Sea Legs Girl

Heart Throb 5k

2012-02-11T20:44:00.004+01:00

There are two distinct tactics to running a 5k. One is "just for fun" and the other is "running so fast that every fiber of your being is in pain at every moment". Most people chose to say they are doing number one and then end up running at some pace in between, just to run faster than they expected and to avoid pressure.

5 years ago, SR and I ran this YMCA's Heart Throb 5k together. It was the first race we had run together. I was still married, but was nonetheless in the predicament of being in love with this guy: SR, who won every single La Crosse YMCA 5k. It seemed so odd to me for a 30 something guy to get into running so much. Did he think he was still in high school or what? No, he was just Danish - or - just himself. And I was fascinated.

As today, the weather that day was in the single digits F. To be exact, it was 9 F (-14C) today with 18 mph wind from the northwest.

5 years ago, I had never attempted to run a 5k fast, but I figured I had better try to impress SR. So, I went out somewhat hard, though pretended I was just in it for fun (and actually, I was). I ran it in just over 23 minutes. I was really happy. That day it was good enough for second female overall.

Today, I ran the first mile in 5:52. I felt good. I was 5th woman at the time and about 13th overall. I thought I might have a shot at under 19 minutes. Between mile 1 and 2 my pace slowed a bit, but I passed 2 women and 2 men and was still on pace for a PR. And then the headwind struck and I felt absolutely terrible. I could not get my pace under 7 minutes per mile. I could not feel my legs. My entire body was experiencing an icecream headache. I wanted to just stop, but it was too cold to just walk after all. IT WAS TERRIBLE. I lurched across the finish line, just ahead of a 15 year old girl (the daughter of a physician I used to work with) in 20:27. I dry heaved for a while, felt so nauseated that I had to hobble to the bathroom to vomit.

SR won in 17:04. The wild part is 3rd for the women was good enough for 11th overall (193 total runners, 118 of them women, 75 men). It is interesting how in the US women seem to be nearly as fast as men. Is it just not cool for men to be in good shape here? SR explained on the way home- women here are stay at home moms and think running makes them beautiful. Men just don't really get into it. The truth is, I'm quite sure the young women who finished ahead of me weren't moms.

So what has changed in 5 years? Well, our location on earth is the same. I've taught myself to embrace suffering, I guess. But more importantly, I got the man of my dreams (somehow) and there are two new little boys in the world - who maybe one day will make the world a better place. Somehow a 2-3 minute improvement in 5k running time seems to be of very little consequence.

Tomorrow: half marathon in Rochester, MN. In the meantime, skiing with SR and The Lorax!

Newsworthy: crazy women and normal children

2012-02-03T13:54:00.000+01:00

But first, I need to vent for a second. I heard a show on Minnesota Public Radio today (and of course anything that comes out of Minnesota is haute couture according to Steve Q) where two "editors" and the host could not figure out when and when not to use good vs. well.

My guideline is to think about whether it is an adjective, adverb or noun.

What you can say in response to "how are you?":
"I am doing well"
"I am good"(ok, technically incorrect unless you're trying to say I'm a good little girl, but it's better than the next two)

What irritates me:
"I am well" (to me this implies you are not ill, like you just got over an illness that had you in the hospital. For most people, this is not what they mean - right?)
"I'm doing good" (this implies you are working for Amnesty International or that you are a redneck from Iowa)

To avoid all the confusion, I just say "I'm fine". Because I am a damn fine woman.

Now that we have that out of the way, let's congruatulate Alicia H who was the first woman runner finisher in the Arrowhead 135 mile race in Superior National Forrest in northern Minnesota. She ran it in 55 hours and 56 minutes. Awesome. And crossed the finish line with a Spaniard.

Here she is while actually running the entire Superior Hiking trail, which took 4 days, 17 hours and 35 minutes.

And, oh my gosh, a woman from Næstved, and friend of ours, Annette, is going to run 366 marathons in 365 days. The current world record for number of marathons run in a calendar year by a female is 106

. The craziEST part: she has kids and a husband. Good luck, Annette! I can't wait to follow along.

Now, I'm actually not very newsworthy, but I am crazy. Plus if I didn't talk about myself, I'd just be a boring journalist.

My training has been going well lately.

Last Thursday I ran a 3:14:01 marathon on the treadmill. It was at 0.5% elevation. I did not count the bathroom breaks. This was two days after a 20 mile tempo.
Fri: 10 miles easy, total body conditioning + swimming intervals
Sat: 20 miles outside 8:45 pace
Sun: 15 miles outside + swimming intervals
Mon: 20 miles on treadmill, slow
Tues: 3 miles easy, 1 x 6 mile intervals on hilly route outside in 6:32, 6:28, 6:26, 6:26, 6:25, 6:35, then 5 mile cooldown. Swimming intervals.
Wed: 13 miles slow, stairclimber + modern nordic track + spinning class + yogalates

So - given my treadmill "marathon" time, I have (with SR's okay) signed up for the New Orleans Marathon March 4th to go for a PR. After that is out of the way, I can enjoy a spring and summer of ultras and triathons. :)

Oh, I forgot. I was in the news in some way - here is a page from the most recent Løbemagasinet in Denmark, informing women that continuing to train during pregnancy will improve their condition.

Crazy women. Yes. Now: read carefully the top regrets of dying people, collected by a palliative care nurse in Australia:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Yes, ladies, we could all learn from women like Alicia and Annette who let themselves do what makes them happy.

What makes you happy? Training makes me happy. Running makes me happy. But what really makes me happy? Those little moments with my family.

Touching Mattias chest, so soft over a paper thin breast bone and watching him coo and giggle.

The Lorax has been telling me about his best friend, "Santa" at school for days now. I was so happy he had made such a close friend. He told me about all of the things they did together. How Santa took a nap right next to him. How Santa played with him on the playground. I figured the boy's name was Xander. I asked tonight at his parent teacher conference who Santa was. And they had all assumed Santa was a friend at home because there were no boys there with a name close to that. We looked at each other. We looked at Christian who was playing with rocks in a sand case. Santa was not real, not to us at least. Santa is is friend he needs during this transition to a new life. I looked at my baby, Christian, still in many ways as fragile as Mattias.

And Natali announced tonight she thinks she might have a boyfriend. He is the most popular boy at school. His name is Quentin and I don't think she's making him up. They have told each other they like each other, but what the next step is, well, she suggested they eat lollipops and go for a walk on the bike path.

These are good days. And well days.

Running songs of the day:
The Fall by Gary Numan (thanks, World Café)
Wrecking Ball by Mother Mother (th

Another 20 mile tempo

2012-01-25T03:11:00.005+01:00

Without even asking SR, I was a click away from signing up for the Miami Marathon this Sunday. I am completely manic and need to find a marathon to PR in - like now. When I saw that airplane tickets were over $800, however, I sighed, and thought like a rational person for the first time since I had run my 20 miles.

But, seriously, what is going on with me? I ran my fastest time yet today. After running a 20 mile tempo just two days ago. But I guess I can't keep throwing these treadmills times at you without giving you more details (fessing up a little)

1. I have the grade at 0.5%.

2. I take two bathroom breaks that are not counted in the overall time.

3. I subtract time for getting up to running speed.

The amount of time I subtract from the three treadmill startups used to be 45 seconds each time but I realized today it actually only took 30 seconds to get up to speed. So my 20 mile interval times had to be adjusted to the following:

Last Wednesday: 20 in 2:23:43 (at 0% grade)
Sunday: 20 in 2:24:31
Today: 20 in 2:23:06 (13.1 mile split was 1:33:24)

And I should probably subtract even less because even walking gets you somewhere.

So, is this training regimine so crazy that it just might work?? Or am I asking for injury? Should I keep doing it until I start getting slower or should I mix it up more? (can't help thinking of the line from a great song "you'll find the Lord in repetition" - who can name this band or song? :)). I just like it so much better than stupid intervals which I always feel just build bulk in my thighs.

Speaking of bulk, my weight has held at 108 lbs (49 kg). I like it there. I'm keeping it there. No more anorexic thoughts.

For today, I'll leave it at that. Except to say, my favorite running song while in Mammoth was this from the Minnesota native, Jeremy Messersmith.

The song I listed to over and over for 2 hours and 23 minutes to day was this (I have mentioned it before, but now you get the video).

Honduras: the capital of crime

2012-01-23T04:55:00.001+01:00

I have mentioned that I have been a medical volunteer in Guatemala. When I signed up to volunteer in Honduras and SR volunteered to take the kids there with me, we clearly did not know what we were getting into. Honduras, despite being the country to the east of Guatemala, it is not like what Michigan is to Wisconsin.

Honduras has the highest homicide rate per capita in the world: 86/100,000 and continually rising. That means nearly 1/1,000 people are murdered in this country! Just to compare, Guatemala’s murder rate is 39/100,000 and the USA’s is 4.8/100,000 and Denmark’s 0.85/100,000

When I mentioned to the Unite for Sight coordinator that I was brining my family along, we soon realized that this was perhaps the first time ever a family had come to volunteer at this site – and sight-seeing trips to Tegucigalpa were not exactly encouraged. SR clearly would not be able to stand being trapped in a little room with two little boys for 10 days. And I was suddenly in the unthinkable position of being a mom of a breastfed little baby who needed to leave for 10 days. So I absolutely dreaded the trip for months. I became depressed (as alluded to in earlier blog posts) because I had committed to going but could not stand the thought of leaving little Mattias.

The more I read about Honduras, the more it worried me. I would need to be accompanied by a local guard any time I was outside of my room. There would be no freedom, no exploring. I felt so bad for the people living there and was consoled with the thought that perhaps I would do some good for these people.

I had nightmares almost nightly about my upcoming trip.

The Lorax and I sat on the couch two nights before my departure and cried, held each other. He had just three days earlier started in his new Waldorf school. He was just getting used to life in La Crosse and now I was leaving, his rock, his “mor” and now his “mom” and he understood entirely.

But…

But then something happened. I was hurriedly packing, as always unprepared, as always panicking, but as always also making time to check email. And there it was: an email from Unite for Sight. They explained that the Peace Corps had that day pulled out of Honduras. There were too many security concerns for the volunteers. Crime has been escalating there related to drugs and often directed against foreigners. They wrote these words “we would understand if you decide not to volunteer in Honduras at this time”

YES!!!!!!!!! Yippeee!!! I wrote back after telling SR. I told them I would prefer not to go. (I am now scheduled to go, and hopefully with the whole family, to Ghana next February. It is so much safer there and we are starting to look forward to it).

After I was no longer going to Honduras, I felt alive again and happy. I honestly didn’t know it was weighing on me so much until the weight of it was gone. It was nearly 0 degrees F as we picked up The Lorax from school, but all I felt was warmth. The warmth of my boys. (I just started crying while writing this.) I had this desire to simply sit in the house for days with them and never stop being near them.

I could now look at the pictures from our trip to Mammoth and enjoy them, knowing SR, Mattias and The Lorax were mine, all mine, and I wasn’t going to die in Honduras leaving them behind. We are a family and I am the mom, a proud, happy mom!

Run in Yosemite - completely alone, mid January!

And the lovely new header picture is from Death Valley.

Just to ruin this sentimental blog post, I have to tell you what a week of altitude training + a little happiness has done for me:

I ran 3 20 milers in the past 5 days!
Wed: 20 miles in 2:22 (treadmill at 0% incline)
Thurs: 12 miles slow (treadmill at 0.5% incline, and same for all of the following)
Fri: 20 miles slow
Sat: 13 miles, just under 8 min per mile
Sun: 20 miles in 2:23 (again, treadmill at 0.5% incline), while talking with new triathlete friend, Lisa

Totally excited about these times that predict at big marathon PR (3:10???? dare I dream?). I am also so grateful to SR for suggesting I run at an incline on the mill which took the problem pain out of my left hamstring almost immediately. Now tomorrow: no running!!! (I have to force myself to take a break).

An argument against treadmill pettiness

2012-01-06T03:07:00.005+01:00

So I showed up at the Y the day after my 19:19 5k and got on the treadmill. I used to hate treadmills. I started out at an 8 minute per mile pace. This used to be a fast pace for me. I look over my shoulder and who is on the treadmill behind me, but SR's ex-wife? We talked a little. I actually really like her. It's hard not to. She is easy on the eyes, always smells nice, knows how to apply make-up and is just a clean, organized person. Basically everything I'm not. And suddenly I find myself thinking, despite being a woman with all of the best intentions, "has there ever been a more opportune time to flaunt my compact booty?!" (if you are thinking, "get a life, sea legs" then you're just about right). So I, of course, turned up the pace, thinking the whole time "I wonder what she thinks of my ass." Well, just when I thought my ass was probably looking its best, I turned around to see she was gone. 9 miles soon down. Maybe I should stop. In walks thin guy in long-sleeved shirt who looks like he can run. He steps on the treadmill next to me. I vow to myself he will at no point run faster than me. He starts at 8.5 miles per hour. Come on, is that all you've got?? Suddenly I've decided to essentially do a 20 mile tempo on my rest day. And then I can't run one more step. Or close to that. My medial hamstring on my left leg just locked up. Thin guy in long-sleeved shirt wins. And I am injured.

The next night, I went to yoga-lates, where you have the extreme challenge of drinking a latte with your yoga. I found myself in a class with two yoga instructors and the instructor herself. And I am thinking to myself - it says on the door "yoga is non-judgemental". Okay, well, I'm not judging anyone, but no one will out cobra me. That is until I am down in the push-up position and I fall clutching my sternum in pain, having momentarily forgotten about my sternal injury from falling down the basement stairs.

Will I ever grow up?

