Two months in, maternity leave has so far involved a lot of physical labour but very little adult company. As it turns out, babies are terrible conversationalists! Who knew?* Every day I'm left with a brainful of fleeting micro-thoughts and no hands free to put them on Twitter, which is what one would ordinarily do with a bunch of inane, fleeting micro-thoughts.
So I'm saving them up, and you're getting treated to them over here. (I was inspired by Meggie over at The Thinks I Can Think who has taken this approach recently in her sleep-deprived residency state.) Please excuse me if not everything is grammatically correct or can even be parsed as a sentence; I'm a little sleep-deprived myself.
Last week I got myself a new pair of Mizuno Hitogamis from zulily, which is a discount flash-sale site. Normally I hate those sites, and the rest of the stuff on there appears to be hideous, but running shoes for $39 was too great a deal to pass up. Note - they were $39 because they've been replaced with a new edition, the Hitogami 2.
Also, my other two pairs of running shoes (my old Hitogamis and my Kinvara 5s - not my favourite, but I have yet to find a better alternative) are 1.5 years old and 1 year old respectively. While I haven't put a whole lot of miles on those, I can feel them going flat.
Training is extremely boring. The thing about new parent schedules is that you have to plan and coordinate with your other half pretty much down to the hour (and if you are a nursing mum, also plan around feeding and pumping). And that's how I run on Monday nights, Wednesday mornings, and Saturday mornings. Without fail. If the weather sucks I take a podcast and run on the treadmill. If you have the flexibility in your day to actually decide to go out for a run in the middle of the day, be grateful!
Mondays are track workouts. This past week we did three mile repeats: 8:33, 8:30, 8:40 (supposed to be 5K pace, fell apart slightly at the end). That's the first time I've seen an 8 on the front end of anything in a very long time.
Wednesdays are 'tempo' days, AKA "I will drag myself out of bed and run three to five miles without looking at my watch because I only got two consecutive hours of sleep at a time last night".
Saturdays are 'long' run days. I haven't made it to six miles yet - probably next weekend though, I have a nice route all planned out. And then, in a few months... we'll be able to run with baby!
I'm hoping that consistency will do *something*. I'm going for the long slow grind, emphasis on the slow.
As for sports bras - I settled on the Moving Comfort Urban X-Over (C/D) and the Moving Comfort Jubralee. The Urban is a souped-up version of the ironing-board A/B model I already own. The velcro straps on the Jubralee, however, have given me a little chafing - just FYI. Probably nothing a bit of Bodyglide can't fix.
OH I REGISTERED FOR A THING: the Tufts Health Plan 10K in October...wish me luck.
* - Books for babies, however, are a trip. Who writes these things and what are they smoking? I mean, take Goldilocks for example. She knocks on the door of a random house in the forest and when no one answers, she walks in and eats their food. What kind of behaviour is that?
I've also been thinking about what I like in baby books: a) big simple pictures, b) good stories, because I have to sit through them as well, and/ or c) rhymes and rhythms, the jauntier and noisier the better. Simple illustrations are great - we have long involved conversations about them. For instance, yesterday I had a very long involved conversation with baby D, in other words with myself, about bees and how they make honey and do the waggle dance to talk to each other.
So I'm saving them up, and you're getting treated to them over here. (I was inspired by Meggie over at The Thinks I Can Think who has taken this approach recently in her sleep-deprived residency state.) Please excuse me if not everything is grammatically correct or can even be parsed as a sentence; I'm a little sleep-deprived myself.
Last week I got myself a new pair of Mizuno Hitogamis from zulily, which is a discount flash-sale site. Normally I hate those sites, and the rest of the stuff on there appears to be hideous, but running shoes for $39 was too great a deal to pass up. Note - they were $39 because they've been replaced with a new edition, the Hitogami 2.
Also, my other two pairs of running shoes (my old Hitogamis and my Kinvara 5s - not my favourite, but I have yet to find a better alternative) are 1.5 years old and 1 year old respectively. While I haven't put a whole lot of miles on those, I can feel them going flat.
Training is extremely boring. The thing about new parent schedules is that you have to plan and coordinate with your other half pretty much down to the hour (and if you are a nursing mum, also plan around feeding and pumping). And that's how I run on Monday nights, Wednesday mornings, and Saturday mornings. Without fail. If the weather sucks I take a podcast and run on the treadmill. If you have the flexibility in your day to actually decide to go out for a run in the middle of the day, be grateful!
Mondays are track workouts. This past week we did three mile repeats: 8:33, 8:30, 8:40 (supposed to be 5K pace, fell apart slightly at the end). That's the first time I've seen an 8 on the front end of anything in a very long time.
Wednesdays are 'tempo' days, AKA "I will drag myself out of bed and run three to five miles without looking at my watch because I only got two consecutive hours of sleep at a time last night".
Saturdays are 'long' run days. I haven't made it to six miles yet - probably next weekend though, I have a nice route all planned out. And then, in a few months... we'll be able to run with baby!
I'm hoping that consistency will do *something*. I'm going for the long slow grind, emphasis on the slow.
As for sports bras - I settled on the Moving Comfort Urban X-Over (C/D) and the Moving Comfort Jubralee. The Urban is a souped-up version of the ironing-board A/B model I already own. The velcro straps on the Jubralee, however, have given me a little chafing - just FYI. Probably nothing a bit of Bodyglide can't fix.
OH I REGISTERED FOR A THING: the Tufts Health Plan 10K in October...wish me luck.
I've also been thinking about what I like in baby books: a) big simple pictures, b) good stories, because I have to sit through them as well, and/ or c) rhymes and rhythms, the jauntier and noisier the better. Simple illustrations are great - we have long involved conversations about them. For instance, yesterday I had a very long involved conversation with baby D, in other words with myself, about bees and how they make honey and do the waggle dance to talk to each other.
