Blogging for Two
If you ever read my blog in the past, I'm sure you discovering that I'm suddenly writing on here again will be pure happenstance. Surely you all gave up checking for new posts a long, long time ago. I do not blame you.

If you know me personally, which you probably do if you read this, then you also probably know that I am pregnant with our first child. Interestingly enough, my due date is almost one year after my last post - November 9, 2008. Who would have known. I am currently 22 weeks pregnant. From the first week I found out I was pregnant, I have tried to keep a journal of my thoughts along the way. I'm really terrible at journaling, but I have managed to record at least something, once a week or so. I thought I would share some parts of that journal. Here are some of my first trimester thoughts on running and exhaustion as pregnant woman.

Sometime in week 7, I realized something had to change. I hadn’t run since Good Friday (the start of week 6). I had a good 4 mile run that day, and I felt like myself again. But the sickness really hit that weekend, and on top of being tired, I just stopped running after that altogether. I either didn’t have the energy or was too busy hunting down food to make me feel better. So, in the midst of week 7 (almost week 8) I emailed Shannan, my best friend and running partner, to gripe. I was in a rut. I didn’t have enough energy to do anything besides lay on the couch every night, but the more I did that, the worse I felt. I never felt rested for all the resting I was doing, and worse, I began to grow sick of resting. I expected the bed (couch) sores to start at any moment. I told Shannan that I really wanted to run again, and more importantly, I wanted to be able to run in the Derby half-marathon that was 3.5 weeks away. If I didn’t start doing something soon, I was going to miss my fifth straight year of doing this race. I needed to do a long run to convince myself I could do it (and that I could do the small runs during the week), but the mere thought of having to get up at 6:15 to meet the 7 AM Saturday running group to do a long run made me exhausted (much less actually doing it).

Shannan encouraged me by admitting that her own training had left her sort of worn-out. She proposed we meet on Saturday – at the time of my choosing – and do a slow, easy long run. This was the invitation I needed and I agreed. That Saturday we met at her house on a very pleasant 50 degree morning at 9:30. Two hours later, we had run about 11.5 miles. I was sore and creaky in my body, but my mood and outlook was fantastic. I WAS a runner. I could do this. I felt happier the rest of the day than I had felt in weeks.

I got two more runs and two walks in the rest of the week. The next weekend I faced doing a long run a way I never do it – in Nicholasville and alone. I slept in until I knew I was well rested, charged up my iPod and lounged on the couch until I could ignore it no longer. At 11:30, I headed out by myself, with the plan to stop back at the house at about 5 miles for some Gatorade and a break. I had no idea what to expect. It went great and I ran for an hour and 50 minutes – which I figured out to be around 10.5 miles. I breathed a sigh of relief – I WAS going to run this race. Then, I napped.

This week our baby is the size of a kidney bean.