Probably not. Today I was out running again pain free; the hamstring injury seemed to be simply induced by the treadmill. As long as I stick to my minimalist shoes outdoors, I think I am in the clear. That is a relief since we are heading to Mammoth tomorrow and as there is not much snow, it looks like we'll be doing more trail running than skiing.

But a little on La Crosse, WI

Tonight I was listening to Steve Carlyon, director of La Crosse Parks and Rec say about the proposal to develop some of the Hixon Park Land as real estate:
"I have lived in many places all over the world and there is no place like La Crosse. Young professionals are moving back. They were educated here, saw the bluffs, and they can't forget them. The glaciers have never been here. It is geologically unique..."

I got tears in my eyes. You have to see it to believe it. More info on that bad development idea here:http://www.facebook.com/#!/SaveUpperHixonForest?sk=info

And this is how you will know you are in La Crossse: (I heard all of these recently)

"Hawkey" is a game you play on ice with a puck.
When you hear a joke, you don't laugh, you just say "that is SO FUNNY" and you have to say the last two words louder. Otherwise people might think what they said wasn't funny.
Finally, and this one I actually heard in Milwaukee and is a new verb since we left in 2008: to fellowship (v): ie, "the meeting is a great chance for people to fellowship."

Good times. I promise pics next post from Cali.

Running song of the day

Miss K by Deer Tick (thanks, Steve Q. I do like it despite the Wilco sound)

10 lb weight loss, 5k

2012-01-02T23:52:00.004+01:00

I have been feeling overwhelmed thinking about catching you guys up on what has been going on here in the US. I realized today that the only way I will get anything written is if I simply write about today.

And no, I have no New Year's resolutions, no best of lists. I am just not in that comfortable place in life where I can look beyond making it through each day.

But I guess you need a little background. SR is finally here and we have moved into our rented level of a house in downtown La Crosse, WI. The location is perfect. We can walk to the library, the YMCA, the food co-op, the bluffs and the Mississippi. The Lorax's new Waldorf school (where he starts when we get back from Mammoth Lakes, CA Jan. 15th) will be a bit of a trek, though, at 3.5 miles away.

SR left for a 36 hour ER shift last night. I ran to the grocery store with the kids in the freezing cold dark windy Wisconsinness and then we had a great night that involved a lot of bathtub nudity.

Today was the first sort of normal day in our new lives.

I set the alarm for seven. We ate breakfast: The Lorax ate four pieces of toast with Nutella and I ate a bowl of oatmeal with Fiber One on top. (Have you ever noticed that organic oatmeal tastes like dirt? I'm trying to figure out if I like that or not).

Then we arrived at YMCA number 1 in Onalaska. As we walked to the entrance from the car, both boys errupted in tears. They had never experienced such cold weather. And the wind!

I had trouble walking with the huge bag and Mattias in car seat because a couple of days ago I fell down our basement stairs and think I got a hairline fracture in my sternum or ripped some pectoralis muscle tendon insertions.

The YMCA here is holding a little treadmill 5k competition, so I decided to work that into my interval workout today.

It is so awesome how effortless running feels now that I am 10 lbs lighter (lost 10 lbs in the last two months). I dipped down to 108 lbs, but have now stabilized at 109. I always used to think this weight was too light for 5'6", but I've changed my mind. (basically, I needed a new challenge now that there are no races around here and weight loss was it. No I didn't decrease my running. Last week was 113 miles.)

Treadmill today:
2 mile warmup at 7:30 pace
1 mile interval at 5:58
run to toilet
recovery 1 mile at 7:30, no pause
1 mile interval at 6:08
recovery 0.4 miles at 7:00 pace, no pause
3.1 miles interval (5k) in 19:19
2 mile cooldown at around 8 min pace

I have decided to give up that stopping completely between intervals becuase I think it is injurious. I had thought I was going for a sub 19 5k, but then forgot to add that extra 0.1 miles into the equation while running. But it was still a PR. Of course I won't list it as an overall PR, but a treadmill PR (if I ever make that category).

I then did 15 minutes of core. It is hard to find things that don't hurt my sternum.

I got the kids. The Lorax ate lunch (two apples, two bananas and half a ham sandwich) and they had given Mattias a bottle of formula. I have not quite been able to keep up with his needs, so he gets about half a bottle a day above what I can produce. It may have something to do with my weight loss or it may not.

We then drove to the YMCA in La Crosse, where I could get more free day care!! :D I did 20 minutes on one of those machines that is sort of reminiscent of a Nordic Track but modernized to resemble an elliptical. I then did 50 lengths in the pool (just signed up for Copenhagen Challenge ironman yesterday, so I can't neglect swimming!). I picked up Mattias and The Lorax and we went to the Y's indoor playland. Good times. Seriously, it would not have been a good day for playing outside.

When we arrived home at 2:00 pm, The Lorax and Mattias both took a 3 hour nap and I worked. Ahhh. And had my second bowl of oatmeal for the day and a couple pieces of lefse.

I then cleaned for an hour, listened to Public Radio with Mattias watching me. He had an absolute explosion in his diaper and all over the high chair. Wow! It had been 5 days since the last one. The joys of giving formula. (SR is going to have a great time with that while I am in Honduras for 10 days at the end of this month.)

The Lorax had organic blueberry mini waffles with Nutella and ham circles (created by me with a bottle cap) for dinner. Sorry I just keep tossing organic out there, but I love the fact one can buy such cheap organic food in the US.

Right now we're sitting and watching Barbapapa in French, thinking of Piccola Pinecone and Marie Aline. And there is some hippi-ish sounding sitar music being played on Minnesota Public Radio.

Running song of the day Ärlighet Respekt Kärlek by Kent (great for intervals)

Skinny, lonely women and the Danish-American Transition

2011-12-17T23:36:00.008+01:00

As we stood by the baggage carousel once again at Chicago O'Hare, I surveyed what remained in my life: 3 suitcases, two boys, a baby jogger. Rolls (and a little Brie) fom the plane. We were all tired and how would I wheel all of this out the door alone? And why had I said good-bye to my whole life once again?

Just the day before I had run Skodsborg Marathon.

A nice cool day, light breeze, no ice or snow. Here are Henriette and I right before the start. Would you believe my hands were too cold the whole race to turn on my music??Rasmus let me run since I'd be with the boys for two weeks without him. I ran the hilly trail marathon in a comfortable 3:32 (well, 3:29 when I came through 26.2 miles), taking second overall, first woman and, as far as I can see a female record on that course (!). I felt awesome. I guess for a lot of reasons. It's about running, it's about loving this area of the world, the people, the life that has become my own. Eating a lot at aid stations.

And then there was O'Hare Airport. I was glad to see my mom, but fell asleep on the way home, not knowing what life would bring. But happy I had some Diet A&W Root Beer at my side.

We've had a number of mornings in a row waking up early: 2:30, 1:45, 2:30, etc. then when the child care opens at the YMCA, I am there! And so are lots of other moms. They are thin, maybe a little hungry, maybe in a bad mood because of that. Or perhaps they're lonely and bored. Just like me. What am I doing in Oconomowoc? Maybe I could make some new friends. Maybe I should get my act together and contact my old friends...

SR has two weeks left of his fellowship. Then he will be joining us at our new rented house in La Crosse.

In the meantime it is the kids, me, my parents. I need to get adjusted. But even my work is over the computer via VPN to the hospital intranet in Denmark. I look at Danish peoples' eyes from the US. Wild. I'm just so glad it works.

At times like this, I never feel like focusing on getting fast. I just want to lose weight. It's sad but true. I am down to 113 lbs. I was between 118 and 120 just 2 months ago when we were in the US. It's a way to get control, of course. But when the woman at the Y saw me with Mattias and said "you are so skinny and you just had a baby!!??" I should have been happy, but I wasn't. Is my life about being thin and in shape? Or um.

This morning I woke up with the boys and there was snow outside. I was happy, too, because SR had read me a letter from Værn om Synet (Vision Protection) saying my PhD project had been awared 200,000 kroner! (like $40,000, though less now that the Euro is doing so poorly). My mom watched the boys while I went for a snowy trail run, 17.5 miles, watching the sun come up and life was more than okay. I got home and told my mom I was going to make a lot of food for Christmas this year for us and the relatives from California: æbelskiver, rød kål, sild, ris à l'amande. I can't just forget that life in Denmark (I just hope this does result in less work for my mom and not just weird, bad food. Anyone who really knows me knows I am not joking.).

And some running music:

Danish of course:
Church of the Real by I've Got You on Tape
Finnish with a Danish record company:
Ode to the Bouncer by Studio Killers

Bon hiver

2011-12-08T18:10:00.013+01:00

Estoy de vuelta! I'm late wishing you all "bon hiver" since our first snow was a couple weeks ago, but who knows what it is like in your part of the world.

All is well here. And in just 4 days we're moving back to the US for nearly 8 months. So I figured I had better post some pictures before I don't have access to them anymore! Plus I got SR to babysit (this is the time I normally go to Spanish) while I blog. I never thought it would come to this, but with two kids, if one doesn't need something the other one does. And it wasn't doing a lot for my psyche to ignore them while writing a blog post.

I've missed a lot of you readers. Granted, I've heard from some of you via email and followed some of your lives on Facebook.

Just in case you were wondering, I have not been exercising less. It turns out Mattias loves the babyjogger and he loves going to exercise classes at our gym.

He also kind of likes sitting there in the kitchen while I cook.

Here is Thanksgiving.

And some sadly pastel Christmas cookies that The Lorax chooses to cover up with his piece of cinnamon roll.

Go figure, he also likes playing (not sure why this is sideways).

But Mattias HATES it when I sit down at the computer. This is his trigger to start crying. So every minute he is sleeping, I am working on my PhD project. And finally, I'm caught up!

As for running, I might as well not keep it a secret any longer: my new goal is to run the 100km Copenhagen Ultra in April (when back for work) in less than 9:30. If I do this, I can be an alternate on the Danish national team. And, if I switch my citizenship, I may be able to run the world 100k championships. Lots of if's here. I feel the need to mention that our big training race for this will be 3 days of Syllamo in the Ozark Moutains (150k over 3 days). And that will be a lot more fun than the flat 100k.

SR says that my setting ultra goals is an excuse to not get fast. The thing is, I am now certain I've never been faster. I just couldn't prove it until today.

We had run three races that were just odd. But two of them, I took second in overall!!

1. A cannonball marathon outside of Næstved up and down a hill, which I just ran as a training run. I ran it comfortably in 3:34 with a negative split, feeling I could maybe run it again.
I always forget to wear something to cover those nips. Oh well (that's yet another thing Mattias likes). SR had been going for a half marathon PR that day - on a tough route. He ended up with a time just over 1:16 - one should menion he got lost because he ran faster than the leadout bike. Thanks, Lasse, for the picture.

2. A half marathon on sand and seaweed (and road) (Falster Jagtmarathon). I had never thought of seaweed as a running surface but Jørgen showed us all differently. In fact, it felt like perhaps the most authentic Danish experience I have had. I ran the first and last 5k in 21 minutes, but the beach in the middle really got to me and I took a wrong turn at the end. Final time 1:40:07. This, somehow, got me second overall.

SR ran with the babyjogger, though took an alternate, non-weedy route.

3. A babyjogger mud 10k (Herlufsholm Serieløb). So I had no idea it would get so warm that the race would turn into a mud bath, but it did. I got stuck in mud going on an extreme uphill so that I needed to carry the babyjogger out, all the while slipping all over the place with Mattias in it and then the side wheel got stuck in the mud and fell off. But all of the while there were women fast and furiously trying to catch up with me so I had to sprint the runnable sections. His blanket of course was blown off at some point, too. Final time was 51 something. Nothing to write home about but my entire body hurt like never before after that race. I was strangely proud and the good people of our town learned how entirely nuts I am. And I took second for the women!

Here a picture from the home stretch of the race. You probably think you see my underwear there through my pants, but it's just my really white cheeks ;). And that track just to the left is where I run all of my intervals, just so you know.

So, SR was sick of me "frittering away (as Piccola Pinecone says) my speed" on these types of races. He was totally convinced that my every other day three hour runs on rest days were ruining my training. So, I got so fed up that today (after of course a 3 hour run yesterday) I suddenly decided to run a 5k on the treadmill. I had no particular plan as I'm still not used to km/hr so I just ran hard. Ha. And I ended up running a 5k PR! 19:33. (you may remember I had a previous PR of 19:20, but that was from a relay where the time was miscalculated (too fast) and I never corrected it). I just wish I had a race I could run to prove to the world that I am fast. But instead, I will work on"frittering away" my speed on Sunday, running a hilly trail marathon. And it will be great!

Lately I have been listening to Coffee Break Spanish when I run (have gotten through over 30 hours of lessons!), but today during my 5k I listened to "Vi to" by Medina. And that Maroon 5 song "Moves Like Jagger" is such a good song to run to provided you sing out loud and change the lyrics to "I've got to move my jacket!" Much funnier that way.

And if you want a song to simply curl up to in your warm house, appreciating your loved ones "Calgary" by Bon Iver (yeah "Bon hiver"), may be the way to go.

Løberen Skovmarathon: The Human Plasma Lipidome

2011-11-07T06:08:00.014+01:00

Certainly there is something mania-inducing about running a marathon hard (that is what we did yesterday). Why is it that after going to bed at 11:30, I wake up at 4:45am wide awake, looking at my two sons next to me, bursting with love and filled with energy wanting to write a blog post? Well, my sympathetic nervous system is still on overdrive, that's why. (Chemicals, don't strangle my pen! (reference, anyone?))

And maybe we shouldn't run so many marathons. It has been 4 weeks since my 50k trail PR at the Glacial Trail and 5 weeks since both of our marathon road PRs in Milwaukee.

