Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Doing What I Can, For As Long As I Can (Part 2)

 4 days before I delivered
            I had approximately 10 weeks of 2013 that led up to having our baby, and those I planned to be unstructured, as I was not sure as to what I would physically be able to do at that point.  My goals were to swim 4-5 days/week, run 5-7 days/week and drop my weekly mileage (at the time I had written my training plan I was hoping it would only DROP to 24 miles/week), and then bike 3-4 days/week if I was to able to on my bike.  If I needed to be on a stationary or recumbent bike at the YMCA, I figured the rides would most likely be shorter and I would only do it three days/week.  I wanted to continue to strength train 2-3 days a week.
            It was amazing when I hit the new year and saw that I could be completely unstructured if I wanted.  Except for the running aspect, I far exceeded my expectations of what I had been able to do thus far, and felt I could still do at that point!  For the 5 weeks of January, I basically just kept up my routine of what I had been doing.  I dropped off in my lifting, and spent more time biking on the trainer.  There were weeks I was biking 5-7 days.  Those were the weeks where I had the motivation, and I felt my body was handling it alright.  It was also super cold quite a bit in January, and with my bike set up in the garage, I felt I really benefited from it and it made it easier to keep hammering away.  I rode upright with all the rides to help keep the pressure off my belly (and bladder!). 
After Christmas, I got a heart rate monitor that I used on the bike (about time, I know).  Now I could actually better gauge what I was doing.  Let me tell you, I believe that keeping cool makes a huge difference!  During the sub-zero and other cold weeks, it was about 35 degrees in my garage - cold enough to make my feet numb for the entire ride.  I wore shorts and a bra top (I took off a zip-up jacket after about 10 minutes of warming up on the bike), and I would wear gloves for the majority of those rides.  Some of my best rides were on those cold days.  If it got above 40 in my garage, I would turn a fan on me to try and keep my body cool that way.  I got in a lot of good, solid workouts this way.  I could tell the difference that even 15 degrees made, and tended to have a higher heart rate with lower output on those warm days.  Make your workout environment cool, and have lots of water on  you!  I actually did my last bike workout the day before I delivered. 

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