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25 weeks pregnant

I’m 25 weeks pregnant!

I will definitely say that I’m feeling pretty good and happy. I have few complaints and know I am still so lucky to still be so active with my running, strength workouts and general walking. What I have noticed however is my recovery is a lot longer and harder.

For example, I ran 13.1 miles at the weekend and while it was tougher than what I’d have found pre-pregnancy and slower (of course) I found it OK and was happy to reach that distance. However afterwards was a different story. Instead of jumping into the day as normal with good energy levels, I found I was drained. I was definitely impacted by the distance on the day of and the day after. I felt sapped. It’s such a crazy (though understandable) change.

I’m the girl who would run 18 miles on a Sunday and then be up 5.30am at the gym the next day feeling fine. A hard marathon would make me feel this way, but not a gentle half. It’s a real adjustment to my brain. I took a rest day afterwards and napped, which really helped. It’s just about accepting that I have a certain level of energy and if I use it up on a run I have to pay for that later.

That said, I loved the run and I was happy to take it easier afterwards. I’m proud of my body and it’s capabilities. I just need to reset expectations and allow these adjustments to happen.

And I take each run as it comes. I fully expect at some point to be lowering the miles or stopping so every successful problem-free run is a gift. So far I’ve dropped my Sunday runs so instead of running around 30ish miles a week I now run 24-27 miles a week, depending how long my Saturday run is.

I love my mid-week runs. I run the same 7 mile route each time and honestly I just thoroughly enjoy it. I have a perfect pit stop at 3 miles for a lovely clean public loo, and then I’m into Old Portsmouth and running along Southsea seafront and I just adore it. Being so close to the sea (despite being very much a land creature!) is just so refreshing and invigorating.

Yes sometimes the weather can be awful right by the coast – you really are open to the elements – but when you can see the waves and smell the sea air it really does make up for it. I love it. It will make me very sad to cut back these runs as it take about 3 miles to get to the seafront so realistically I wouldn’t be able to head down there.

We can get to the east coastal area from our house in just over a mile so that’s good but it’s not a route I particularly enjoy as much. I have no idea why really as it’s a lovely route and you can get onto some trails quite quickly. I think I just really have a good association with my 7 miler as it’s the route I’ve been using since being pregnant and it just has happy vibes.

And it’s funny because I’ve been passing a building with big windows for ages and, as narcissistic as this sound, I often use it as a mirror to see myself. My changing body is just incredible for me to see, especially when I’m running, so I often look into it as I run just to see what I look like.

Anyway, inside the building they’ve been doing some work. I had no idea what for until they put a big logo and their branding on the window and funnily enough it’s called “Window into the Womb”. It’s a private scanning facility! The irony of me looking into the window to see my pregnant body and it turns out to be a pregnancy scanning facility is quite amusing.

On a non-running note, the other thing I’ve noticed is a dull period-like ache around my lower tummy. I believe this is round ligament pain – though for me it’s not painful, just achy. It makes me feel like I have a bad period. Some people apparently feel sharp pains and others more a dull ache. I just pop a hot water bottle on the area and that helps.

It’s annoying because I feel like I’ve overcome some hip pains with strength training (all about those squats, bridges and clams!) and now I have this, which I don’t believe any strength training will help as it’s all internal and to do with my uterus expanding. Though certain yoga moves do tend to ease it a bit.

To be honest, it’s not that bad and certainly manageable during the day but it’s when it wakes my up in the night and I’m lying there feeling sorry for myself then it gets annoying. But paracetamol dulls it down a bit thankfully.

Speaking of sleep, getting comfortable is tricky. I have my pregnancy pillow which is great but as a back sleeper it’s just not the same. I can drift off OK but when I wake up in the night I really struggle to get comfortable again. Very frustrating considering I want to be getting lots of sleep while I can!

