Wednesday Speedwork

Yesterday Coach Leah and I slowly made our way out to the lakefront, cruising at a nice warmup pace. Once we arrived at the lakefront, we...

Hey, where's Coach Leah going? LEAH! Oh yeah, she's heading home to finish out her run and get dinner started (dinner which she's going to eat! How exciting is it that Leah has her energy and appetite back? Very) and I'm being left out here by myself to do my sprints. I was like a man abandoned on a desert island, but instead of a volleyball, my best friend was a women's Timex watch (forgot the garmin, had to borrow Leah's watch. Looks good on me, though).

So I did my sprints. 6x400 at about 5k pace. I tried to speed it up a bit from last time, which was my first outing, and I think I was successful. My times were still about the same (~2 minutes), but the course was a bit longer this time which is what extended the time to 2 minutes (well, I'm saying it was anyway. If not, something is seriously wrong with my pace recognition because I know I was going faster). The only down side of the sprints was they were BORING. Yeesh. Run out real fast...trot back...run out again...rinse, repeat. Blah. Way more fun running them with Leah. Oh well.

But the long runs are still fun by myself. I did 6 miles on Sunday and it was nice. For some reason, time still flies on long runs and I don't find myself getting bored. Speed work's just a whole different ballgame (maybe it's soccer. That would explain the boredom).

Coach Leah signed me up for a 5k this weekend, my first ever (woo! PR!). That should give me a better idea of what pace I should really be shooting for in the half and I can base some of my run times off of that.

Any baby news on the horizon? Not too much, really, other than the fact that Leah is feeling sooooooooo much better. See ya, first trimester. Don't let the metaphorical door hit you in the metaphorical ass on the way out (metaphorically speaking). The little fella (that's gender neutral, right?) was about the size of a medium shrimp on sunday and, if my calculations are correct, will be heading off to college pretty soon.

Okay, that's all from here. Time to get back to debating whether or not to find out the sex during the 20 week ultrasound.

Go Cubs.

What's That? Hunger? A Taste for Something?

I was so excited last night because the first time in a long time I was excited for dinner.

We went for a run last night and Jason did a "recovery" or run slower than slow with me to keep me company and I went an extra 1/2 mile because that's what his plan called for. So we did 3.5 miles in a long amount of time. We ended our run near a grocery store and got some food for dinner and somehow made it home before it started raining super super bad.

We got home and we made one of those caesar salads that come in the bags with all the parts that you need. I added some grape tomatoes and went at it. And holy hell did it taste good. I mean I don't know the last time that I was able to eat dinner AND be excited about it. It's been more force feeding myself to try and get some protein into my system before bedtime. Jason then made tostadas which were also delicious and I was really proud of myself when I ate the whole tostada (and almost cleaned my plate...couldn't quite finish the rice). BUT the point is that I ate dinner and it's a big deal and I realize that this post is all about the fact that a 29 year old woman ate dinner, but it's more that she was also excited and hungry to eat dinner. And since it's my blog I can talk about whatever I want to talk about. :)

Work is going good, and got to learn some new stuff yesterday on sending html e-mails and hope to finish off that project today. Running tonight includes just 2 miles for me and Jason is doing a 6x400m speedwork out so he'll do that and I'll do some regular running and then we'll see how spaghetti sits with me as it's on the menu for tonight!

I might be a bit faster than I thought

So, as I mentioned in the big announcement post below, I'm training for this Rock and Roll Half Marathon by myself since Leah is busy growing people. This is a new experience for me as I've always had a run partner, Leah (in case that wasn't clear), and she always took care of the details. She'd schedule the runs, set the pace, and make sure we hit all the milestones.

Well, she still takes care of all the scheduling and motivating in her new capacity as Coach Leah, but I have to pace myself. The problem is, I haven't run seriously since Chicago, 2007. Yep, that's a long time. We had a few half-hearted attempts at training, but mostly we were busy drinking at Sheffield's and being lazy. And then it was winter...and we still drank and were lazy, but now we had an excuse. It was too coooooooold!