The race du jour was Løberen Skovmarathon, a trail marathon outside of the city of Hillerød, in northern Sjælland (is anyone who reads this even interested in where in Denmark these races are run? How many people, I wonder, who read this blog have gotten so far as to look up where Denmark really is, like precisely? (personally, despite having lived for two years in France, I did not know exactly where Denmark was before meeting SR)).

There were just under 200 runners in the marathon, though 2659 participants in the 10k, half marathon and marathon all together. Big race!

We have not run this before and didn't know if it was hilly or technical or what. But we knew it was all on trails.

They have this ingenious set-up where

the trail is like spokes of a wheel and you keep running back to the center where there is an aid station with water, sports drink and bananas. (I have perhaps mentioned before how I get extreme low blood sugar from eating bananas while racing, so I had my large stash of chocolate in my belt like usual).
Then you run around some of the periphery back to the start, where you have completed a half marathon. And then you do it all again (this time hopefully faster :).

Here is my favorite place on the route (pic by Tor Ronnøw)

and it is very representative of the race and of Fall in Denmark.

As is usual for me, I ran after pulse/perceived exertion. This leads me to start out very slowly because right when I start, my pulse surges. When I get into my groove, I start passing people, pulse unchanged. Yesterday was no exception.

I came through the half marathon in 1:43 on the button.

Here was SR coming through the half marathon quite a bit earlier in 1:27:11.

And then I said to myself - now you can really start running and I allowed my pulse to rise a bit. I picked up the pace to sub 7:30 min/mile. It lasted quite a while. I had thought a PR might be possible, but the hills and dirt wore me down too much, I guess. With 4-5k left to go, I became extremely nauseated and almost needed to walk. I thought I would throw up but didn't. I don't really know what happened, but certainly it was related to my being so nervous before the race and having to run to bathrooms/woods with stomach problems many, many times before we started. Plus I think I just reached the point of exhaustion. Better it happened at mile 24 than at mile 16 where it always used to hit me (yes, it is all about not starting too fast. I have learned SOMETHING after nearly 30 marathons and ultras).

My final time was 3:27:35. A 35 second positive split.

Illness

Relief. Not overwhelmed or underwhelmed. Just whelmed.

Feeling like maybe the burst of speed that came from pregnancy isn't going to give me much faster times than my PR in Milwaukee. Time to integrate some regular speed work.
SR ran in 2:54:17 and had a few second negative split. He took 3rd place in a really tight and tough field. Here he is modeling the "comfy, cozy" fleece from the Glacial Trail 50k. And I am modeling Piccola Pinecone's super cool French Canadian racing shirt.

I took second to the amazing Margrethe Frydenborg, below, who killed the course in 3:08:57!
Here was the podium, 3rd place Maibritt Skovgaard, MIA.
Very fine prizes: 500 kroner gift certificate to Løberen for me plus organic make-up, which is now the only make-up I own! Maybe I should give it a try.

Congrats to Henriette Lisse and Rikke Skudbøl on completing 2 marathons in 2 days! Congrats to Daniel Ditlev and Lars Bergelius on awesome PR's.

(sorry, my odd sense of humor is entirely to blame for the subtitle; this post has, as far as I can tell, very little to do with The Human Plasma Lipidome, which was the title of a review article in this week's New England Journal)

Now I return to studying towards my certificate in Global Health online.

Naughty Thoughts

2011-10-30T14:52:00.007+01:00

Now that we are back in Denmark and I no longer have the luxury of day care for Mattias or my mom to help, I have reverted to old ways of thinking:

"The easiest way to become a faster runner in the next 7 weeks may be simply to lose weight"

Running for two hours a day every day with a baby jogger at a slow pace is just not going to get me into better shape. So what about a crash diet?

As of this morning I'm 52.2 kg. I'm actually happy with that. If I go much lower, I'll be the annoying skinny woman who always has to wear a sweatshirt while working out slowly on the elliptical. Once you get to the point you can fit your thigh in an "ok" hand sign, you'll no longer be able to run an ultra (I guess I'm pretty far form that).

This weekend I was alone with the two kids. And I caved: I got a babysitter. I guess I have resolved that it's better to spend money and get an intense workout than to rely on anorexia to get faster. Here was the agenda for the morning:

-run to gym (1 mile)
-spinning for one hour (35 minutes over 80% max pulse. Hear me out: spinning in the US does not hold a candle to spinning in Denmark. You make yourself sick with exhaustion here simply because your pulse is being continually monitored and is on display in front of the room for everyone to see, so once you start lagging, everyone knows - and 35 minutes over 80%, at times over 90%, max pulse is NOT easy! I say this so you know how totally hard core I am.)

-I then attempted to simulate a sprint triathlon transition by changing my shoes and jumping on a treadmill (this WAS interrupted by cleaning my bike off). I ran a 1km warm-up (that was dumb in retrospect, if I were trying to simulate a triathlon) and then forced out a 5k in 22:14. Holy cow. It was great. I could hardly move. But I had a little time before
-CX works, so I hopped on the stair climber and then went to the class.

A killer wokout with 30 minutes of core afterwards. Much better than sitting around trying not to eat.

For those of you hoping for other sorts of naughty thoughts: don't worry, I have those, too.

Remember my love for Andy Schleck? Well, after seeing this picture, I felt a little, well, betrayed...

And Enrique Iglesias hasn't made any new songs lately.

So while I was running the 5k on the mill, I fell for a figure skater: Adam Rippon.

The fact that he missed a few landings at the ISU championships in Canada today made me like him all the more. (let's ignore the fact he must be half my age)

See SR, this is what your weekends on call do to me!

And it is a good thing I have a soft spot for boys who like girls. Yesterday, a woman came up to The Lorax, Mattias and me and said "what a cute baby! And that must be her older sister!" Oh, my. Where to begin? Nevermind the fact Mattias was in blue and The Lorax in Spiderman. The thing is, this is not the first but the 10th time it has happened and soon The Lorax will be embarrassed.

You judge for yourselves. They look like boys to me. (taken 10 minutes ago)

Okay, so maybe it is time to make an appointment for a haircut.

I've owed you a song for a long time. I have no new running songs. But I like this song (it's nice):
Diamond Heart by Active Child

Treadmill PR

2011-10-24T23:15:00.012+02:00

Sometimes I guess you need to kick energy and happiness back into yourself! I woke up with a cold and cough and am boarding a 9 hour transatlantic flight tonight with two little boys. I've had a workout routine this past week where I run 16.5 miles every other day in Lapham Peak segment of the Ice Age Trail and on the other days cross train, but also run a fast 5k on the treadmill at the YMCA. I didn't think I had it in me to run it fast today, but boy am I glad I did. After an hour run + CX works (great core class! wow.), I ran a 20:46 5k (3.1 miles) on the treadmill and basically fell over with exhaustion afterwards, but my cold is gone. Now I'm ready for the flight. (I guess I should specify - it's just a PR for the treadmill and not an overall PR, but maybe that was obvious).

I am really going to miss the luxury of having day care at the Y.

As an aside, I've decided this persona exists at every workout center worldwide: cachectic female who spends hours on end on elliptical/stair stepper, not working up a sweat but leafing through a magazine, wearing a heavy sweatshirt. Anyone else spotted her?

Question of the day: how is hegemony pronounced? I heard someone say it on the radio in a way that rhymed with rice a roni. I always thought it was heGEMmany

Here are some pictures I took yesterday of the aforementioned Lapham Peak section of the Ice Age Trail. I may just look back on these longingly from Denmark.

I'm too old for this

2011-10-23T21:01:00.004+02:00

That is what SR said to me as he was about to board the SAS flight back to Copenhagen. I couldn't have said it better myself. Not that he was too old. But that we can't keep dividing our life between two continents.

I'm still in Wisconsin with the two boys. We're going back to Denmark on Tuesday. And then we'll all be returning to Wisconsin once again this winter.

Since I have been in the US I have had this at times overwhelming feeling of panic that, yes, I am getting old. When I left for Europe three years ago, I was the energetic, optimistic, new-baked 20-something mom and now I am a 30-something mother of two. Wisconsin is the same, basically (other than people are ever worse at "good" and "well" and I even heard the word "weller"), but we have changed.

When you are feeling like I am feeling, it is probably not a good idea to read a biography of the Brontë family. Five of the six children died before they reached my age: 32. Only Charlotte lived to 38. They died of "consumption" (tuberculosis, of course - which turns out wasn't very accurately named as it is not the mycobateria that consumed, but our body's response to them that does the damage). Granted, they lived in the first half of the 19th century and times were different. But by the time Emily died at age 30, she had already written Wuthering Heights. And what have I done?

So that was the other odd part about our trip back: what are we going to "do with our lives" if/when we did move permanently to the US? SR was not as enthralled with working in the ER as he had previously been and is hoping to get a job as a Hematologist. But since he did his fellowship in Denmark and not in the US, it may be more difficult than we thought for him to work in the US. This is because unless you do your fellowship here, you can't take the boards and if you can't take the boards, well, at least some hospitals don't accept this.

And then I was waxing poetic and saying that I wanted to be a sports medicine journalist on the side, whatever I did. This suddenly gave SR the idea "you should do a residency in Physical Medicine & Rehab in Wisconsin or Minnesota". And we pondered this on one of our three hour drives from La Crosse to Hartland.

Odd that the next morning I read that the University of Minnesota had just a week earlier posted they would soon have an open position in PM&R for a physician who had done a Transitional Residency. So basically, there couldn't be that many people who could apply, but this described me perfectly. I wrote to the program secretary asking about the start date, not having any idea how I would manage a PhD and residency plus two kids at once. Turns out the start date was January, which I could not manage, so residency will wait a little longer. But SR probably has a point that PM & R would be a good fit for me.

The truth is, a life in two countries is more taxing than we had ever imagined, and nothing sounds better at this point than a home with routines and all the other normal things we may have once tried to avoid. (but don't send me emails with houses you are trying to sell! - trust me we've gotten enough in the last couple of weeks).

Here I am singing with the boys. I think I've owed you all a picture for a long time.

Running a marathon pregnant: Is it safe??

2011-10-13T22:03:00.004+02:00

(This is probably not what you expected to read...)

Amber Miller's completion of the Chicago Marathon 38 weeks and 5 days pregnant has changed the world of women's running. Now runners and non runners alike know it is possible for a pregnant woman to run a marathon.

Was her doctor right to let her do it? Well, there has thus far been no evidence that running a marathon pregnant is dangerous for the mother or baby. The evidence is only anecdotal, though. There is however a lot of evidence that "moderate" running is both safe and healthy (and may even produce calmer, healthier, more coordinated and smarter kids... but Klapp's studies were small).

I ran 6 marathons during my most recent pregnancy. Almost every reader here probably thinks I am a biased proponent of running marathons and am going to try to convince you that there are no dangers. But that is actually not the case.

The fact that Amber's marathon appeared to induce her labor brings up a lot of concerns. Had she run the marathon at, say, 34 weeks, would it also have induced labor? Is there enough anecdotal evidence to say no?

She was already far enough along in her pregnancy that the baby could be born without any of the risks of prematurity. But what if she hadn't been so far along?

The last marathon I ran while pregnant was at 30 weeks and was the Copenhagen Marathon. I ran it in 4:54, which didn't seem that fast at the time, but in retrospect was probably too fast and more than my body could tolerate. I felt fine the night after, but the following week, I felt unwell, extremely fatigued and merely walking was enough to induce Braxton Hicks. Two weeks after, I was better again. But WAS I close to inducing premature labor? Was my water close to breaking? I do not know. There is simply not enough evidence.

The 5 pregnant marathons I had run prior to this did not take nearly the same toll on me. Perhaps not unimportantly, they were all run in very small races.

What would my advice as a physician be to women who want to run a marathon pregnant? Well, if they feel they are up to it, I would say it is safe, if their pregnancy was uncomplicated and they were healthy, experienced runners. HOWEVER, I would strongly encourage women who are beyond 26 or 27 weeks to avoid large city marathons and simply run the marathon in a small group or with friends. I find that in large city marathons people push themselves beyond what may be healthy for their body, simply due to the excitement and cheering crowds. If a woman gets too caught up in this, she may start ignoring warning signals that might otherwise stop her from continuing.

It is only a theoretical risk, but until there is more evidence, that would be my recommendation.

But where is that evidence going to come from? Well, I got an idea today. I am going to start a database of pregnant marathons. If you have run a pregnant marathon (or ultramarathon), you are more than welcome to contribute. You send me an email at sealegsgirlblog@gmail.com and I send you a rather extensive questionnaire about the race/s you ran, your time, your previous running experience, how far along you were, how you felt short-term afterwards and of course the pregnancy outcome (also be prepared to answer questions about your medical and obstetrical history). It is biased, sloppy reserach. But it is likely the only kind of research one can do about pregnant marathoning and it is better than nothing. The database will be found at a website, which I don't have a link to yet. Here women who are interested in running a marathon or half marathon pregnant can see what other womens' experiences have been and then contribute their own. Ultimately, women will get connected to it, not through this blog, but through the new website.

As of now, I'm open to any sort of suggestions you have as this project will take a while to implement if it is going to be a good resource.

Glacial Trail 50k

2011-10-10T02:49:00.011+02:00

Waking up at 4 am, hurryingly breast feeding El Guapo, and trying to pump what little milk I had left to a mom who was, for some reason oblidged once again to watch the boys the entire morning, I probably should have asked myself "Why am I running this race?". Plus my left foot still hurt from the marathon last weekend. I couldn't get the internet to work, so I didn't have the exact address for the start. Despite the start of the race being only an hour north from my parents' house, I had never been to the area of Greenbush, WI before and relied solely on a Garmin device to get me to the approximate place of the start.

