Monday, March 4, 2013

Third Trimester Dance



Hooray! Finally we can legitimately perform the third trimester dance! To be honest, at least so far, I feel like I've cheated my way through this pregnancy, I feel blessed that it's been easier than I thought it would. Apart from doing the odd, vague "baby brain" act like putting the milk in the cupboard and wearing my running tights back to front (awkward), the second trimester was as smooth as a babies bum... which I can feel now protruding from my left side as I write (fun!)

It's been exciting to feel our baby's kicks and movements getting stronger and more regular. Even exciting at 2am... Until 4am most nights. Fair to say I'm already totally in love and a total pushover. I still feel great to run most days although the pace has slowed considerably in the last month since I have “blown out”. It’s the phrase my two brothers use to describe my recent growth spurt out front. Eloquent.

Re running, I've copped a few disapproving looks running along the esplanade, what can I say, I don't have time to stop and talk to every judging face to reassure them that I'm ok, running is what I'm use to, that it’s considered normal in elite distance running circles to continue to run easy through pregnancy and that the baby is not being harmed by “common sense running”. There is no evidence that sensible, guided running within elite distance runners during pregnancy is related to miscarriage, pre-mature births or low birth weight. Running is obviously not something every pregnant woman can or should do, obviously if you weren’t running fit before pregnancy then it’s not the time to take it up but in the elite running world, it’s considered safe and normal to run at an easy pace (a pace easy enough to hold and continue a conversation whilst running) throughout pregnancy.

It's funny, this whole pregnancy thing, because it’s not just the shock of seeing a pregnant woman running that warrants a disapproving look or opinion but there’s an opinion on just about EVERYTHING regarding pregnancy.
There’s an expert on every corner on what NOT to eat, what NOT to drink, what vitamins NOT to take, how NOT to exercise, how NOT to sleep, triple wash this salad… actually don’t eat salad! Don’t get your hair coloured, don’t get your nails painted, don’t dare listen to loud music and don’t freaking lift anything! At some point along the way my fellow pregz girlfriends and I have all lost sleep on worrying about how NOT to sleep.

The culprit is fear-mongering. Fear Mongering is defined as “the use of fear to influence the opinions and actions of others towards some specific end”. If I was writing the oxford dictionary I would take the liberty of adding to this: “often from an exaggerated fear or opinion based on incomplete data”.

In our modern litigious society, where everything has a warning label or advisory, the overload and influence of fear-mongering opinions have turned us into paranoid hypochondriacs. So how do we resolve to deal with fear-mongering in our more vulnerable state? Don’t believe that everything is conspiring to harm your baby. Rant over.

Now I’m going to have a lukewarm bath, eat a well-done steak and then build a fort with 7 pillows around our bed so that I’m sure not to roll on my back…

G’night xx

Written by Eloise Wellings for Jock Athletic Ezine
Photography by Bird and Bee studio

Shifting Gears




It’s official! At time of writing this- 18 weeks and 3 days pregnant, I can officially no longer squeeze into any of my skinny jeans… not even when attempting to put them on lying down…with the valiant help of my husband... at least this evidence to him that I need to buy some belly friendly clothes…. His idea of this is just “to buy a nice mumu and wear that for the summer”…

I’m embracing the crazy changes that my body is making to allow this miracle to happen. One might say an appreciation for all of this “extreme morphing”.

Due to the extreme morphing, especially over the last few weeks, I’ve been forced to frequent my osteopath Aunty Kay McPherson, Kay is not really my aunty but she’s been treating me (had her elbow in my glute) since I was 15 so she feels like family. Aunty Kay diagnosed my back ache was a result of my pelvis shifting as the ligaments soften and stretch to make room for the baby. She suggested when I run or any other exercise, to wear a thin brace to support my sacro iliac joint- a joint in the lower back. The ligaments in the sacro iliac joint will take a lot of pressure the more I grow out in front. The brace essentially will help to support the joint under that pressure. And so with the diagnosis and the solution out of the way, Aunty Kay proceeds with what she does best… digs in with her elbows, cracks jokes and makes it all better. Aunty Kay’s comment about labor got me giggling the most… “it’s like getting into a car and trying to get out the exhaust pipe”. Ouch.