But other than that, I honestly can’t complain! I’m thankful for my body and how it’s doing – it seems to be just getting on with it all. It’samazing how much my body is very much in control, rather than my mind. Previously I could get over things with some talking to’s and mind-over-matter mentality, but now it’s like “if thebody says no it means no”. And I’m OK with that 🙂

Do you have particular routes you just really enjoy and do all the time?

Do you do any yoga or stretching when you get aches and pains?

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Week 24 of being pregnant – featuring a lot of chocolate!

Week 24 of my pregnant and how are things going?

Well, pretty well actually! I feel really good. My energy levels are good, I’m sleeping well (though still grumbling about now being a side sleeper… I miss sleeping on my back so much!) and I’m still running three times a weeks (roughly around 25 miles/week) and strength training 3-4 times a week.

Running is getting slower of course and I’m finding both my hips get achy towards the end. But I’ve had some acupuncture and massage which massively helped, as does the lovely long hot water bottle Kyle’s sister bought me. Lots of good stretches throughout the day definitely ease the discomfort too.

I love running so much right now. I like to go first thing and just seeing the weather getting better makes me so happy. I might not be nearly as fast as I was before but I still get the same enjoyment. And the podcasts I listen to while running are now not just about running, food and movies but sprinkled with a heavy dose of pregnancy and baby related ones too.

Who’d have thought this would happen, definitely not me! I especially like Made by Mamas (though the number of adverts and sponsors they have in each episode REALLY annoys me) and the Pregnancy Wellness Podcast.

Food-wise things have been very good lately. Kyle amazingly treated me to some INCREDIBLE millionaire rocky roads from the Instagrammer @Nickichanlam (I’ve mentioned her before – she’s so so good). They were BRICKS!

They had a layer of caramel and a top layer of chocolate and then were basically packed full of mini-eggs, biscuit and marshmallows. So fricking good! I had one at 11am one day and basically was full until dinner that evening – and for me that’s really something!

I was also recently sent a super tasty set of drinks, Super DC, from Gusto. They’re basically healthily pimped out soft drinks aimed to boost your immune system as they’re packed full of vitamins.

They come in two flavours: Super DC Blood Orange and Super DC Blackcurrant & Elderberry. They’re full of antioxidants and contain a huge boost of Vitamin D and Vitamin C, for only around 60 calories a can.

 They actually taste REALLY good. The blood orange flavour tasted like a posh Fanta (and I love Fanta).

I honestly wanted to guzzle all the cans, they were super refreshing. Unfortunately they contain a bit too much Vitamin A for me being pregnant so I could only do a taste test, but this was good news for Kyle as he really liked them too.

I was also sent a really cool gift idea – a CHOCOLATE themed gift idea. It’s called ChocFace and basically you choose the photos you want to go on top of Belgian chocolate, which is all edible.

You can personalise what you call the box too, which I love

They come displayed in a really lovely box. I was quite impressed – the photos looked super clear and the chocolate was actually really tasty. I yomped my way through the box fairly quickly, I’m ashamed to say! It’s such a novel and fun idea. Really good gift for someone I think.

Slightly vainly I chose photos of myself and Kyle!

And on the note of food, Kyle and I had Monday and Tuesday off and we spent one of those days having a lovely walk down Southsea seafront and got some takeaway food from one of our favourite spots, The Parade Tearooms.

My favourite menu item from them is the Jane Salad (which I’ve had MANY times). It’s ginormous. And the takeaway version is just as big – giving you a large box of the cold items (salad bits, cheese, coleslaw) and then a large box of the hot items (crispy bacon, chicken and crispy potatoes). It was so good!

Unfortunately  my eyes were far too big for my tummy because after finishing this enormous salad I also wolfed down a gigantic wedge of tiffin afterwards.

This was a BIG mistake as honestly I felt so full for the rest of the day it wasn’t fun. I can definitely see this getting worse the longer the pregnancy continues because my stomach capacity just isn’t going to be what it used to be. Greedy Anna is going to have problems!