SR was in the midst of his 60 hour weekend ER shift and it felt so odd without him there. We have never run an ultra without each other before. Even if we haven't both run, we've at least both been there. So I ventured out alone at 5 am, in the pitch black, listening to the fuzzy fm waves of WUWM.

You have probably heard it is back luck to cross the path of a black cat. What about hitting a tabby cat with your burgundy 2001 Ford Windstar minivan going 65 on a highway? (though to be honest, my first thought was "thank God, I didn't get hurt" and my second "Thank God it wasn't a dog". But someone, somewhere might have loved that cat and I have felt bad since.

I made it to the Fire Station start and the first person I saw was Helen Lavin. Wow! She was visiting from California to watch her man, Chris Scotch run the 50k. Too bad she wouldn't be running; she was tapering for Hellgate. I love seeing this couple. They sort of epitomize the ultra community in the Midwest for me and I am so happy to know them. Plus Helen and I got to talk yoga and I laughed over the fact we ran in the exact same trail shoes. Yep, the minimal New Balance trail shoes.

This race, like the other two Wisconsin trail races I know, is run on a section of the Ice Age Trail, which winds its way over much of the state. The other two races are the Chippewa 50k and the Ice Age Trail 50k/50 mile. They are all the exact opposite of Danish ultra experiences. Rather than being run on a repeated flat asphalt loop, they are out and back, technical, hilly, single track trails in gorgeous varied terrain (and as you can guess, I far and away prefer the Wisconsin version of ultras - DON'T take these races for granted, Americans!!!).

What a long lead in basically to say, despite the odd, lonely mood of the morning, I ran the ultra of my life thus far.

As in Skovloeberen, I power-walked all the hills, ran my own race starting very slowly. I passed and passed people from mile 9 on. I ran almost an exactly even split and may have had a negative split if it hadn't gotten so warm and I run out of sports drink in my bottle in one of the 7 mile stretches between aid stations. Plus, I had three falls over rocks or roots on the way back. I even landed on my shoulder after one (I hope someone took a picutre I can post later).

Suddenly, Helen Lavin announces to me with a mere 5 miles to go that I am in second for the women!!! Wow. And I felt awesome. I was on track to run in just around 5 hours, but didn't know if my legs would hold to it. But through to the end, I was able to run the flat stretches in under 8 minutes a mile (and had this moment where I thought - this must be what it feels likes to be Devon Crosby Helms - of course, she would have won, though and run much faster...).

I came in in 5:02:46. 2nd/36 female (though it would have actually been good enough for the win the last two years - this time a girl named Cassie Scallon was there who ran it in either 4:50 or 4:15 - it is embarrassing that on the way home I thought to myself I might have misheard and the results aren't up yet. Cassie was a real nice girl and a local Wisconsinite. Edit: she ran it in 4:15 and won the whole race --- yes, for men and women!!). I was handed a personalized hand-made mug as a prize, which broke within 10 minutes. At which point, it was reinforced - there is no such thing as luck, there is only putting your mug in the wrong place :).)

Though I am tempted to go on and on about how awesome this race went for me, it is perhaps a bit too self-indulgent, even for me. But what an awesome day on the trails. I honestly don't think running the PR marathon the weekend before ended up being a hindrance and may have even helped. Had the Glacial Trail been a road race, though, I wouldn't have even finished it due to leg and foot problems, plus it would have been very inaptly named.

Here is their website . I give the race 5 out of 5 stars. Racing rarely gets better than this!

P.S. I peed in a bush yesterday and not in my shorts. Sorry.

Other tidbits of potential interest:

1. Throughout the race, I ingested the following:
6 electrolyte tabs
1 gu
1 medium sized special dark chocolate Hershey bar
6 peanut butter m & m's
Little Debbie Swiss Roll (ahhh... nothing reminds me more of Switzerland (he he))
4 bottles of Heed
4 cups of Heed
2 cups of Mountain Dew
1 cup ginger ale?
big handful of salt

After I crossed the finish line, I drank two cans of diet soda. I then rushed home and, despite all of this, I was still 4 lbs down on my fluid! It is amazingly hard to keep up with fluid losses and had it not been for the electrolyte tabs holding the fluid intravascular, I probably would have hit the wall.

2. At some point I stepped down REALLY hard on a rock with my left heel and I am willing to bet big money that there is a hairline fracure there which could be seen on MRI or bonescan, but would I ever get it checked? No way, not unless it starts hurting worse. Happily, it feels better today.

3. Finally, thanks to the comment by anon, here is a link to the story about the woman who gave birth following the Chicago Marathon (way to go, Amber!) ---this brings up a fascinating question: Did she induce labor or was it simply, coincidentally "the right time" (39 weeks)? Current dogma in Obstetrics is, of course, you can't induce labor on your own; you need prostaglandin medication at high doses to achieve that. Brings up a lot of questions...

What really happened at The Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon

2011-10-05T02:29:00.004+02:00

Somehow being back in La Crosse, WI, I'm reminded why I started blogging in the first place. I had time on my hands and felt like I needed to write. Life was good and I didn't want to forget it.

Lining up at the Milwaukee Marathon, I was reminded that, above all places, Wisconsin is my home. And I have missed it. The theme of the marathon was "be thankful because you can run a marathon today. You might not be able to tomorrow." It was cheesy, but this s the cheese state and I got tears in my eyes.

Even Bart Yasso was there and I thought of my Yasso 500 runs and was embarrassed that I had no idea he was the Editor of Runner's World or that he was even still alive.

I didn't know where to line up. My plan was with the 3:30 group, but the weather was perfect and there was going to be a little tail wind. So I moved up to the 3:25 pacing group. Between mile 1 and 2 I started talking with a guy from Chicago. He was struck by the beautiful farm landscape. If he thought THAT was beautiful, he should start running on trails. But I didn't say it because I needed to get my mind off the trails and onto the road. And before I could say anything, something pulled in my groin around my pubic symphysis and radiated to the right. I screamed a little scream and had to stop running. "No!!!!!" I pleaded. I drank Gatorade from the aid station and started walking and then sort of prancing on my toes, trying to shake out the pain. And after about 5 minutes of quasi running, the pain was much less and I started thinking I might actually run this whole marathon after all.

I was of course behind the 3:25 pacing group at this time, but resolved above to run my own race and just enjoy it. I didn't take long before I caught up with them again and the sort-of forced enthusiasm of the people running with the pacer irritated me. Though the pacer himself was very entertaining and would in two weeks be going for the world record marathon time dressed up like a cartoon character (Charlie Brown was his choice). At some point, one of the women in the group said to her husband "you better not expect me to respond to ANYTHING you say today". Ouch. I was not enjoying this negative energy and sort of let myself slip behind after an aid station. I drank and walked at every aid station and ate a little from my chocolate stash. They were every two miles, so it was easy to get behind.

I was having an unispired day. What can I say? But then around the half marathon, I heard someone yell: "Go Sea Legs Girl!" Not my first name, but my blog name and I was so incredibly struck by this. Someone had recognized me. And that's around the point I asked myself - what am I doing in this race if NOT going for a PR? I simply couldn't run this race and come in just behind my current PR. That would be pathetic. So, with my ultra marathon mentality, I said to myself "12 miles left is nothing! Go for it!" and so I did.

Edit (race pictures are now available)This was taken right around the time I got my burst of energy. (this is the only picture I have seen of me running where I have good running form)

Perhaps it was the entire bar of dark Hershey's chocolate or the already six cups of gatorade or all of the fans or the girl who yelled Sea Legs Girl - but suddenly it was fun and I was bursting with energy.

I just have to mention - I didn't stop to pee once. How -after downing coffee prerace was this possible, you ask? Controlled, continuous urination. I mean, if a person can sweat buckets, it should also be okay to simply pee a very little bit continuously throughout the race, right? I did this at Skovloeberen, too, and as far I can tell, it is unnoticeable to people around me (I do wear black shorts).

So back to the race - the second half was simply a ton of fun where I passed lots of people including the 3:25 pacing group. The only thing that seemed to slow me down at the end was the stupid decision to drink water at the aid station with 3 miles to go. I got so light-headed! Would it be a bad idea to actually ban water at marathons and only have sports drink?? Would that be taking things too far? (Here (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/05/how-much-to-drink-during-a-marathon/)is an article I just ran across in the NY Times that irks me. The authors repeats "don't drink too much" while running a marathon. But she misses the key word: "don't drink too much water". As long as you are drinking isotonic sports drink, you will never get hyponatremic, assuming it has been mixed correctly. So drink up! But avoid water.)

Anyway, you all know my final time by now: 3:24:05. I was pleased, but this time seemed to be a long time coming. And, to be honest, I never really felt like I was pushing it. And I find myself wondering what my limiting factor is. Certainly the last mile, my joints felt so sore that I could not have run much further, but I still had a bunch of surplus energy. Weird. Though starting out faster than I did has killed me three times in the past.

In other news, we found the house we are going to rent in La Crosse from now through July 31st. It is actually the lower level of a house. I was not at all excited about the idea of renting yet another crappy, small apartment, adding it to the every-growing list of crappy, small apartments I/we have lived in, so finding this part of a house for rent on Craigslist in a nice neighborhood with three bedrooms and partially furnished seems so far to be a God send!

New marathon PR

2011-10-02T22:26:00.003+02:00

Yep, I couldn't leave you hanging. I could write a really long, detailed race report, but you'd be liable to scroll through it just find the time anyway.

It was a perfect day for running a marathon and The Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon is a fast course. I had no excuses, nothing went wrong, I ran a 1:40 negative split and felt comfortable the whole way until the last mile. I ran on the shoulder of the road in the gravel the whole first half of the marathon to save my joints and muscles. (I ran in my minimalist trail shoes :)).

The final time was 3:24:05, so an over 3 minute PR. I even ran without a garmin and without music!

SR also thinks he ran a PR by a few seconds in 2:49 - something. (I'll have to update his time when the results are up).

What an awesome day! Now we're off to La Crosse, WI to see the step kids.

The Inaugural Å til Åsen

2011-09-30T21:03:00.006+02:00

When I left you two weeks ago I had just gotten my body out of the shape of a capital gamma symbol after intervals. If you had heard that I subsequently have been laying on cold, cement floor in the dark, unable to get out of the gamma position, I can reassure you that this rumor wasn't true.

Nope, the truth is that I got myself into an even more precarious position, and that was one of race director. It is probably not the best time to debut as a race director when you have a two month old. In fact I had NO CLUE how much time an event like this would require. (an event like this= 5k, half marathon and marathon on an out and back trail).

The race appeared in our local paper, Sjaellandske, a couple weeks before it was run and it suddenly turned from what I like to consider a "cannonball" run (low-key and arranged at the last minute) to Naestved's new trail race for charity. And with that, I needed to step it up. It needed to run flawlessly. I needed to get official permission of all of the land owners the trails went through (and for this I needed to personally walk up to the door of some enormous estate owners and beg and plead). I needed to seek local sponsorship for things like energy drink and prizes. I ended up getting Sportmaster, Maxim and Spar Nord (the latter is a bank that even donated $400 to Unite for Sight because they like sponsoring local events). And suddenly I had created this giant and I nearly cracked under the pressure. It also drove SR nuts. But when it came down to it, he was out setting up race markings, aid stations, etc. with me from sun up to sun down the day before the race.

Since Unite for Sight fund raising events require that I personally spend no money on fund raising, I also needed to get the blessing of our local athletic club to use their signs, their plastic ribbons and arrow maker, their cups and water canisters and chairs and tables, etc., etc.

And it was amazing how people offered to help - even some people at the last minute. Some people helped the entire day and even on days leading up to it (yes, Stig, Anette, Morten, Mathilde, Hoeg family, mom, I am talking about you!)

Oh my gosh - now I am boring you- but seriously, the night before the race I vowed repeatedly "I will never do this again" and SR was happy to chime in: "no, you WILL never do this again".

But then at 9:30 am the day of the race, the runners came. They had smiles on their faces and were nervous. They were charming and enthusiastic. They had dressed in their best race clothing and had taken money along and food to share at the aid stations. And the volunteers came and were also smiling and willing to help out. And suddenly organizing a race was wonderful.

And it was fun to try to keep things organized.

And Anette from our tri club was watching Mattias.

And The Lorax was watching his little cousin, Ayla.

SR and I held a rather flighty, only potentially helpful race briefing. And the runners started to line up.

Even I ran the 5k, hoping to keep runners from getting off course in the beginning. Having run nearly 180 km (109 miles) in the last 8 days, I wasn't going to set a PR, especially not on a hilly course. 21:17 was what I managed and that was fine.

How did the race go for everyone else?

Well, you can read Daniel's report here (in English). Or you can try to translate this section of a two page article from our local newspaper. Luckily, we had perfect weather and runners who seemed to love the challenging route.

Even Kim seemed to enjoy the half marathon route with a baby and jogger! The above newspaper article actually followed Kim through the route (the reporter was on his mountain bike). Just in case you were confused, Kim is a guy's name in Denmark.

Here are the results .

And suddenly, both SR and I found ourselves saying "of course we'll do it next year".

Plus, we raised $1481 for Unite for Sight.

And businesses have approached me about sponsoring next year. And I find myself unable to say no. Å til Åsen may just become a Næstved tradition.

Just have to add that I am writing this from the US - and in just two days we'll be running The Milwaukee Marathon. Goal: qualify for Boston and don't get injured before the Glacial Trail 50k next weekend. I am not good at road marathons (even my PR was set in a marathon half on trails). SR, on the other hand, is going for a PR and I think he will do it.

I have so many mixed feelings about being back in the US, but that will all come out in another post.

Running song of the day: Vi Lægger Ingenting I Dage by Tue West

This can't be normal

2011-09-15T19:12:00.011+02:00

Abnormality. We hate it. But we also love it. Perhaps that is why you are here. Or you are here because you are steadfast. Or a bot.