Since finding out I am pregnant, training and the reason for training has shifted significantly. Before I was obviously training for performance and results. Now training is all about being healthy, feeling mentally clear and staying physically strong. Training now is also a lot more flexible and relaxed, more so based on how I feel rather than trying to stick to a schedule. Below is a breakdown of a general week of training pre Olympics (in the first half of this year) and a breakdown of exercise in week 17-18 of pregnancy.

PRE OLYMPICS TRAINING:
Monday Am: 50 minute easy run (11km)
Pm: 35 minute easy run with drills and strides at the end
Tuesday am: Track session- 8x1km in 3.10 with 1 minute recovery
Pm: 40 minutes cross trainer with altitude mask plus weights 60 minutes
Wednesday: Am: steady 75 minute run on hilly course (17km)
Pm: 40 minutes gym core exercises
Thursday: am: 2x15minute at threshold pace (3.20 per km) with 1 minute rest
Pm: 40 minutes cross trainer with altitude mask plus weights 60 minutes
Friday: REST
Saturday: hills session- 10x1 minute or 6x 3minutes
Pm: 40 minutes cross trainer with altitude mask plus weights 60 minutes
Sunday am: Long run 1 hour 45minutes (25-27km)

 
WEEK 17-18 OF PREGNANCY


Monday: am: easy 40 minute run (8km) plus 30 minutes spinning on stationary bike
Tuesday: am: easy 50 minute run (10km)
Pm: Pilates- 1 hour
Wednesday- am. easy 60 minute run (12km)
Thursday- am. easy 40 minute run (8km)
Pm: weights- 60 minutes
Friday- am. Easy 50 minute run (10km)
Saturday-  Rest
Sunday- am. Easy 65 minute run (13km)
Pm: Paddle board 45 minutes


I’ve been running a lot of running lately with my friend Belinda, we’ve been running together and friends for about 10 years. Bel is one of the most naturally talented runners I know, she never trains when I’m not at home… so essentially she didn’t run for the first half of this year when I was away in London. Naturally, given her sudden return to running now that I’m home, she’s enjoying the slower “mumma” pace and taking advantage of all of my extra “bladder pressure” toilet stops as well.

Weird cravings this month have included oranges and salt and vinegar anything!... and baby brain is REAL! Very REAL!

Written by Eloise Wellings for Jock Athletic Ezine.

Announcing.....

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The next big milestone...

Turns out God has already determined what my next goal is... having a baby - one of the most amazing gifts I could have ever hoped to receive! 

We are totally over the moon, the plan was always to try and start a family after the Olympics, we just didn’t expect it to happen so quickly… I certainly didn’t expect to be pregnant before arriving home from London! Although we didn’t find out until we were home for a week or so I knew something was up. As an athlete you get to know your body pretty intricately and something just didn’t feel right.

One of the things that amazes me most is how quickly your body changes even after just a couple of weeks. For example, before I found out I was pregnant I noticed I was breathing a lot harder during easy runs, I kept thinking “what the heck! I’ve just run at the Olympics, I should be in the shape of my life, why am I breathing so hard!”
All these little things made sense once we found out the great news. I’ve since learned that during pregnancy, your body calls for more oxygen and adapts to meet this need in several ways. An increase in hormones, particularly progesterone, directly affects your lungs and stimulates the respiratory center in your brain which causes you to breathe heavier. Good to know!

I’m still running most days, albeit a lot slower. My doctor has given me the all clear to continue as long as it feels comfortable. So I’ll run for 40-60 minutes at “talking pace”, which means running at a pace that I can comfortably hold a conversation, so I’ve been recruiting running partners from every social circle! I’ve worn a heart rate monitor a few times too, although I don’t believe that heart rate is a great indicator of exertion, especially when you’re pregnant, heart rate can vary so much. The very general advice is to keep heart rate below 140-150 beats per minute… however if I was running with my heart rate at 140 beats per minute I’d be running quite fast… which is not the goal during pregnancy. I’d prefer to focus on making sure I can talk comfortably and that the pace is slow and easy.