What’s your favourite, rocky road or tiffin? To be honest I’m not entirely sure the difference! I think rocky road has marshmallows and tiffin has raisins…

What’s your favourite salad? I really love caesar salads (especially if there are anchovies in it).

**Full Disclaimer: I was sent the Gusto drinks and the ChocFace chocolates for free in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own honest ones.**

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My Running For Two Half Marathon at almost 20 weeks

So this “race” recap is a bit delayed as it was actually back in Feb that I ran it when I was almost 20 weeks pregnant (I’m now 23 weeks pregnant). But hey ho!

With still being able to currently run fairly comfortably (*touch wood*) I’d said to Kyle that it was such a shame there were no races for me to plod round as I’d love to get a medal that I could later show our little guy and be like “I got this when you were inside of me”.

Obviously with the lockdown, races just weren’t being scheduled anytime soon (of course). The nearest races seemed to be late May or June. By that time I would be fairly heavily pregnant and I couldn’t guarantee I’d be able to run 5k let alone a half marathon.

I toyed with the idea of doing an official virtual one but Kyle said if I was going to have to do it on my own anyway I might as well just make my own up and really personalise it. It would save a bit of money and I could schedule it however I fancied. This sounded perfect.

I decided to go for a half marathon and came up with my own route round where I lived and created my own bib and name for the “race”: the Running For Two Half Marathon. I mentioned it to my parents and they said they’d come and support as well, which was lovely (strictly speaking breaking the rules a little but they would stand a distance from Kyle and obviously I’d just be running past).

I decided to go with the Sunday just before I turned 20 weeks, so almost half way, which fit nicely with the half distance as the little guy would be half baked. I had a pizza the night before, as is my pre-race tradition, and got myself mentally prepared. I’d been running 10-12 miles  for a few weeks so I wasn’t too worried about the distance – or how long it would take me as this wasn’t about times.

Unfortunately on the morning I woke up to aggressively windy and cold weather. As my route was basically along the coastline I knew I was in for a rough time. But it was planned, my parents were heading over to stand in the spot they were going to cheer from (about 9 miles – then the plan would be they’d walk down to mile 11, and then I’d finish near Baffins Pond and they’d walk down to see me, from afar), so I couldn’t back out now.

I’d dressed snuggly in two layers and my hat, gloves (and yes, shorts). Within two miles I realised I wasn’t warming up that much. Usually by half a mile I’m good but the wind was so icy and was tearing through my layers and stinging my legs. The wind was pushing from the side and I knew from the direction it was going it was going to be horrendous along the seafront.

I got to my three mile loo stop (my absolute saviour at the moment) and had a quick wee. No run can go without this anymore! I can pretty much manage up to four miles before it becomes impossible. Luckily all over Portsmouth there are some decent quality public toilets – especially in Southsea along the front. As I would in a race, I didn’t stop my watch.

Then I headed off through Old Portsmouth to then turn east towards the front. Ah jeeze. That icy wind was straight against me. It was AWFUL. Had I not been doing a race and had Kyle and my parents not been waiting at a certain spot, I honestly would have turned around and headed back home. I knew I had three miles along the front with this wind and it was soul destroying, not to mention freezing.

It was such a rubbish day. Normally if it’s windy or a bit overcast people still come and walk and spend time down the seafront but there was a sparsity of people on the prom, and those that were there looked miserable.

I just put my head down and counted down the 0.1 miles. Eventually I finally got to my next loo stop and thankfully turned the corner to head back north. The relief for both the loo and the wind to stop being full against me was incredible.

Now I was almost at 7 miles and knew it wouldn’t be such a slog to get to my parents. It was basically all north to them, so the wind was just be sideways on me not against me. But it was still cold. I just wasn’t warming up. It wasn’t even because of the pregnancy that this was hard, it was just an awful run because of the external conditions.

Finally I could see from about 0.5 miles away where my parents and Kyle would be. I could just make out their bodies. I felt immensely sorry for them. At least I was running so wasn’t absolutely freezing, whereas I knew them just standing there in the cold wind would be horrendous. I felt very bad indeed.