Regardless of the reason, you get a story.

Have you ever heard of interval-induced capital gamma symbol?

Well, I haven't either. Nonetheless, it happened to me today.

I had the plan of running intervals around the Herlufsholm dirt track again. This time I was foraging new territory: I would run 7 x 1 mile instead of 6 x 1 mile. Wow.

I had a 3.5 mile warm-up at between 11 and 12 minute pace. (when I'm not trying to run fast, I astound myself with how slowly I run)

After arriving at the track, putting my music on and getting into interval mode, it felt strangely effortless to run at suddenly nearly twice the speed.

First mile in 6:32

And then I bent over to get my water bottle, and squatted to pee. And my body locked. I could not straighten out my lower back and I was hanging there in, yes the shape of a capital gamma symbol. It hurt so bad that I started yelling. I couldn't straighten out no matter what I did. Nothing remotely close to this has ever happened to me before. Immediately I thought - so THIS is my "punishment" for starting intervals so quickly post-partum. I was contemplating whether I should go to the ER or a chiropractor (whilst looking at my watch, thinking I'll never be able to start my next mile with only a two minute pause!). My lower back would not stop quivering. Ow ow ow ow. Think calf cramp, but in your lower back that doesn't go away. And then I stood up, but as soon as I stood up, I was forced back into the gamma. OWWWW!!!! What on EARTH? So I started running, still in gamma shape. It made so little sense that it might just work. And it did. My back felt better. I regrouped in 20 seconds, lower back still shaking, to make it to the start line with just a 3 minute pause total (not ideal, but I'd take it). Running felt fine - but the whole mile I thought- will it come back?And then will I be eternally stuck??

To make a long story short, after every mile, it DID come back, but always to a lesser degree. Who knew that the only prescription for interval-induced gamma symbol was MORE intervals??? The proof is that I am sitting here writing about it.

My question is: has this happened to any of you before????? It was WILD. (in all honesty, I don't think it was entirelydue to my body changing post partum, I think it is because I have been sleeping in a weird position due to a cough and a bed on the floor (long story), which has been giving me upper back problems).

So you want to know how my 7 x 1 mile intervals went? Sure...

6:32 (3 minute pause, due to Γ position)
6:19 (2 min pause)
6:26 (2 min..)
6:28 (2..)
6:29 (2..
6:37 (feeling queasy, 2 min...)
6:34

These are, actually by far, my fastest mile intervals ever, with 6:19 being a mile interval PR! (I actually looked back at all of my old interval posts) and they don't feel like as much work as they did last year. And I did one extra. I'm struggling to explain this but thinking I should find a short race sometime soon (maybe a 10k?). Maybe part of the explanation is my weight is two pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight??

This week in pictures

Sometimes it doesn't pay to be fast.

Even not in profile, SR looks right sexy...

This picture was taken just before his 4k run-20k bike-2k run (duathlon) last Sunday in Sorø. He ran the first 4k, on a reportedly beautiful route in 11 minutes. He then transitioned on to his bike and was back from a 20k ride after what I had clocked as 10 minutes --- what? He then finished the final 2k run in a total time of 27.30 and ... he admitted that someone had given him incorrect directions on the bike route. He was otherwise far in the lead, and got out there so quickly that there was no one there yet who knew the route.

But Erik, the awesome race director from Sorø Tri, was so nice to give us a toy for each kid as compensation.

Despite having a "rough day", Amy Sproston
ran the 100k world championships in The Netherlands in 8:10, thus beating all four of the Danish men there, and taking 11th woman overall!!! Meghan Arbogast set a world record for women over 50 with a time of 7:51. Unreal.

This woman biked to the hospital in Copenhagen while having contractions.

And things turned out well.

(thanks, Emily Pease, for telling me about this!)

You're probably thinking she's Danish - but foreigners are the only ones doing weird things here and blogging about it. She and her husband are from Montreal :).

A Danish woman might instead ride to the hospital having contractions with her other kid in the bike seat on the back and never tell anyone.

Here is a picture of a tired mom, who took second place in our region's Scientific poster competition. Whoohoo!

And a little guy who, despite an unfortunate resemblance to his mother, is become less newbornish and more photogenic.

Running song of the week has been Steve Q's recommendation:Tecnho Fan by The Wombats (partly because it brings me closer to SR, who has been in London all week, but also because it's an awesome song)

Skovløberen Marathon 2011

2011-09-06T20:28:00.013+02:00

Let's see if I can write a train of thought post on a train. Just parenthetically, it feels so cool to be able to get on a German train from Copenhagen to Hamburg on a normal work day and just get off at my stop at Næstved. Also, sitting on the carpeted floor of the train, feels like a hip thing to do. This is what excites Americans like me. Why am I alone on a train? Today I was at day #2 og 3 of a Stata statistics program course at The University of Copenhagen.

After the Skovløberen marathon Sunday, I was dying to write a race report. I have never really been good at running a race tactically and successfully - that was until two days ago. I just haven't had time to write about it, well, because of the obvious fact that I have a baby and a three year old, but also because I was attacked by fever, nausea and vomiting. The Lorax had it two days earlier and SR in the middle of the night last night.

Then it dawned on me: there probably aren't many of you who want my advice on running a marathon. Plus most of you will look at my finishing time: 3:49 and think "that's not fast at all!" But this was a tough trail marathon (!); the way a marathon should be. Trails mean no injuries. Trails mean you can run the next day without pain.

But let's get to the race (take the advice if you like):

Skovløberen (The Forest Runner) is a unique experience in Danish marathoning. Aptly named, it is almost exclusively in a forest. It even goes over the highest peak on Sjælland (Steve Q will particularly appreciate that). Some of the trails are single track, some technical. None of it is repeated except the first and last 2 km, which are the only parts on roads. The scenery is gorgeous. It is in my favorite place in Denmark to run: Hvalsø Kirke (whale lake church), which I have discussed multiple times before. Finally, there are hundreds of spectators lining the route, 8 aid staions and an astounding amount of helpers. If you are going to run one marathon in Denmark, this is the one to do.

I started out slowly. I didn't eye up women. It was weird. I just wanted to run a smart race at a constant effort the whole way. It was a new kind of challenge. It was simply going to be a fun run - I didn't feel I could expect much more out of my first post-partum marathon and no tapering. I wanted to avoid looking a my Garmin. No music. Just me and the trails (and all of those other people). I was so tired from the week before - lots of hard training sessions (thanks to my mom!) and very little sleep. I was in such a daze before we got started that I didn't even realize my start number was my birth year: 79. Perhaps a good sign?

I was also trying to make sure everything was set up right for my mom with The Lorax and Mattias. Fortunately, SR had 2 hours before his half marathon started - and he would be a huge help to my mom.

It was fun to line up with so many friends: Birgitte, Anders, Britta, Jesper, Lasse, and Daniel (who actually sometimes comments here :)).

Once I was on the trails, my mind was clear. I realized that in order to maintain a constant effort, I needed to speed walk all the hills like I had seen the day before in the Race Walking world championship 50k in Daegu. Always have two feet on the ground, but go fast. Everyone seemed amazed by the fact that I could walk and actually pass people running up the hills. And it really protected my right hip, which was still giving me trouble. Beyond that, I didn't get out of breath going up hill. People have told me to do this many times, but I never really "got it" before.

At every aid station, I had chocolates wrapped in an American flag waiting for me (a very cool system they have of delivering personalized snacks out to the aid stations). I didn't rush the aid stations. I thus never dealt with lack of calories or dehydration.

As I neared the half marathon, one of the helpers pointed out to me that I was right behind the second and third place woman. This amazed me. This is, after all, the biggest trail marathon in Denmark (1100 participants in the quarter, half and whole marathon this year, though only 130 marathoners) - or maybe it's not the biggest; I just can't think of a bigger one. I came though the half marathon in 1:53. My finishing time on this course the year before was 3:54, but I had come through the half marathon MUCH faster - around 1:43. This time I felt like I could run the second half faster than the first. Why haven't I run all marathons like this??

I played it cool and hung behind the second and third place women until I couldn't hold out any longer and I passed (one of them was a good friend, Britta K and the other I didn't know). Then we joined the half marathoners, who had started 2 hours after us. This is where the race gets hectic and my new challenge was to try to figure out how to pass people politely. Continuing my tactic of powerwalking all hills made this easier.

Here is one of the few places out of the shade of the forest.

I was second woman and no women behind me as far as the eye could see. I passed and passed people, feeling as though I was running a faster and faster pace all the while. I passed a lot of men who had started the marathon too fast (wow - what a feeling to actually not be in their situation!). And suddenly - at the last aid station- I passed a woman with a yellow marathon number on. I was in first! She looked to be struggling and I didn't see her making an attempt to keep up. The last 5 km are wonderful because they are basically all down hill. I ran with all I could and made it to the finish line in 3:49 something. And as I crossed the finish line - nothing happened. Well, there were tons of spectators but no one cheered for first woman and most of all, SR, my mom, The Lorax, Mattias and SR's mom were nowhere to be seen. Weird. I had just won ... and... oh well.

Then they announced that the top three women were in and called my name for third place. Wha???

I then saw SR and he was like "what are you done??!! Already? Someone just fainted! I gotta help out! Did you get third?"

I asked how his race went and he said he got third in the half marathon and then he was off to play doctor. I probably should have helped, but they had just called me to the podium. Plus, SR handles those type of situations well.

To make a long story short, the woman who I had passed near the end with the marathon number on was not running the marathon and must have switched to running the half marathon at the last minute. Naughty!

The first place woman, Anne-Marie Lyngbye, was far ahead of me the entire race and finished in 3:34. She is a Hvalsø local. She had run the first 32km in 2:40, but then had stomach issues and ended up with a slower time than anticipated. But what an awesome performance on that course. She was actually 10th overall.

The second place woman - well, they never found "her" and only later Sunday night did I learn that the "woman" was a guy with the name Joan. And that confused everyone.

Long story short, I may have run the best marathon of my life thus far and it was all about concentrating on a constant effort and utilizing power walking on the hills and not getting behind on energy. It was the most fun I have had at a marathon with the exception of Copenhagen Marathon 30 weeks pregnant, which may never be surpassed. I beat my time from last year of 3:54, despite probably being in worse shape, simply because I ran smart.

SR ran the half in 1:24, which as stated got him a third place, in a much bigger race than mine. He, however, appeared to be enjoying it slightly less...

(actually I'm not sure whether he was having fun or feeling nauseated here)

but he's definitely coming back next year (and says he'll do the whole marathon instead).

Here are a couple of pics my mom took at the finish.

Now, the dowside of taking a train is we have been stuck on the tracks for 20 minutes without moving because the train in front of us stopped working...

The reality of Danish maternity leave

2011-09-02T18:54:00.008+02:00

(I'm already afraid of the "you're a bad mom" comments that will keep me awake at night)

"We have experienced that many 'ethnic' women suffer under the social control in Denmark"

This morning, as I heard one of the local Venstre party candidates say this on tv, I suddenly realized how "ethnic" I was.

Before we moved to Denmark, one of the few things I knew about Scandinavia was that there was a really long, paid maternity leave. And how could a woman who wants to have kids not be excited by this prospect? Of course, that was when I was living in the US. There were a lot of things I didn't realize then.

When a woman goes on maternity leave here, she is paid full-time salary because, well, her life beyond that of taking care of her baby, is supposed to stop. In some ways, maybe this is progressive. I mean, a woman is given the right to spend all her time with her baby and not worry about money or a job. And this contributes to the 98% rate of breast feeding in Denmark. Very, very impressive statistics compared to a country like the US, where in some states, only 50% of babies even get to try breast milk (think Mississippi and West Virginia), with the national average of babies ever breastfed being 70%. And only 35% of babies in the whole country are exclusively breast fed for 3 months, (CDC) whereas in Denmark 60% are.

It is cultural and it is built into their social system. And the system, looking at the statistics, works.

What about employment? Well, if you get a full 9 months paid maternity leave after having a baby, there isn't that big incentive to stop working. In Denmark 70% of women are employed and in the US it's just 59% (Danmarks Statistik and US Dept of Labor). This is however also partly attributed to the fact that families in Denmark simply can't afford to live comfortably on one salary.

So Denmark looks darn good in statistics. And they are the "happiest" country in the world year after year. And granted, it's a great place to live, as long as you agree with what everyone else thinks.

But here's my issue: if a "new baked mother", attempts to stray from her job as a full time mom, it is extremely difficult, expensive and socially unacceptable.

Basically, there is no child care available until a baby is nine months. Not even if you want to go back to work. Not even at the gym if you want to exercise for an hour. What about a babysitter, you ask? Well, then you would have to pay them by the hour and their legal hourly wage would actually be just slightly less than what I make as a physician. No kidding. So one can hardly rationalize the decision to start working again.

Right now, my mom is here, so I have been able to work and exercise. But both people at work and at the gym are wondering if I suffer from a psychiatric illness because I'm not spending 100% of my time with my baby.

When I look back on the first 9 months of The Lorax's life, I realize how extremely good I had it. I worked 12-18 hours a week, he was in day care 2 hours a day while I ran/swam/yoga'ed whatever. And I was so happy. More importantly, he was so happy. It was a magical time in our life. When I read my blog entries from that time, I see how much we both were glowing.

I have absolutely no less love for Mattias,

and yet, I feel I'm drowning in my new role as an exclusive mom while also trying to fit in the things I normally enjoy, including work, and trying to explain to the entire Danish society that "no, I'm not crazy and I DO love my kids"

Heavy topic for a Friday, I guess.

On to music...