I have the added bonus of knowing other female elite athletes who have been through pregnancy, finding out what they did in regards to exercise during pregnancy, what changes they noticed, what to do, what not to do etc, it all helps to make informed decisions on my experience. There are some vastly different journeys- one elite runner I know ran all the way up to the day she gave birth, she also lifted weights at the gym before going into labor. Others have stopped running at 6 months because of the pressure and simply because carrying the extra weight just gets too hard… whatever the story, it seems to me, the message is always the same in regards to running during pregnancy- cut back if you start to get uncomfortable and begin low weight bearing exercise like swimming or stationary bike.


I’ve also picked my mum’s brains about how she went about her four pregnancies. She was also a runner and ran through all four pregnancies. She recalled that with my older sister she ran a half marathon without knowing she was pregnant. And with me, I was born in New York, mum would run around central park most days at 8 months pregnant, people in the park would freak out…apparently it wasn’t the done thing in the 80’s!

Continuing running has helped keep morning sickness at bay, I’ve noticed that the days that I decided not to run I always feel more nauseous.

I’ve had weird food cravings too… dumplings! I recently traipsed three of my girlfriends around the city looking for a good dumpling restaurant… when we finally sat down (after a good hour of walking) one of them asked if I was pregnant what with my “psycho dumpling hankering”, I answered “why, do you think I look fat?”… this throwback answer was one of the best ways to throw people off the scent before we broke the news to everyone. It was gold.

Now that the news is out, I ‘m really enjoying this new season of our lives. It’s a huge shift from the first half of the year that I spent training for the Olympics! Now, the focus is off striving for a childhood dream and on enjoying the gift that is having a baby.


Written by Eloise Wellings for Jock Athletic Ezine
Photography by Bird and Bee Studio 



Olympics wrap up


Cometh The Hour Cometh The (Wo)man

The 12 years that I spent dreaming about running at the Olympics lived up to everything I'd hoped it would be. This statement might confuse some people, and perhaps even contradict my performance... because my results were below what I'd hoped for, what I know I can achieve... And what I have achieved in the past in regards to how fast I ran.  But, after careful reflection-  read a few sleepless nights and a few solo runs sans stopwatch around London's Victoria Park I resolved to be happy. I'd made it! I'd actually run at the Olympics and finally become an Olympian. I resolved that I've worked too hard for the past 12 years and the people around me, my team, have sacrificed too much for me not to be happy and proud of the collective effort that went into getting me on the Olympic team and to the start line. Sure, it would've been out of this world to win a medal, or even just to run a pb, but to consolidate, these Olympic races, they're just the icing on the cake of an incredible journey up to this point. The people I’ve met, the friends I've made, the challenges me and my team have been able to overcome, the places I've seen, sharing the little victories with  Jony along the way and then sharing the bitter disappointments... I remember sitting in the stand at last years World championships in Korea watching the women's 10,000m- the race that I had gone there for... injured, despondent and basically crushed that I was injured and not able to run the race that I'd come to do. I have a faith in God, and I believe this was all part of His greater plan. I was humbled by the result of my races. The Olympics is HARD! It's made me hungrier than ever to be the athlete I know I can be and London 2012 was another big step in the right direction. It hurt my pride to not run well on the biggest stage, but it wasn't disastrous, my time of 32.25 in the 10,000m was the fastest time by an Australian woman in Olympic 10,000m FINAL history. Had I run the same time at the Beijing Olympics I would have had 10 runners behind me. And, in the 5,000m, I gave myself the best shot, knowing that the 10,000m was already in my legs, I knew I’d have to be mentally tough... An excerpt from my pre race rants before the 5,000m:

"Tomorrow: I'm going to go out and run fierce. Run without fear and run like a girl who believes in herself and believes this is where she belongs."

