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.