I was wrong about the CSS song. As Steve Q said, it was too girly --- even for me! (I broke my cardinal rule: never recommend a running song before you run to it) THIS one ended up being good:

Running song of the day: Itchin' on a photograph by Grouplove.
(I have the same sort of child-like love for Grouplove that I have for The Jonas Brothers. Grouplove probably wouldn't be happy to know that)

Albertslundløbet ½ Marathon

2011-08-27T16:45:00.013+02:00

I've been a bad blogger. I didn't announce ahead of time that we were going to run this half marathon. But, then again, it wasn't until 3 days ago that I landed a couple free entries for SR and myself to the inaguaral Albertslundløbet, courtesy of Løbeklubben på Facebook.

But the real reason I didn't announce the race was I didn't want to put pressure on myself. I had thought it would be the type of course we could PR on (not that I'm in that kind of shape); as SR said "road half marathons don't lie!".

The thing we didn't know was that the race would be held during the thunderstorm of the year and that half of it was on trails - that had turned into a muddy mess. (all of this was fine by me, though, because the pressure to PR was gone).

Race start: 10:00 AM
Course: basically a big, winding circle on trails - half asphalt, half mud, lots of turns, very little elevation change. Very clearly marked (I didn't even get lost). Some areas of minor flooding.
Distance: 21 km, DAF opmålt (the distance was accurate)
Participants: 93 (72 men, 21 women)
Weather: lightning, thunder, drenching rain, brisk wind

It must be SR that got me started doing this - but I love scoping out the females ahead of time, trying to determine, by their body & other more subtle cues, how fast of a runner they will be. It's a weird and not very attractive habit. And I probably shouldn't admit it...

Anyway, I immediately spotted Karina Hansen as someone who would likely be good competition. And there was no small prize on the line - 1500 kr. ($300) gift certificate to Kaiser Sport + running style analysis. It only made sense that some fast runners would show up.

As far as SR's competition, well, the most notable was the Kenyan living in Copenhagen, Anthony Gikandy. He looked very fast.

Here is the start line, right before the downpour:

SR started out super slow, so I was actually right behind him the entire way around the track. That was odd. He said afterwards he just didn't want to start out in the lead.

Right after we left the track, the rain came. Shortly thereafter, lightning struck so close to us that we heard the thunder simultaneously. Cool (as long as you don't get charred!). I ran the first 5k in 21 and still felt good, but pouring rain and hard winds can slow you down fast, I found out. an arduous wet t-shirt contest

Plus we had to keep running through standing water. And I thus rather quickly gave up any last thought of a PR and just wanted to keep an even pace.

I'm going to skip the blablabla and just get to the end.

I never saw Karina or any other woman behind me. My time slowed in the headwinds and on trails and my average time got gradually slower. My right quadriceps tendon has been bothering me all week and bothered me a lot the last 5-6 km. But I managed to rally and at least run the last mile in a sub 7 min pace.

My final time was 1:39:33, which I was pleased with in the conditions and with my leg. Plus I had just won the equivalent of $300 (though I would soon find out I could only spend it on shoes + running style test).

(if you want to see the absolute worst picture of me ever taken running across the finish line, see here :) )

And then Charley, one of the coolest race directors in Denmark, said "din mand vandt også". So I turned to SR he was smiling, having won in 1:19:18, 4 minutes ahead of the second place, Anthony Gikandy.

So, I don't know whether or not to be pleased or disappointed. On one hand, it was not the fast time I was hoping for. But, on the other hand, SR and I both ran 6 minutes slower than our PR, so the hard conditions got to us equally. Or, even if we are both equally out of shape, we did both win - so, we agree to not dwell on it too much and just be happy about it.

Male winners

Female winners

Great race, despite the weather.

result list

Edit: I have been really down on myself because I thought I had run a half marathon in 1:36 5 weeks post-partum with The Lorax, but it was 3 MONTHS post-partum. Ok, I don't feel so bad now. Relax....... ah. Is it any wonder my mom said yesterday "SLG, I'd been worried you had OCD since you were 9 and you wouldn't stop obsessing about your timed math tests."

Running song: øv. My iPod is non-functional again. I swear I will make up for this! (song I'm counting on being good: Hits Me Like a Rock by CSS)

That's how I won a triathlon

2011-08-23T19:01:00.014+02:00

Did you ever just take a step back and think to yourself "I can't believe I've become one of those people who wears a unitard triathlon suit?"

And then did you ever take an even bigger step back and think "I can't believe I'm talking about what I'm wearing instead of talking about the 4 week old baby in my arms?"

Well, along those lines, this is why I'm having so much trouble writing a blog post, when so much of my life and thoughts revolve around this little guy. But I always wonder how much a reader would get out of learning exactly how much Mattias' double chin grew in the last 24 hours.

So I'll write briefly about our triathlon on Sunday (hence the title). You see, if I were actually good, I would never mention the fact that I won (like mmmonyka, who won a big triathlon and hardly mentioned it! Congrats, mmmonyka!). But this was probably the one chance I'll have in my life to say it, so there it is, in the title. And now I will ever so briefly and smally mention the fact that there were only three female participants...

So our Herlufsholm Club Championship Tri was an interesting distance: 600 meter swim, 20 km bike and 6 km run.

SR and I both participated and my mom came along to watch us, Mattias and this guy...

The Lorax has developed a fascination with playing with toy eyes that has developed completely unrelated to my job as an ophthalmologist. It's a little weird.

That's SR with the Orca suit, which he repaired from me ripping it while pregnant with neoprene sealant (actually I wasn't pregnant with neoprene sealant, but with a baby. Sorry about the confusion). He's so thrifty. And he looks good in skin-tight foam neoprene.

That is actually me - the woman already in the water.
The swim went okay for me, though not super as I had gone on a long swim the day before. SR actually beat me - for once. So either he had a good swim or I had a bad one. Neither of us knew our swim times, unfortunately. I was the first woman out of the water, though!

My transistion was not without hindrance. I got to my bike and I was huffing and drying off and struggling to get the wetsuit off as my mom said, "SLG, can you help me find a nuk for Mattias?" Well, how can you say no?

Anyway, I found the nuk and got on my bike. It does appear that I'd lost some of my competitive drive at that point.I felt awesome on the bike and could see from my Garmin pace that I was booking it. I passed the one woman who had gotten ahead of me in the transition zone (our club captain, Anette) and then as I was ascending a hill in front of her, my chain fell off. Øv. Too much hyper-shifting on my part. But I put the chain back on and ascended the rest of the hill. After about 2-3 minutes, I repassed her. I love biking like a bat out of hell down big hills with sharp turns in traffic. This used to scare me, but these days I embrace it.

I saw all the men coming back after the turn around and figured I should turn soon, but missed the turn around and went over 1 km in the wrong direction. Øv. By that time I figured I had missed something. I biked back as fast as possible to maybe, maybe catch up to Anette again. And with 1km left of the bike, I passed her.

22 km + chain falling off in 44:45.

I don't wear bike shoes, so my transition to running is always fast.

The Lorax looked to be doing okay, driving an eye around on his police car.

And I was ready to run! That's my iPod I'm fumbling with.
I was happy with my running pace and felt good on a hilly route. I just wished I would have had a woman near me to push me a little bit. But as it was, I got a good 6km training run out of it in 26:50.

Here is SR, feeling great, and like all three disciplines went well for him, though he had not kept track of time during the race. He ended up taking 3rd for the men, which he was pleased with.

For those of you who don't regularly hang out with triathletes, our male club champion. Søren's bike is pictured below (plate wheel). It cost 65,000 kroner. That is about $12,000. I imagine it is a fast bike. And I also have to say he is a very cool guy and a talented triathlete. But new triathletes, don't be scared: I got my bike for $600 and I love it.

Afterwards the tri club grilled and ate a wonderful lunch. Even my mom said she had a really fun time, despite not understanding more than 1% of what was said the entire day. And I, well, I'll enjoy my little victory while I can. Thanks, HG Tri!

Intervals & cultural lessons in post-partum exercise

2011-08-18T18:01:00.004+02:00

I guess when you have really low expectations, it's easy to be pleased. And I had tons of excuses I was prepared to use if my intervals didn't go well: "I'm 3 weeks post partum", "I haven't run intervals in over 9 months", etc. I really didn't know how early was too early to start interval training, but I "chanced it" (what I was chancing, I don't know) because it felt right.

4 mile warm up. Perfect temperature, almost no wind. 8:30 am.

Arrive at Herlufsholm's old dirt track. 6 x 1 mile intervals with exactly 2 minute breaks between.

7:09
6:55
6:48
6:45
6:48
6:36

You know that when you feel like doing more after you're done that you did not go hard enough. But maybe it was my legs that were my limiting factor today and not my heart and lungs?? (I don't know why that until today I had never though of going the opposite direction on the track on alternating miles - to sort of even out the effort of the legs)

Am I wrong in thinking this means I could run a 10k in under 42 minutes right now? Suddenly I'm excited by the idea of shorter races. Honestly, I never get a runner's high during long, slow training runs, but, intervals, well, I certainly had one today!

Now, let me just say a few words about post-partum exercise (granted this section doesn't apply to everyone, but I've gotta get it out of my system). I've just gotten tired of so much bad advice based on old-fashioned beliefs, especially here in Denmark.

Women are told here by physicians to wait 8 weeks before beginning any kind of exercise besides walking (happily, my midwife said I could start running whenever I felt ready as long as I stopped if I had an increase in bleeding).

According to the Danish pregnancy book given to me at my first prenatal visit: Graviditet, fødsel og den nye familie (2009) p. 125:

- "No matter what kind of shape you are in, you will not be able to run or hop for three months."
- "Maybe you dream of a flat stomach again, but you should avoid sit-ups."

Then again, if you consult The Mayo Clinic's patient guide from the US, they advise the following:

"In the past, health care providers often instructed women to wait at least six weeks after giving birth to begin exercising. The waiting game may be over, however. If you exercised during pregnancy and had an uncomplicated vaginal delivery, it's generally safe to begin exercising within days of delivery — or as soon as you feel ready."

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/exercise-after-pregnancy/MY00477

Of course, I didn't need to look these two sources up. It was simply of cultural interest. I am not aware of any evidence that post-partum exercise quickly after birth gives an increased risk for any health problems down the road - or even at the time.

I very much believe that the more quickly you are able to start exercising again after giving birth, the more quickly you'll begin to feel like your old self again.

And I know I'm not alone in thinking this. Here is Joy (American, of course)

out for a run less than a week after having here baby boy, Zeke. Looking beautiful, Joy!

One risk I have heard is prolonged incontinence. Clearly right after you give birth you'll have problems leaking urine when you run or jump. But there is no evidence that you will have a prolonged recovery/incontinence down the road if you start running early post-partum. Here is a good review article that helps debunk that theory:

Jiang K, et al. Exercise and Urinary Continence in Women. Obstetrical & Gynecological Survey. October 2004 - Volume 59 - Issue 10 - pp 717-721.

(personally, I was over the incontinence problem after between 1 and 2 weeks when running and I totally forgot about doing Kegel exercises this pregnancy).

There has also been some discussion in the comments section of this blog about running or exercise affecting milk production. SR came up with a cow analogy that I like: "What would you rather have your milking cow do, roam around in a field all day or be penned up in a cage?" But if you prefer human evidence: exercise even seems to also be okay with concomitant weight loss during lactation. See this study for more: McCrory MA, Nommsen-Rivers LA, Mole PA, Lonnerdal B, Dewey KG. A randomized trial of the short-term effects of dieting vs dieting with aerobic exercise on lactation performance. Am J Clin Nutr.1999;69 :959– 967.

What other concerns do people have? For me, the biggest concerns would be eating disorders, osteopenia, stress fractures - but these are concerns for all exercising women, though maybe even more so in the post-partum period.

Now finding the opportunity to exercise as a new mom - THAT is another matter. Especially in Denmark where there is absolutely NO day care available until a child is 9 months. 9-12 month's maternity leave for a mother in Scandinavia sure sounds luxurious, but with no possibility for a break, it is way more than a full-time job.

Is it any wonder with the above factors that there were 1197 men finishers at Challenge Copenhagen ironman and only 169 women?! (it's not quite 50/50 at US ironmans, but it is much closer).

Interval running song of the day: Dance Floor by Apples in Stereo x 12 (why change it if it works??), cool down song by a Dane living in the US: We Turn it Up by Oh Land

I guess I'll be an "RD" soon

2011-08-14T14:34:00.015+02:00

Ha ha. No. Not a registered dietician. A race director, of course.

And with that, two big dreams of mine might come true...

About a week ago I found out I was accepted to volunteer in Honduras with Unite for Sight (which a friend of mine, Jennifer Staple, started back as an undergrad student). This organization

provides sight-saving surgeries in very poor areas of the world without any cost to the patients and with very high quality. SR, The Lorax, Mattias (maybe Natti?) and I will thus all be going to Honduras this January!

(nope, that's not me)

And this race director thing? Well, part of the "deal" with volunteering with U f S is you need to raise $1700 to help fund their care. That, ya know, is a LOT of money. And the best way I could think of to round a sum like this up was to organize a run. (I simply cannot bring myself to send emails asking for money from friends and family - even for such a good cause - I just feel like people have to get something out of their donation other than self-righteousness/ "peace of mind"), but here is my fundraising page, since you're insisting.

For the past two years, I have talked about organizing a new trail run in our area of Denmark. My initial idea was that it would be a 50miler/80k race, but I don't think I'll get enough participants to raise the money. So the it will be 3 shorter distances. Here are the details:

What: Å til Ås* 5k, ½ marathon & marathon
When: September 25, 10:30 AM
Where: Mogenstrup to Gavnø and back again (start at Fladsåhallen)
Description: 50% on hilly forest trails, 50% on bike paths. Initial 5k loop and then out and back race for both the ½ and full marathon.
Supported by: Herlufsholm Triathlon Klub

*
Å: River
Ås: Esker (look it up!)