I felt like I did this, just that my spirit was willing but my body was not. I started to tire with 4 laps to go, my quads lost power- a result of lactic from the 10,000m 3 days earlier but I felt like I maintained mental composure and strength which is an experience I know will hold me in good stead for future races where the pressure is on. I keep Imagining being physically in the best shape of my career and then also being able to maintain the mental strength necessary to execute a race out of my skin. I believe these days are ahead.

I commented in a post race interview that my coach Nic Bideau and I had decided on a cautious approach to training before the Olympics and that this may have played a part in my form leading in. "A cautious approach" might not be the words Aussies like to hear about an Australian athlete preparing for the Olympic Games. Mainly because where I come from, we want gold, we are gold diggers, we have our golden swimmers our golden girls, our golden boys, we love to win... And anything less is, well...not gold. Mine and Nic's cautious approach to preparing for London, wasn't to try less but it was simply to run less. To supplement the junk mileage with cross training and focus on quality running sessions. The sole reason for this was because of my injury history leading into major events and my body's inability to cope with a high volume of running. We were prepared to take only very calculated risks because we both knew that had I got injured again it would have been disastrous for my future in the sport. Although I was running less than most of my competitors per week (115km for me as opposed to up to 160km) the cross training is hard. I would get on the elliptical trainer with the altitude mask on and get my heart rate to what I would normally be at running, I was sleeping in an altitude tent set at 12,000ft. Although great for remaining injury free the elliptical and other cross training doesn't compare to the benefits of the specificity of running. If you want to run faster, you need to run more... But at what cost? This was our reasoning- that running injury free at these Olympics was crucial to my future in the sport. I'm only 29, I'd like to think I have another 10 years of competitive running left in me... At least another two shots at the Big Sports Carnival...this was my first Olympics, I feel like now I'm just getting started!

My most memorable moments from my first Olympics? There's the obvious, walking into the stadium for the Opening Ceremony, it was like a dream that I never woke up from. From practicing the North Korean army march with my team mates outside the stadium walls, to actually floating into that place, the sound of the crowd was breath taking and the energy and emotion of the moment overwhelming- but so so good.  It was a special moment.
I remember standing in the middle of the arena at the opening ceremony and looking around at all
of the athletes, thinking that a select special few of these athletes will go home hero's...Cometh the hour, cometh the (wo)man. I remembered this thought again as I watched Saudi Arabia's first female athlete to compete in an Olympics run down the home straight in the 800m. She was not only inspiring a generation but by using her gift of running she was being an agent for change for women's rights in her country. What an achievement!
Then there was the afternoon in the athletes village that I told Sally Pearson about Julius's story and why we started Love Mercy as we sat and watched the swimming on TV, she got up from the lounge after we finished talking and gathered a whole lot of her Olympic kit together to donate to the orphaned kids that Love Mercy sponsors. It’s these moments that shaped the Olympics for me. I'll be forever grateful for the memories, and, at least for the next 10 years, I'll be chasing after more like them!

We flew from London to Uganda after the Olympics to officially open the Kristina Achon Medical Clinic that Love Mercy has been fundraising for. We met a team of friends (nurses, builders, councilors) from home who had been a part of helping fundraise and who wanted to come and help us celebrate and help in anyway they could. It was an amazing moment when Julius and the government health minister cut the ribbon and opened the clinic in the presence of thousands from the Otuke District who had come to celebrate adequate health care in the area after 25 years of war and suffering. It was Julius's Opening Ceremony and he was honored that day. As always, a trip to the North of Uganda is both heart breaking and soul enriching at the same time... The people from Julius's village thanked him profusely, saying "thank you for not forgetting us, thank you for coming back to help us". Julius, always replies with a simple but powerful message "I never gave up". 

Written by Eloise Wellings for Jock Athletic Ezine

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

The Simple Life...

I've been meaning to write. I like to write. It's nice when I have time to do it...

I'll start where I left off... World Champs. Needless to say, it was a disaster in the sense that I couldn't race. I wrote an article for Jock Athletic Ezine about my experience from the world championships here:
http://issuu.com/jockathletic/docs/jock_ezine_issue_10_v2
This pic with my dad and brother in the stands the night of the women's 10k... it was a long way for them to come to sit next to me in the stands... but I'm glad they did. The line up. Then part taking in a little bit of Korean Culture, the Korean bbq! Huge hit!