Eventually I got near enough to hear them shouting my name and cheering me on, like the absolute troopers they are. I could barely raise a smile to them though. I was cold to my core, so fed up and mentally drained. This was not the glorious celebratory run I’d hoped for.

I quickly told them I was changing my route as the one I’d planned  involved heading back to where I’d come from, and that was just utterly miserably in my mind. I wanted to keep moving to other areas and not head back to the hell I’d come from.

So I carried on running north until I roughly worked out if I turned back I could make the 13.1 mile distance if I just ran home. There was no way I wanted to be outside anymore. I wanted a hot shower, hot porridge and a cup of tea. I quickly rang Kyle and explained that was what I was doing. My parents could meet me there and we could chat from the front door. I felt bad but realistically it was no better than standing outside in Baffins Pond.

Happily they’d actually parked the car near to where they’d stood so they had been able to shelter in the car for warmth while I was running to them. So they drove back to our house (yes with Kyle masked up in the back of the car… it was just too cold to expect him to walk the mile back – at least both my parents had had the vaccine at this point).

I sped up on the final mile knowing I was heading home to warmth and shelter and then finally finished to them clapping me along the street which was lovely.

I ran 1:58:34 which I’m over the moon with, especially with two toilet stops. Under two hours was an unimportant goal I’d vaguely had in my mind so it was nice to achieve it. Long gone are the days of sub 1:40 or even sub 1:45 halves!

I’m really pleased I got the run done. It wasn’t what I’d hoped for and to be honest we were all feeling pretty rubbish afterwards. I felt terrible for my lovely supporters but they assured me it was fine and they were happy to see me achieve this milestone. To be honest, had I have known what the weather was going to be like in reality then I’d have changed the day. But it was what it was. It was certainly memorable!

And I got a medal! We had one made and I’ll be able to show our little man and say that I ran a very tough run to get this for him! And that’s something special to me at least.

Have you been running in the cold temperatures?

Have you been doing any virtual races?

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21 Weeks Pregnant

Week 21 here we are.

I won’t lie, nothing much has greatly changed in the context of the pregnancy or my life because happily the pregnancy is going smoothly for now, and less happily because lockdown is life so exciting activities are somewhat limited.

That being said, the weather is on the change to spring-like feels and when the sun is out I am so much  happier! I definitely feels like this spring is a LONG TIME coming, you know? We had the darkness of Lockdown 3 over Christmas and then January and February basically being a bit poo, it’s like the weather is foreshadowing better times to come.

And I’m sure everyone is ready for them! Boris’ announcement this week has given us a bit more hope. We actually have DATES to look towards and plan to. Yes it might be months away before life returns to somewhat normality but we have a timeline now thank god!

I did have a little blip last week where at the start of the week I felt a bit meh. I figured it was lockdown fatigue but after my run  on Thursday morning I quickly went downhill and had to go back to bed. I just felt completely and utterly drained. I felt a little sick and just an overwhelming sense of tiredness. I had fears of first trimester-ness coming back with a vengeance. I took Thursday and Friday off from work and of course exercise and literally just spent it in bed with my iPad and a book.

It did me the world of good! By Friday evening (good planning eh!) I was feeling far more energised and alive (and ready for our usual takeaway, obviously) and by Saturday I was even well enough to go for a 10 mile run. Perhaps somewhat optimistically going that  distance I realise, but I went with the flow and it just felt good. The weather definitely helped and I came back with a spring in my step.

Usually I don’t get ill that often but I think this past couple of weeks the baby has had a bit of a growth spurt which has taken a lot of my energy and just knocked me for six. Running on Thursday morning clearly exacerbated things and my body said “nope!”. Being pregnant is hard and I’m not quite the machine (in my head) that I once used to be. But I was sensible and took the rest and then reverted back to Anna normality 😉

My hips have begun to ache a lot more and sometimes running can annoy this so I’m taking each run as it comes. Sometimes missing a usual run and doing a YouTube fitness video instead. I’ve become a lot more relaxed about this because I’m just happy to keep my body moving in a comfortable way that helps keep the baby and me strong.

