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.
We’re passionate about recording all those precious moments that make up your special wedding day
ReplyDelete