After Korea, I had a couple of Love Mercy speaking opportunities lined up. So Jony and I and Caity and Luke flew up to the Gold Coast, for Fortnum Financial Advisors conference where I got to share about Julius's life and tell the Love Mercy story to a room full of financial planners. From this night alone, they raised $22,000 for Love Mercy. I am continually blessed and blown away by people's generosity and willingness to support our work in Uganda. We then flew to Melbourne to share said story to a bunch of keen year 10 students at Maribyrnong Sports Academy. The kids are organising a fun run next month for Love Mercy called "Run with Purpose". These opportunities to share about Love Mercy and Northern Uganda's plight couldn't have come at a better time, post world champs, it reminded of me of what's important and why I'm running in the first place...






Jony and I had a holiday for a week in our camper van. There is nothing more relaxing to me than to drive along the coast, stopping in at cutesy little country towns, perusing through the little boutiques and organic cafe's that make places like Milton and Eden... no immediate plans, no firm destination, just to cruise in search for good surf and nice pubs to eat dinner at. We realised along the way that we like the smaller communities, as fruity as this might sound, we like the feeling of being "hugged" by a town. So we got all the way down to Bells Beach in Torquay, 8 ft off shore, amazing waves, like all Jony's Christmas's had come at once, fun to watch. We camped here for 3 nights, whale watched, ate meals at the local surf cafe and home cooked a few at the camping ground, watched Australia Versus Ireland in the Rugby at the pub- where I moronically donned a pair of green jeans which gained me the love of all the Irish supporters in the place but Jony almost disowned me, he said I'd renounced my Australian citizenship then and there. Ireland won, adding salt to his wound of my green jeans. 


Here's a little bit of my rants whilst we were living the simple life:


You know you're living in a camper van when...


You find yourself pocketing extra toilet paper from the pub ladies room
You brush your teeth daily in a beach carpark
You're reliant on the sun to be out to have a solar powered shower
Silence becomes your fondest playlist
You're so relaxed you consider rolling your own
Your hair smells a bit
Cooking organic porridge in the morning requires a nap afterwards
You're unsure if the yellow liquid in the drink bottle is your morning berrocca or the result of your husby's un-want of getting up in the night to pee...
You get overly excited at the sight of other campers doing the same as you
You wish you could live this simply forever and then realise you can take the simplicity home-  to be ok with just doing nothing sometimes... just being.






















Because we've been away a fair bit since Korea, I haven't seen my family alot. Last weekend an email arrived in my inbox from my Dad, attached were newspaper articles he'd been collecting for me whilst I was away. All of the articles were on how other athletes deal with disappointments in their life and sport, how they put them in perspective and how they grow stronger and move forward. He'd been collecting these whilst I was away, he'd underlined and highlighted the gold. My dad is gold. Encouragement is truly oxygen to the soul.










Tuesday, August 23, 2011

So I wait...


I’m sitting in our apartment at the athletes village at the World championships in Daegu Korea, my foot is numb in a bucket of ice, and I wait. I’m waiting to see if it takes the injection I had last night to the joint that’s been bothering me and hampering my preperation for the past month or so. You don’t have to tell me, it’s less than ideal circumstances 4 days out from a World Championship race but despite this I’m taking heart in the simple fact that God has always, is always and will always be faithful. Reality is, I have a sore foot, but reality also is,  I’ve worked hard to get to this point so I’m resolved to fight till the end and either delight in or accept the result. I take heart in remembering how in times like these gone by, even though the experience has been frustrating, there always seems to be testimony to be made about how God has turned it around for good. To Him be the glory. Still. So I wait.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8.28





Tuesday, May 10, 2011

"You've got it"

                                                                    THE DREAM




It’s been 12 years since I first ran the qualifying time for the Olympics. This is me when I was 16 years old, in year 11 at school and lived for running. So much so, that when I got injured and couldn’t run at those Olympics, I almost lost the will to live… the words perspective and patience don’t exist to an ambitious 16 year old! So, after 12 years of riding the highs and lows that is elite running, the Olympic dream lives on and I have qualified again! And I'm excited! I'm running free, free of the fear of it not turning out how I have planned, because after 12 years, regardless of the feeling of disappointment at the time, the promise that it always works out for good has been proven true too many times!




