Running and other such psysiological experiences

One of my 3 New Year's resolution was to run a 5k. Kevin jumped on board with that one and we have now completed it...dun dun dun!... 4 times. My goal the first time was to finish it. In under 40 minutes. I only had a time goal because that's the kind of goal people wanted me to have. I gave myself lots of time, since I really had no idea how long it would take me. I ran/walked it in just under 35 minutes. Then after I discovered I was addicted to running I did some research and started running based on my heart rate, aka: MUCH more slowly. I ran the second one with no walking in 37 minutes. We signed up for the third one at a time that was not ideal at all, because Kevin had some friends running it. So, going into it straight off vacation, having run twice in the three weeks preceding the race, I stopped to walk twice and came in at the back of the pack at 41 minutes. Ok, I was not in the pack. I was in the stragglers half a mile behind the pack. :) I then had 2 weeks to train hard for what I decided would be my last 5k this year. My goal was to once again run the whole thing, and reverse the trend of going slower each time. I met both goals coming in at just over 38 minutes.

All right. I admit it, that's not the whole story. In addition to shaking up my training with two vacations, in the middle there sometime I got pregnant. :) Yes, really. I just made an announcement, lost in the middle of a post with no pictures. (Now we'll know who really reads this thing.) It's sort of amazing to me how immediately after becoming pregnant my heart rate patterns went wacko. I attribute my extra minute on the last 5k to those wacko patterns. My only complaint is that nobody could tell I was pregnant. I mean, I knew the reason the guy in the giant tomato suit was going as slowly as I was, but he couldn't tell that I was blaming my time on pregnancy. The truth is though, it turns out I'm just slow. That's all there is to it. I know I'm not running up to my potential yet, but I've come to the conclusion that my potential is significantly less than those of the other folks running 5k's around here.

Ok, Ok. I know you don't want to read about running anymore. There is another thing I wanted to talk about. I had my second miscarriage in February. (That's why I was in the hospital for this post.) So, I was going into this pregnancy 1 for 3 in sucessful pregnancies. In other words I was skeptical for self preservation. Not to mention that I was bleeding again. So, I made an appointment as soon as I could. Many Doctors around here don't want to see you until 10 weeks, but mine said he'd take me at 8. So, I went in and they did the whole ultrasound thing. I was watching as all those indistinguishable green lines swirl around the screen, wondering how Dr.'s can ever tell what they are seeing, when my Dr. grabbed my by the shoulder and said excitedly, "There's a heartbeat!" It was like he was as excited as I was. As if he hadn't seen it hundreds of times before. It was fabulous. I love my Dr.

So, there you all have it. I'm due January 22, but I think it would be really, really, really cool if this one came a day early. That would be my Grandpa Lee's birthday, and Alena was born on my Grandma Wanda's birthday. That would be cool wouldn't it? But for now, I just get a little bit of a happy grimace every afternoon when morning sickness hits, because I know that I'm still pregnant. Yay!