Soon I'll have a website with lots of picture and 3 course maps, but give me a little time! I know most of you who read this will have a pretty tough time getting to it, but I hope it's okay I mention it. And you're all invited, of course.

Here are just a few teaser pictures of the half marathon and marathon routes, which I have posted before:

(a lot of it is actually in the woods, but I just can't find those pictures right now)

But I also have a new one for you (bigger, better 8lb 13oz/4kg baby! draped in duckies):

My iPod broke in the rain this week (just fixed it today!), so I have no new running songs. Instead I'll give you an old favourite, simply because the lead singer's name is Mattias :) "We are there, you are out here" by Dúné.

News: Challenge Copenhagen ironman was held yesterday. Congrats to the two Aussies, Tim Berkel and Rebekah Keat, on their wins (8:11 and 8:52). Results here.

Avnø Fjord Marathon

2011-08-07T16:26:00.013+02:00

Facts-

1. I have a husband who was willing to watch a 2 week old baby and a 3 year old while I ran a marathon.

2. I had not run this far in 12 weeks and I had really missed it.

3. Morten and Susanne celebrated running their 100th marathon today. Susanne had the stipulation that she needed to run all 100 on different courses. That is how we ended up running in long, wet grass around an old airport on the Avnø Fjord!

Just a little summary of my own training. I had run 17.9 miles on Wednesday in 3 hours, so I figured this meant I could handle running a marathon in 4½ hours fairly comfortably. I thus started with the group who would be running a marathon in 4½ hours.

Granted 4½ sounds like an ok time to run a marathon, but I wish I were back where I used to be. I have to admit, I am not close to being "back" yet. This is in stark contrast to swimming and biking, where I have been beating time & distance records right and left since I gave birth. I have to figure the difference lies in the weight-bearing nature of running and the changes my body has gone through.

Back to today. When we arrived, we could barely open the car doors agains the wind and pelting rain. There is no place in the world where wind can whip up like an open fjord next to the ocean.

As you can see from the running route, there was only a very brief section (6) in the woods and the rest of the time we were battling swamp-like long grass and a wind that could take any anorexic down. On the other hand, there were no hills. And the rain stopped after around 6km. I should add that it's a good thing incontinence issues are behind me since there was really nowhere to hide!

I ran most of the first half marathon with Henriette and we were on pace to come in in about 10 minutes ahead of time. But, as I had feared, I hit that point where I simply got very tired, hungry and thirsty all at once (I remember this from my frist post-partum experience). I don't think it was a reflection of my pre-race fueling or my race fueling as I had eaten a lot leading up to the marathon and had drunk 1-2 cups of water/coke every 3km. My hips also started feeling tight. I get this almost immediately when I run on asphalt since I gave birth. Luckily there was very little asphalt today (I would not have run it otherwise). I told myself that as soon as a started feeling any pain, I would stop. The goal of the day was to build my endurance again - and avoid injury at all costs!

After 30km, SR, The Lorax and El Guapo (Mattias) arrived.

Photo: Tor Rønnow

Things were still going well and I was on pace to finish right around 4h30min as planned. About an hour earlier, I had gone into the Nature Center to get my backpack with my sports drink, Buff and iPod, which had helped pep me up. Right around 35km, however, my right hip started to hurt. I stopped and walked. I wanted to make it back to watch El Guapo while SR ran the children's race with The Lorax, but it wouldn't be. My hip would not cooperate. Here I am hobbling in after 36km (my Garmin said 22.9 miles).

not a good day to forget sunscreen

No point in battling through the last loop. It had been a good day - I was determined to go home uninjured.

The Lorax, ready to race.

And bringing it on.

Challenging, beautiful, humbling experience, with tons of awesome volunteers who made it happen. I sat down in the long grass and breastfed Mattias. Life is good.

Running Songs of the Day:

Maniac by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (free download here)
Fight Test by The Flaming Lips

Week 1 with a new baby

2011-07-30T17:12:00.013+02:00

Finally, I think, all of the big changes in the last 7 days are starting to catch up with me. After a lacklustre tempo bike ride, I took my first nap since Mattias was born and woke up not knowing if I he still existed or whether it was day or night or even where I lived.

If you had asked me just 3 days ago, I would have said I had never had so much energy; I had gone from having a huge baby growing inside of me to suddenly having my little, light body again. And that pregnancy brain fog was gone. And the swelling was gone. But, the truth is,I'm only now starting to appreciate the huge change my body has gone through (not to mention my psyche), now providing life and love for a being that is outside of my body.

The only way I feel like I can discuss or understand these changes is to talk about them one at a time.

1. Breastfeeding: less than 24 hours after Mattias was born, a large amount of milk arrived in my mammary glands. I think my boobs doubled in size in 24 hours. And Mattias was on them. But despite being "on them", he couldn't quite get to the right place on his own. He would peck and warble like a bird, as always, but without my hand there to fit his mouth on, I have to wonder if he'd ever find the target. (I have learned to sleep with a flashlight to help him find the way in the middle of the night.)

2. Growing Baby:

We had the standard Danish home visit from the infant nurse and she was quite pleased. She was amazed how quickly my milk had came and that he had actually gained weight in his first five days.

Here he is: examined and then weighed the old fashioned way, with a metal hand weight and a piece of cloth. Up from 2980 grams (6 lbs 9 oz) to 3200 grams (7 lbs 1 oz)!! The Lorax had lost weight in the beginning and was finally up to his birth weight after a week. I have trouble explaining the discrepancy. But I had been amazed that Mattias seemed to eat constantly.

3. Sleeping: I sleep between Mattias and The Lorax. SR sleeps in the guest bed. This has prevented either of the boys from crying at night and helped us both sleep relatively well. I do constantly have the fear of - "what IF I roll over on top of him", but I haven't even gotten close to this yet. Fortunately. And he and I sleep without a blanket, just to be extra safe.

4. Weight: I am, as of today, down 15 lbs. 3 more to prepregnancy weight. I am completely amazed the weight has come off this quickly, considering I gained two extra pounds this time. It took me 3 months to get down to pre-pregnancy weight with The Lorax and with only 16 lbs weight gain. If things continue in the same way, I'll be below within the next few days. I am well aware that previous eating disorders can easily come back post-partum. I see super thin women and I get scared. I don't want it to happen. Sounds easy enough to avoid, but if you've experienced being super light, you know how invigorating and addicting it is. Well, I'm not quite super light yet, as you can see, but feeling good.

Post partum day 5

Post partum day 7

(as SR kindly pointed out: "You still don't have a 6 pack." Will I ever??? I wondered silently.)

5. Running. Well, it feels awesome! And, as I've stated before, I feel as if I'm flying. But in reality, I can't keep up with women I normally could pass. And I definitely don't think I couldn't keep up with her:

(Did anyone else see Vivian Cheruiyot's 14:20 5000 yesterday?? Wow!)

I have gone on two runs that were between 2 and 3 hours and I felt really good in the beginning, but I get tired and dehydrated and hungry near the end. But when all or half of my run I'm pushing this, I guess it's not too surprising. I am planning to run a social marathon next weekend with friends just outside of Næstved, though I am doubtful I can run the whole thing. As long as I don't run too fast, though, nothing hurts (and I can hold my urine). I can't wait to start training for real soon. I figure I have one shot in my life at getting fast and that is in this coming year. Hooray for the doping effect of pregnancy.

5. Swimming: when is it I can start again? My bleeding stopped after just 3 days, except for a little bit at night when I breast feed. Anyway, I'm going swimming tomorrow with our tri club in the ocean (bear in mind the ocean is the cleanest swimming water available - in terms of development of post-operative infection anyway, chlorinated pools being the most likely to cause infection.).

6. Biking: this is where I shine right now. I can do tempo 35 km bike rides at a pace very close to where I was prepregnancy. Nothing hurts. It just feels great. And I've noticed I have developed this sort of fearless tactic. I no longer have a need to break going downhill and actually pedal to go as fast as possible - maybe because I just experienced the worst pain conceivable and I just can't imagine flying from a bike being worse :). Yeah, I wear a helmet.

7. Urinating. Don't ask, don't tell :). Okay, I've already mentioned it above, so, when I run or jump, I tend to wet my pants. I had the same problem last pregnancy and it went away. I'm sure it will go away again - though if you ask "experts" they will say running will make incontinence problems worse later. Well, I don't buy it.

8. Exercising in general - can you do that? I get this question all of the time in real life. One young woman was a perfect example of this: "My doctor told me not to exercise for 8 weeks afterwards". My response "well, I started exercising the day after and I feel fine. Waiting so long would just prolong recovery. I don't know why you would do that. I have the utmost respect for women who take time off from exercising so they can be with their baby, but if it's out of health concerns for their own body, it makes NO sense whatsoever to me to wait, as long as nothing hurts."

9. Developing a relationship with my youngest son. This is such a strange time in motherhood. On one had, I have this extreme attachment to this helpless, beautiful, cooing creature. And he depends on me for everything. And yet, he is a blank slate. I do not know him. We share no past and no memories together. I don't know why I expected my feelings for him to be the same as mine for The Lorax. (maybe because all parents talk about loving their children equally). But developing a relationship like that will take years!

10. My husband. SR is enjoying his time off, in most ways. He is, as he puts it, "getting into shape" and he has also lost quite a bit of weight. He is excited about the year of racing to come. But he is still torn up by the fact that he has a new baby, reminding him of his first kids, and is unable to share all of this with them and see them during all of his time off.

Right now he is outside playing soccer with The Lorax. He could not be a better dad. I could post a picture of him in the bathtub with the two boys, but it would just embarrass him. You all know how cute my husband is, anyway.

11. The Lorax. He is wonderful. And has been always stepping up to help with the baby, despite having a much more traumatic week than me.

I guess the Neko Case line sums up my life the best: "but morning finds you, still warm and breathing".

Not just Mattias, but all of them. I am thankful when I wake up in the morning that this is all real.

Finnbjørn enters our world

2011-07-24T16:09:00.009+02:00

Introducing Mattias Prachthauser Høeg

Born at 39 weeks +0
6lb 9oz (2980 grams)
19 inches (48 cm)

He already seems like a calm, pleasant, strong fellow.

His mother, however, could not be described with the same adjectives during his birth...

As I described in my previous blog post, my water broke at 2am and I called my midwife. She told me to try to go back to sleep and meet her at the hospital at 9 am, or earlier if the contractions got going. Otherwise I would have the option of being induced. So I figured there was no hurry. But I called SR, telling him to drive the hour from Copenhagen and get his backup to take over his call. He was home by four and I was having irregular contractions and just couldn't sleep. I checked my email, posted on Facebook and Blogger, ate breakfast and had some good coffee. I would go from having regular contractions to nothing at all and nothing stronger than what I had been experiencing the entire week before. Everyone said "you will know when the real labor comes". I woke up SR and we talked about the day to come and said maybe we should go over to the hospital now so things weren't too rushed. But I could tell he was sick of getting there and having them repeat "you are only 1cm" (we had been there twice since my contractions has started last Saturday). He repeated "there is no way you are dilated if you haven't been having more pain." A few minutes later, I had the feeling I needed to have a bowel movement, but something struck me as odd when there was a little blood in the toilet"

"We are going to the hospital now." I said to SR. He obliged, suggesting maybe we drive. I drank a little more coffee and had a half of a roll and said, "my contractions feel better when I walk". So we walked.

Suddenly every 10 steps, I had a contraction that brought me to my knees. I started to make loud noises in pain, thinking I was glad it was a Saturday and my colleagues weren't on their way to work. We normally live a 5 minute walk away from the obstetrics department, but after 10 minutes, we were only half way there and while SR insisted he go back and get the car, I crawled into a mysteriously open back door to the hospital's linen department. I screamed like I have never screamed. THIS was pain no human should endure, I thought. And it would only subside for about 15 seconds at a time. I screamed and screamed like a chimpanzee that had been shot in the belly. A lady came out from washing hospital linens asking if she should get a nurse. "YES!" I said. Then another lady came up to me "What is wrong??" "I'm having a baby" I managed to utter (speaking in a foreign tongue had never been such a challenge). My midwife (who had apparently suspected I might come early) and a nurse ran to me with a wheelchair and must have lifted me into it, but I can't remember a thing. I also don't remember when SR got there, but suddenly we were in a birthing room and they tore off my shoes and shorts and said they could see his head. Despite it being way too late for any pain control, I screamed that they had better find something otherwise I couldn't do it. (But of course no woman really has a choice at this point). I had never felt so desperate and helpless - and later I would have one heck of a sore throat from all of the screaming.

My midwife, who is exceptionally good, thought quickly and got out an oxygen mask and acupuncture needles. Now I, who normally am a big believer in acupuncture, thought to myself "get your fucking piece of shit eastern medicine away from me. I want the real stuff." But I kept this to myself as she placed four needles in my back and put the oxygen mask on me - and suddenly, for some reason, the pain wasn't as bad and I thought I could do it. I pushed during the next contraction with a will power that seemed to come from a force inside me I never knew I had, and his head and then his body were out. Wow. And the worst pain, which I had, up to this point, never been capable of imagining, was over.

Unlike The Lorax's birth, where he came out and I was just filled with calm, happiness and love, I could hardly gather my thoughts as I pulled this new little baby up into my arms.

I had no energy. I felt so confused and in disbelief that I was holding my own son.

My emotions felt so inappropriate. Rather than saying how beautiful he was and crying, I simply said if I ever did it again, I wanted to get there in time to get an epidural. SR and the midwife had to laugh a little at this. Not the brave, admirable attitude they were expecting.