But now there's no excuses and we're running again. We did three miles together (4 on sunday) at a slow pregnant lady pace up until it was time for me to start training which, while establishing a nice base, didn't give me much of an idea as to what pace I could really run. Having started up again, it seems that my legs are a bit ahead of my breathing. A "comfortable pace" for my legs is definitely somewhere in the 8 minute range, but my lungs have generally disagreed.

But today for my pace run, in which I was shooting for a 9 mile pace, my legs and my lungs lined up. I started out with an 8:45 mile in which I was kind of all over the lap. I'm not used to running with a garmin (Leah's always handled that end of things) and I got kind of caught up in the pace reading. I'd look down and it'd say 9:30 and I'd be all "oh shit" and then I'd look down and it'd say 8:02 and I'd be all "oh shit". Lotta shit that first mile. But then I got to the lakefront path and settled in nicely. My second mile was 8:10 and my last mile, when I tried to slow down a bit, was 8:20. A bit faster than I expected but I wasn't tired and it didn't feel that fast (yep, I know what you're thinking, that was 90% because of the nice weather. And you're right).

So I'm going to just live with the faster pace. Looking at McMillen, it seems that a 24 or 23 minute 5k will get me to around a 1:50 1/2, which would be nice. So I think I'm going to shoot for that. I have a 5k coming up in a bit and that should give me a better idea of my expected pace. I'll probably try to keep a comfortable 9 minute mile pace for my long run tomorrow and then go from there. Of course, when the weather gets hot, I'll get a lot slower, but right now the weather's perfect and I'm going to keep my legs turning over as fast as I can.

Oh, and I'm tracking my runs at the excellent running site Run. Track. Run. You should check it out. I'll have Leah show me how to get the graphs posted on here so I can show my milage graphs each week.

When You Can't Race....Coach!

So I've been missing the ramp up to marathon training and I am already thinking about the summer and how long slow Sunday morning runs are going to be short slow Sunday morning runs...which is fine because really at the end of this I get a little baby....however, that doesn't mean that I'm not missing the racing and marathon training.

However, I have found that I get to coach all the people in my life to run the races they are training for. Ok...all the people in my life is Jason and my parents, but whatever it's enough. I'm trying to get my mom motivated to walk 3-4 days a week and so I call her on the days that she should walk and ask if she's gone walking. She tries to pull the "But I'm too tired when I get home from work". To which I respond, "Um...I've been running throughout this pregnancy and when I get home from work I literally could fall asleep right as I walk in, so that's no excuse". Of course it isn't an excuse anyways, so she's getting there and walking more.

Jason as you know is running a 1/2 marathon on August 2nd that I am also signed up for but I don't think we need a 20 week pregnant lady running a 1/2 marathon. So I layed out his training program and it's fun to watch him train on his own. He has only ever run with me, so I think this is going to be a great opportunity for him to learn the little things about pacing yourself (instead of just following whatever pace I'm setting), and using the Garmin to your advantage and not too obsessively. He's been a lot faster than we thought he would be which is great. Maybe that year and a half of lounging paid off. Who knew?

The last person I'm working with is my dad. He's going to be running the Chicago Marathon in 2010, the year he turns 60. Wait...how is he going to train for the marathon when he lives on a sailboat you ask? That answer to that question deserves it's own post so stay tuned for that. In short my Dad and Stepmom will be in Chicago from August of 2009 to January of 2011 (yeah you read that right...a year and a half!). So while they are here he'll have plenty of time to train. I have decided to train with him for the 2010 marathon as I'll just be finishing up pushing a giant thing out of me and probably don't want to jump into tons of training and speedwork and 8 minute miles. More to the point I probably won't be able to. So Dad and Daughter are going to train together and it's been really fun thinking about how to structure that training, because it has to be a bit different that my last few years of training. So I'm already on him to get some running in on the beaches down in the Caribean which I think he's doing. He'll be back in Grenada in the next couple days and I think he'll be able to do some more consistant running while there before he gets back to Chicago.

So with all that going on, and my own slow 3-4 mile runs I've been keeping my running brain active. Although....doesn't make me miss the training any less. In good news this is the best I have felt starting some new training in a long time. I have no leg pain and my breathing is good...oh wait...because I'm running 11 minute miles you say...yeah that's probably it...but still it's nice.

