sometimes dysfunctional training schedule, I have somehow managed to semi-train for a full marathon and a 200-mile relay.

 

I say "semi-train" because while I have eeked out just enough miles to make it through these races, I haven't had enough high-quality training to actually excel in these races.

 

I made it to the end of the Southern Indiana Classic Marathon on April 6th even though I wanted nothing more than to hitchhike a ride to the end by mile 16...then had to run 10.2 more miles...

 

Well, I actually walked most of the last 3 miles, but I made it.

 

 

My friend, Laura in the picture above won 3rd female overall.  She has a 10-month old baby girl.  I wonder if I could be that speedy in 4 more months.

 

Probably not.

But in any case, I have made progress.  The picture on the left is my workout from 10 days postpartum.  Barely 1.5 miles in 30 minutes.  On the right is my workout from today.  7 miles in 1 hour and I played with the incline a bunch through the run so my elevation gain was 1099ft.

Now I am eating a cookie. A really big cookie that is attached to another cookie by a layer of icing...

Below is a picture of Rylie sleeping through my workout at 10 days old.  On the right, is her playing through the first 30 minutes of my run today.  She dozed off during the last half of the run. 

 

Next week I will be running a 200-mile relay with 5 teammates.  We each will run 6 legs of the race.  My total mileage will be just over 33 miles.  It will be an adventure and a challenge, but it is what waits for me at the finish line that keeps me motivated through every run.