I do feel like my bump has definitely “popped” more and I’m feeling less bloated and more like an actual pregnant person. With the weather warming up I was able to go for a walk with my coat unzipped and with less of a baggy huge jumper and felt like it was the first time the world had seen my bump. The world didn’t care, but every window I passed I was gawping at myself and my little tummy proudly sticking out. Finally!

Food-wise I’ve been all about chicken. I over did getting Indian takeaways (two a week!) and have now become obsessed with roast chicken, boiled veg and BBQ sauce. I either cook it myself or get it delivered (which is ultimately less faff and SO much tastier as whatever they put on it makes it taste incredible). It’s become a problem. But weirdly the thought of chicken wings and  KFC still are not doing it for me. These used to be my absolute favourite chicken takeaways!

And on a final note, our 20 week NHS scan and midwife appointment went really well! All healthy and happy and now I’m trying to read as much as I can about different bits and bobs to feel somewhat in control when the baby arrives. I have ages yet but it helps calm me a bit to feel I’m learning something ahead of time.

What’s your favourite takeaway?

Are you a good ill person? What’s your favourite way to recover?

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5 Top Healthy Habits of a Highly Motivated Runner

Wow has it gotten cold in the UK, eh!? I’m still out running though and enjoying it. No such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing choices 😉 Today I have a great article on some good tips for being a motivated runner. Enjoy!

Cheerful sportswoman running along hill in summer
Image credit

If you are a runner looking to accomplish your goals and even go ahead to beat a personal record, then you must cultivate a few habits of successful runners.

All runners are always looking for ways to improve their running, no matter their level of expertise. This is why you will find most of them pushing themselves to the limit to avoid the risk of stalling. 

One of the many ways to maintain and accomplish your running goals is by adopting healthy habits. Below are some of the healthy habits shared by effective and motivated runners to help you build your running lifestyle. 

  1. Plan ahead

Are there times where you are left wondering what’s for lunch at the last minute, then you end up eating high-calorie foods that are bad for your health? That too applies to running.

Ensure that you schedule your runs in advance and run them as unmovable appointments. This helps to ensure that you stick to your timetable. So, as the week begins, take your calendar, schedule all your week runs. Also, make meal plans ahead of time and set aside time for cooking.

  1. Become a morning runner

Most people don’t have enough time to keep a running routine for a long while still juggling between work and other responsibilities. However, there is a solution, which is to start running in the morning.

According to the U.S& World Report News, running in the morning has a lot of benefits, including the satisfactory feeling that your run is out of the way before life gets in. it also ensures that the runner enjoys long-term results, improved productivity as well as boosted metabolism.

  1. Strength train regularly

Some runners, especially beginners, are hesitant to start due to the myth that it will make them bulky and slower. But this is not the case; strength training is actually enjoyable and makes you an effective runner. 

Strength training is a physical activity meant to improve the runners’ muscles by exercising a certain muscle against external resistance. The benefits of this activity include increased running efficiency, improved endurance to help your body deal better with the stress of running, and much more.

  1. Hydrate and eat more vegetables

For runners, the food you consume is much more than just a meal because it acts like fuel.

What you eat or drink is very important, and therefore you are advised to check how you eat and make those healthy changes. Also, ensure that you carry a hydration pack for hiking as it is designed to transport water and make drinking more convenient when running.

  1. Stay consistent

To improve in running, you need to stay consistent. Do not take a week’s time off if you don’t have an injury.

Staying consistent involves creating exercises and diet plans and making sure you stick to the schedules.

Conclusion

Running on a daily basis and having healthy meals doesn’t have to feel like a punishment. In fact, they should be the motivation to make you a faster and effective runner.

Are you a morning runner?

Do you strength train to help your running?