Here's the Lot of Them

Like I mentioned in the post yesterday Jason and I have been writing secret blog posts for the past 12 weeks and as now everything is out in the open we are publishing them tonight. To get to just the posts about the pregnancy you can go to this link:

http://jasonleahrun.blogspot.com/search/label/pregnancy

And for them to make sense I would read them from the oldest to the newest, although you can do whatever you like...I mean if you like to do things out of order and it doesn't make the little vein in your head pulsate like mine would, that's your choice. :). I like order, leave me alone. ...and yes, you even have to click for older posts because there are too many for one page!

We went for a 3 mile run today and I didn't feel as good as I have in the past. I think that I have a really hard time running two days in a row and so I just have to try and do my best to avoid that in the future. So that's all from here. Enjoy the posts!

We Got a New Running Partner

Why has Jason had to start training alone for the Rock and Roll Half Marathon?

How come Leah can't beat Jason in a sprint anymore?

Is that Leah wearing two sports bras?

The answer to all these questions is yes! Wait. The answer to the last question is yes. The answer to the first two questions is

Because Leah's Pregnant! YAY!
(pause for effect)

Yep, for the last 12 weeks, Leah has been running for two and at a much slower pace (gotta take it easy, you know). About, oh, 14 weeks ago we decided to try for a baby and 2 weeks later - well, you've seen Look Who's Talking - and two weeks after that: pink line! Holy Crap! Didn't really expect it to happen so fast (that's what she said).

As so now we are taking a new turn in life as we try to deal with bringing a baby into this world and not ruining it once it gets here. So answers to questions you might have:

• Yes, Leah's already starting to show a bit, although it's the kind of show that's much more visible in the evening than in the morning (which we don't understand at all, but over the past few days even that's starting to change)
• Yep, she's still running. The doctor cleared her for 30-45 minutes of easy running. The rule is that she has to be able to talk. So she's been doing 3 miles 3 times a week and 4 on Sunday at about 11 min/mile or as Leah likes to say a lot slower than her normal comfy pace of 9 or less.
  
• No, Leah isn't runnning the 1/2, but Jason is. And, while he's sad to be training alone, he's surviving. Luckily it's only a half. Leah is now just Coach Leah and tells Jason what to do (insert joke here).
• Is the baby a boy or girl: yes
  
• We are in the 12th week of pregnancy and so just getting out of the first trimester, which is awesome.
• At 8 weeks we got pictures from the ultrasound when the baby was only 1.87cm long. Now the baby is the size of a lime. That little guy (or gal) grows fast! We think it looks like a gummy bear at this point. Which is good cause we know how much we love our gummy bears. Here are some blobular photos (there will be way cooler photos in the future...I can't help how blob like it is at 8 weeks!):
  

So yeah. Baby. Should be fun.
-----------------------------------

Leah speaking now:

Yep, we are oh so excited about this new turn in life. When we got back from our trip to Zurich we thought well we could start trying to have a baby because you know it's going to take a few months to get things going and by that point we'll really be ready and so on. Turns out it didn't take quite that long and 4 weeks later we had a positive pregnancy test. So yeah, we were a little shocked with the pink line (I might have taken 4 home pregnancy tests).

Jason and I have been writing secret posts (which I accidentally published a few of over the past 8 weeks or so, so you might have gotten a sneak peak if you were on your google reader on time). I am going to publish all of those in a day or so and you can read them all, by filtering on pregnancy, and I'll include a link when I let those out. Of course these are going to be in reverse order of when things were happening and we highly recommend you read the earliest post first and work your way to the most recent. There is a lot of them, but they are pretty funny (at least we think so). There will also be a lot more posting in the future, it's hard to not talk about something this fantastic and so that's why there was such a slow down in our posting.

We hope you enjoy the posts, and we hope you enjoy reading about this next challenge in our lives. I am going to continue running for as long as I can, so that should be an interesting experience and I know I'll be looking for tips from any women out there that are currently pregnant and running or have been pregnant and running.

Enjoy!

12 Week Visit

Baby-

You are going to be shocked when you get here and realize that your mother is a complete maniac and your father is a nice calm perfect man. Ok perfect might be stretching it...but not too far, you'll see.