                                                                THE TRAINING


The build up to this race was a month spent training in Laguna Mountain, California. It was the perfect place to get away and focus. I was up there with fellow Aussie athlete Ben St Lawrence and American runner Bobby Curtis, both boys also training to qualify at Stanford. Accommodation is basic, we stayed in scout-like cabins and had a common kitchen for cooking, a lot of athletes won't go to Laguna because it is so basic and not exactly luxury, but I like it for this reason, to train up there for a month you need to be able to rough it a bit, you need to be tough...my feeling was that I can't afford to be precious if I expect to run fast enough to make the Olympics. Jony joined us on the mountain after a few weeks, cooked some amazing slow cooked curries, and, as always was a calming and reassuring influence in fleeting moments of self doubt. Call me biased but I'm pretty certain I have the worlds most supportive husband.


                                                                 A FIJIAN WEDDING




It did however, make it a lot easier to train in the wilderness that is Laguna Mountain knowing that I was flying to Fiji for 4 days for my sisters wedding in the middle of the "mountain month". Jony and I flew from LA to Fiji for four days in paradise with my family and 50 of my sisters besties. We had such a great time and loved celebrating my sister and gaining another brother! It was only 10 days out from Stanford, so most of the hard work had been done. It was pretty hot and humid so I was getting up nice and early to run and totally loved running along the trail out from the resort greeting the employees "bullaaaaaaa" each morning as they were walking in. Most of the employees at the resort lived in simple huts along the trail I was running on each morning, I got desperate for water a couple of times so I'd stop in at a randoms house for a drink. I love the Fijian people, so laid back and friendly, they truly know how to relax and it rubs off onto you. We'll go back there.

                                            STANFORD  "JUST ANOTHER RACE"







The pictures above pretty much tell the story of Standord 10k- the start the middle and the end. I was reminded as I rounded the final bend towards the finish line how hard it is to run and cry at the same time. When I saw the clock and realised I was going to run the A standard, all this emotion just came bubbling up and there was nothing I could do to hold it down. I think I was clocked at 21 seconds for the last 100m... for the plebs, this is slow, a new born donkey would have beaten me in the last 100m. I was pretty nervous before the start, mainly because you don't get those sort of opportunities often and because I had been training so well, I had high expectations. My sister Gemma and my brother is law Chris were there to watch which was a boon! I ran into them coming in the gate as I was going out to warm up and gave them a high five and a "wooo weeee"! The best thing my coach Nic called out during the race was "you've got it!"- it was with 1km to go and we still didn't know if I actually "had it" yet because I was only just under target time- if he had of yelled out something like "you need to move along!" I think I would've tightened up but hearing him say "you've got it" made me relax and think "yeah! I've got this!". There's a lot to be said for claiming it and declaring it before it has come to pass.




                                                 RIDING HOME IN A PADDY WAGON

After the race, I said "goodbye" to Gemma and Chris and wished them "happy honeymooning"! and then attempted to cool down, (I think it was more of a waddle re the blisters I had on the bottom of my feet). Then begun an aimless and unsuccessful walk back to the hotel. Me and my roomie Charlotte walked for at least 30mins somehow in the opposite direction to the hotel, ending up in a creepy, dark construction site with mac trucks all around we waved down a police car and the kind sheriff gave us a ride back in this here paddy wagon.

Post race in Palo Alto


After a sleepless night due to a combination of caffeine, adrenaline and skype, I happily walked around Palo Alto- the home of Facebook headquarters. I window shopped at Tiffany's, Burberry, Jimmy Choo's and Victoria's Secret but my only purchase was this amazing chocolate sundae. What can I say, I'm easy to please.