Today at our 12 week doctors appointment they took my blood pressure and it was a bit high. And it was high because the nurse was terrifying and completely unfriendly and I want to ask her how she expects my blood pressure to be when she's just a terrifying robot in a nurses uniform. So that had me a little freaked out and the the doctor came in and gave me some tips about dealing with these fantastic headaches I've been getting lately. Turns out I need to drink more fluids. Apparently my blood volume is going to double (!) during the duration of your life in me and I just need to drink more fluids. I guess it's true that my headaches are a lot worse when I drink less, so there is probably something to that.

Then she used this little doppler machine to try and find your heart beat. The first thing she did was let me hear what my heartbeat sounded like and she was surprised because it was racing (I wasn't surprised) then she started looking for your little heartbeat. And she looked and looked....and I started to panic, and I might have cried a tear or two. She said it was totally normal and went to get the ultrasound machine. Your dad tried to calm me down which didn't work because I couldn't believe that I couldn't hear what you sounded like and yes....you'll find I tend to panic for no real good reason.

So she came back in with the machine and we got to see your very strong and beautiful heart beating and I had an easier time seeing it this time around. You currently have a *huge cranium* which is expected as I guess right now you are 50% head and 50% body. Then I was sad because you were sleeping in there and you wouldn't wake up....until I started laughing. I laugh a lot, so maybe you like when I laugh....I have a good loud laugh, I think you'll like it.

So everything looks great with you in there, and your mom is just manic and your dad is going to be your calm stable go to guy. You'll see, he's really the best.

Hey there, you are now somewhat less tiny!

Hey baby -

Today you Mom (or uteral-exterior-mass as you know her) and I had a twelve week visit with the doctor in the hope of hearing your heart beat. Turns out, no dice. We couldn't hear anything.

But don't worry! You have a heart beat! Geez, I bet I scared you there. You were all, whoa, are things not working, I bet. Actually, that's not true. You actually were probably thinking "what's a heart beat? I'm only 12 weeks old." Or maybe you were thinking "hey, I can't read. How did I know you said anything about a heart beat?" I will accept any of these as valid answers. But anyway, let's get back on topic. We didn't hear a heart beat because you were hiding your heartbeat from the nice doctor lady and her sonar machine. She tried for a bit to get a signal, but no go, and finally she gave up and went to get the real ultrasound machine. I probably don't have to tell you that your mom got a little upset and panicky when the doctor couldn't find the heartbeat. You know how she is.

Wait, you don't? Well, you will soon enough.

But with the ultrasound, we were able to see your itty bitty heart flutter and see you hanging around in there. Turns out you were actually sleeping and wouldn't move. The doctor kept pushing at your uterin home, but you wouldn't wake up. Perhaps a good sign for you future sleep-deprived parents? But finally a couple laughs from your mom woke you up and you started to move around all crazy like. Actually, it looked kind of like me dancing at a wedding.

Sleeping and a bad dancer? Maybe you really are my child.

See you in 28 weeks,
-Dad

Fun Things For You To Know

Hey there Baby. Well I'm feeling better which I'm excited about. Thank you for not making me feel like I'm coming down with a flu every day, it's the small improvements.

We went for a 3 mile run without your Dad last night. Dad is starting to train for a 1/2 marathon that's on August 2nd and he can't be running 11ish minute miles with us if he wants to finish the race in any kind of reasonable time. So we three ran together for 5 minutes and then your Dad took off. This was fine except without him next to me, I wasn't sure if I could have a conversation and hence I didn't know if I was going too fast. I think I finished a bit faster than usual, at about 31:30 instead of closer to 33:00, but still not too bad.

I've decided that I'm going to train with your grandpa for the 2010 Chicago marathon. I'm guessing you'll be going on a lot of those runs with us, hope you like your baby jogger!

So I thought I was over the tired, and into the feel better phase, but after the run last night and a yummy dinner (that's right! you get to eat dinner cause my evening nausea has passed) I thought I would pick up some knitting and work on a blanket I'm trying to finish. Instead I was curious as to what would happen if I tipped over on the couch and it turns out I would fall asleep. 8pm Baby. You made me fall asleep at 8pm. At about 9pm, your Dad suggested we go to bed so I stumbled into the bathroom, brushed my teeth and feel asleep in bed in about 5 seconds flat. Yeah. Then I slept till 6:30. I hope that this sleeping pattern continues for you after you arrive.

We are currently in our 12th week, which I think marks that we are exiting the danger zone. We have a doctors appointment in a week where your dad and I are hoping to hear your heart beating.

I'm feeding you some coffee this morning. Don't freak out, it's going to be a bit more than you are used to. That's because as you'll find out that "small" doesn't really mean small, it means 12oz and that's the edge of the edge of my limit for coffee. Yeah that's right...I'm drinking coffee after sleeping 10 hours. I just find the taste to be delicious!

iMeow....Meeeeeeeow!....Naughty Kitty

So I've been so flippin busy these last five days and so I'm finally getting around to blogging about an awesome new iPhone app that you should try.

A couple months ago I was talking to my boss and mentioned that a screaming cat is a really funny noise and that I would pay $0.99 for an iPhone app that would make said noises. After that I started working on it in the studio and this past Friday it was accepted in the app store. First try too!

A big thanks to Turner, Nate, Jake and Roy for all their help with getting the app up and running and then submitted to the app store. If you are interested in having your own iMeow cat, check out the app here : iMeow (iTunes link)

It's a funny and silly good time. Enjoy!

Finally Food You Seem to Like!!!

Baby JasonLeah you have the best Dad in the world.

You've been making me not want to eat anything. Daddy will say to me, "Do you want some .... um...pasta for dinner". And Mommy will glare back and him and say, "Does it freakin' look like I want pasta" as my eyes droop down, and tear up as I realize I'm just so sleepy that the effort to eat food is above and beyond anything that I can handle right now. Add to that fact that all food sounds super gross just makes me mad because I know I have to give you all kinds of good food to grow well in there.

Lunch has been a continuing problem as I thought Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches would be a good solution, until last week when I looked at said PB&J sandwich and wished I could just stomp on it rather than eat it.

You Dad has been trying to come up with combinations of food that I will think are delicious and tasty and he did it for lunch today! He grilled up some chicken last night, and made me a sandwich out of it. Add some pepper jack cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayo and mustard and I have a really happy belly right now. I think you like the spicy because I always seem to be able to get that down without a problem.

So enjoy your sandwich and we'll talk soon.

Running Long...or should I say "Long"

Hey there Baby.

Today I decided that we were ready to attack a 4 mile run. I was told by the doctors (you'll be meeting them in a short 30 weeks) that I could run for 30-45 minutes. Given how slow I've gotten lately, 4 miles should take me between 40 and 44 minutes, so given that it's Sunday (your Dad and I's usual long run day), I thought we should give 4 miles a try.

So off we went. I wore shorts and a white tank top and I'm noticing the belly you are giving me more and more. I especially notice it when I'm running. I'm wondering if you expand when I'm running...I don't know but it's weird for me for sure. I *might* look at myself in windows when I'm running and these days I'm like holy hell what is that below my chest...oh that's you!

Anyways. off we went. The test for if I'm running too fast is if I can keep a conversation going. Your dad has been great in slowing me down when he notices that I'm laboring a bit to tell some super boring story so he lags back a bit and forces me to slow down. I got a bit of a side stitch and so I had to walk for about 5 minute, but finished up the 4 miles in 44 minutes. SO our goal is to run 3 miles Monday, Wednesday and Friday and then 4 miles on Sunday.

Well that's my plan. Your dad is going to start training for a half marathon next week and so I'll just be running on my own, which makes me worry about the talking test as it will just look like I'm a crazy person talking to myself, but ah well, I'll just be one of the many in this great city. I'm going to miss training with your Dad, as I'm realizing this will be the first race we won't run together. I'll be coaching him though and making sure that he sticks to the plan. And I'm guessing I'll be making him some running mixes to put on his iPod during the speed workouts which I suspect will be more difficult for him to do on his own. Your Dad's really tough though and so he'll be fine.

Alright, well I didn't let you take a nap yesterday and so we'll say that it's you who got really cranky last night and as we don't want that happen again, I should probably go get in a nap.