But then I started to gather myself again. And I remarked he was so pink and healthy-looking compared to the Lorax, who had been more of a gray-blue color when he came out. And, as SR held him, he noticed that Mattias could actually almost completely hold his head up. "None of the other kids could do that!" he mused. I had to admit, he was much more interactive, too, in comparison to how The Lorax had been. I'm only saying this because I figure it was because there was no epidural, no drugs and it went so quickly. Even if the epidural would have been better for me, having nothing really seems to be better for the baby (not that I'm suggesting an epidural is dangerous in any way for a baby).

We were in the hospital just over 10 minutes before he was born and then just over 4 hours later, we were home. Unreal how quickly everything went. I can't believe how fooled I was, but my contractions really never got worse than my false labor contractions until I was completely dilated and pushing! I will never know when the actual dilation of the cervix happened, I guess. But if you are pregnant a second time and your water breaks - DON'T underestimate how quickly it can go even without regular contractions!

Back at home, I tried to nap, but couldn't sleep thinking about our little new son and how I just wanted to hold him and look at him. And I was so excited for The Lorax to come and meet him. We had SR's family over for dinner and The Lorax responded to "his baby" with excitement and love. And I became such a proud mom. Suddenly nothing is more important to me than the relationship these two boys have.

I slept last night with Mattias on one side and The Lorax on the other. And we slept over 9 hours. It was wonderful. Mattias didn't cry once, but simply started making little warbling bird noises and moving his mouth towards my chest when he wanted to breast feed (I had forgotten this would be about every two hours).

I had tried out the BOB dualie baby jogger last night and it was so smooth and I was amazed I could actually run on the day I'd given birth. Today I ran for 40 minutes with the boys and did half an hour on the elliptical and a pulse class. Other than the jumping up onto the step bench (which I had to abstain from), I felt better than on Friday when I'd worked out last. And especially running went well. It didn't hurt. I wasn't short of breath. I felt I was sprinting effortlessly, though in reality I'm sure I wasn't going that fast. I never would have been able to do this postpartum day #1 last pregnancy (in fact, we were still in the hospital).

So I am one happy woman. And SR has some paternity leave so we can enjoy this time together. It's almost enough to make up for the fact that Andy Schleck didn't win The Tour de France.

Guess this is it...

2011-07-23T05:11:00.004+02:00

Can anyone seriously sleep after their water breaks?? Mine (of course) just broke at 2am. Not only is it exciting, but it is uncomfortable! SR could not have said it better: "well, he just went from the shape of a beach ball to a turkey." Our little turkey. I just can't wait to see him!!

I just posted the big news on Facebook and couldn't believe how quickly responses started coming. Facebook is fun sometimes.

Right now I am having kind of irregular but very strong contractions between sips of coffee and bites of my breakfast (toast, if you're interested).

We're supposed to meet the midwife at 9am unless things progress really quickly. I guess time will tell.

UPDATE - The last three contractions were just four-five minutes apart. It's getting close and I am SO EXCITED!!!

The last week has been pretty rough with contractions for about 12 hours a day every day that were regular and painful in the back, but then they would just peter out or disappear. But yesterday, the infamous "mucous plug/bloody show" landed in my undewear and I figured things were getting closer. (it was right after I had returned home from 45 minutes spinnning, 45 minutes elliptical, 1½ hours circle training (high intensity training for the whole body) and a 20 minute run (this was after having been up half of the night with contractions). When exercising and my pulse rose over 140, I had a painful, long contraction every time. I figured if all this didn't start the labor, nothing in my power could.

Maybe it worked. Or maybe it was just time. It is exactly 39 weeks today, one day earlier than the birth of The Lorax.

Hope your day is less painful than mine!

False Alarm Finnbjørn

2011-07-19T14:27:00.004+02:00

I suppose I shouldn't leave you all hanging anymore. I am, after all, really glad I have this blog. And really grateful there are women out there willing to share their weird labor stories.

Though, as SR pointed out yesterday, "the people who write their stories in the comments are those with extreme stories. No one ever writes about normal things happening." Or do they? I'm not so sure. While I don't for a moment think that the women who comment on this blog represent at random sample, I am continually amazed by peoples' honesty and willingness to share - whatever their story.

So, clearly I have no baby to brag about yet. Otherwise there would have been a big, gleaming picture of Finnbjørn.

What happened on Saturday and Sunday was a relatively extreme experience for me, a woman who has led fairly a mundane life, and who thrives on predictability. Suddenly experiencing regular contractions at rest, I was sure I was in labor. And I wasn't mentally prepared. I cried multiple times in a panicked state. And SR dared to mutter the words "I'm scared", which were words far too meaningful for me to even formulate. We couldn't sleep and when we went to the hospital, right next door, we took the Baby Bjørn along, sure we would come home with a baby. We can only look back on it and laugh a little at how wrong we were.

Sunday afternoon, my contractions stopped. SR and I were alone at that time and took a nap, went on a run and a bike ride. I was dead tired, though. And my uterus was extremely sore. The other weird thing was that Finnbjørn kicked and squirmed like I have never felt before, without any rest for the nearly 24 hours I had contractions. I was concerned about him. It was almost as if he was in distress. But he calmed down afterwards, too.

Monday morning, I felt better. I went on a 30k bike ride, swam 70 pool lengths and then ran for an hour. All things considered, exercising went fairly normally. Then I ate lunch and the contractions started again. Every 4-12 minutes and some very strong. Some so strong I had to do serious deep breathing and started sweating. They lasted until around 7pm and then went away again, while eating dinner with my parents, who are currently visiting. I woke up a few times at night with contractions, but today there really haven't been any.

Today, I ran, went to Pulse/step/core class and uncharacteristically for me, used the elliptical. Raising my pulse simply makes me feel a heck of lot better.

But, what are these contractions?

Well, I think they are simply Braxton Hicks contractions of rest. I mean, it's not labor unless the cervix is opening at the same time, and I'm not really experiencing anything painful enough to open a cervix. (1cm open, by the way, just seems to be a very stable configuration for the nearly-ready cervix and shouldn't be interpreted as a sign of active labor). And why would a woman NOT get Braxton Hicks at rest? I mean, even when we are resting our bodies are working. And when we are digesting food, stressed, tired, dehydrated, you name it, our bodies are working a little harder and that may just be enough to start the Braxton Hicks of rest. Why some women don't experience them and why I didn't experience them during my last pregnancy, I am not sure.

As soon as I came to terms with the fact that it wasn't labor, I felt a lot better. I mean, I have been dealing with Braxton Hicks during exercise for months now, so I should be able to deal with them at rest, RIGHT?

But there is an element of pain. And the more I think about it, the more I notice it.

So I have developed some guidelines for contraction pain at rest:

- don't count minutes between contractions or do anything else that brings attention to their presence
- exercise as much as possible because exercise is the best medication for raising the pain threshold
- taking tylenol is a GOOD idea (because it least it takes away my headache and seems to lessen the contractions)
- remember, the longer they go on, the more your body will get used to them and the less they will hurt
- continue life as normal (this one is essential)

Now the big question: will I get so good at ignoring the contractions that I miss the real thing? I doubt it :).

In lieu of a running song of the day I have a running T-Shirt of the day (inspired by the very humorous Bike Snob NYC):

And once you're done laughing, a good organization to support today, to help the situation in East Africa:

http://www.unicef.org/ or http://unicef.dk/

Trip to the hospital #1

2011-07-17T08:03:00.002+02:00

Excuse me for the foggy brain. The last 24 hours have been odd. Or maybe just not something I expected.

Actually I woke up yesterday feeling fairly normal, despite not having slept well, for uncertain reasons. I went to spinning, yoga and then on a run with SR. I had contractions on the run, as usual, but this time, over the course of the afternoon, they just didn't go away. They weren't really regular, though, or painful, but they seemed to also come on at rest, which was completely new. When they occurred more regularly: 10-12 minutes apart, SR called his mom saying what was going on. She decided to drive to Næstved from Copenhagen, thinking someone may need to watch The Lorax overnight. In the meantime, I fell asleep with The Lorax at 11pm, only to wake up one our later with more painful contractions every 7-8 minutes. I woke SR up and we sat out on the couch, timing the contractions, which suddenly came every 3 minutes on the button. I was not in any pain to speak of, but my midwife had said I shouldn't wait until I had contractions every 4 minutes, because things could happen really fast in second birth and she might not have time to get there. So I called. The 1:30 am call no midwife is extremely excited about, I imagine. She asked me "kan du godt snakke imens?" "can you talk through them [the contractions]?", I said, oh, yes, so she said I should call when they got more painful. This was okay, but I didn't really think I could sleep at this point. I sat there on the sofa with SR, his mom and The Lorax (The Lorax was now beside himself with fear of what was going on and cried if I stopped touching him). 10 minutes later, the midwife called back and told me she was scared I would surprise her and deliver quickly and that we should meet her at the hospital in a half an hour. After we made this decision, my contractions got stronger, but further apart.

We met at the hospital at 1:50. She was super nice and chipper. She did an exam and said I was only 1cm dilated and that we should go back home and try to sleep and call if/when things progressed and I couldn't stand the pain. We walked home, feeling uncertain of what was going on, and then I fell asleep for 4 hours without contractions. And now, I basically feel fine, other than the fact that I am tired. Oh, and every time I move, I get a contraction, but not a rest.

This is proof that, at least for me, a birth can be very different the second time. With The Lorax, there was simply no doubt. Now I'm sitting here wondering: will it be today or a week from now? When in doubt, go for a run. A tired run in the rain. Exactly what the midwife told me not to do: just don't go run a marathon, now, SLG. But can you blame me for feeling I want to get this over with?

Swedish Tissue

2011-07-11T19:33:00.010+02:00

Everything sounds better, or perhaps just a little naughty, with the adjective Swedish. Even tissue. I don't really know why a sign for the company Swedish Tissue outside of Jönköping made me laugh. But let's just say that when I went to their website, I wasn't surprised that their products are made of exclusively "virgin pulp".

So I had hoped I would be able to say I had given birth in Sweden. A Swedish birth sounds almost as good as a Swedish massage or even Swedish tissue. But then again, there might have been some linguistic problems and we may have felt compelled by the spur of the moment to give our son a Swedish name, like Hjalmar. Plus we didn't have a baby car seat for the 6 hour drive home to Denmark (though there was that baby seat on the bike, attached to the back of our car. Those who have been reading this blog since 2008 might actually believe we would do this given the bike trailer incidentwith The Lorax. - I can't actually link to the real post since I can see I erased it!).

Instead, we simply had 6 days of vacation in Sweden with 13 other members of SR's family. We all stayed in one beautiful cottage in Rimforsa
Vis stort korton a lake, just north of Vimmerby, the home of Astrid Lindgren.

Piccola Pinecone had written to me a few days before we left, saying that a trip to Sweden sounded much more exotic than her trip to Toronto. Though I have never been to Toronto and I have been to Sweden, I have to say she was right. This area of Sweden is unlike anything I have experienced. It is hilly farmcountry with areas of deciduous forest and many lakes. There are boulders everywhere reminiscent of a scene from The Neverending Story. And about 80% of the houses and farms are red with white trim. For being a farming community, there is a surprising amount of wealth (even the smallest of farm houses would ope their car port to reveal a shimmering new Volvo). And if I were a farm animal, I would want to graze here. Like the terrible blogger I am, I didn't take any pictures. But I have since found amazing pictures of the area by photographer. Johan Klovsljö.

I was able to get in my morning running fix by waking up earlier than everyone else and traversing the gravel road between Rimforsa and Bersebo, which will be one of my best memories of the trip. I estimate I got in just under 50 miles of running in the six days. 37 weeks along and no pain to speak of - what is it that went right this time? It was also a really active trip with nearly everyone wanting to bike, hike, swim, play soccer, etc. My stomach issues were also quite a bit better, which made me realize at least part of my problem must have been related to my normal diet being relatively high in fiber.

My very best memory of the trip must have been taking The Lorax off of his little blue raft in the primordially cold lake we stayed at and watching him swim in his wings and vest. He was so happy and excited to swim with me in the big lake, and every little gap between his teeth showed as he threw his head back in shear joy. He had overall a wonderful trip, getting to play constantly with his four little cousins, two older, two younger. (as an aside, as much as I enjoy swimming in frigid water, I regretted not be able to wear SR's wetsuit anymore due to the fact that I had actually torn a couple of small holes in it under the belly- I feel so terrible!!).

SR and I also probably had our best moments out swimming and in the sauna, though moments alone together were too rare. It was a bit of a stressful trip for SR, having the natural role of leader of the big group. It is an odd and at times anxiety-inducing experience for everyone being in such a big group, constnatly feeling watched; even for me who didn't really try to organize anything. I just tend to be a person who likes to do peaceful things alone. One of my oddest traits is that I am uncomfortable eating in front of (or as other people might say, "with") other people. This however resulted in me losing almost 1kg and putting my 37 weeks pregnancy weight gain back between 7 and 8 kgs (though maybe the weight loss was simply due to me cutting out the soy sauce ?? :)) The 16 lbs I gained with The Lorax may thus be the exact same weight gain for pregnancy number 2.

I cried on the way home yesterday, thinking about the precious moments I had with both The Lorax and SR. These occasions are rare. I will never have another vacation like this with The Lorax - and it may be one of the first places he remembers the rest of his life.

Above is proof that The Lorax still really does use a Nuk. Yep, he is almost 3½.

Gotta admit he looks better without one. He is REALLY holding on to that poor chick.

I remind myself daily not to count down the days to the birth, but to focus on enjoying my free time with The Lorax and SR. Besides, my maternal instinct says that this birth is not going to be early like the first. I'm just hoping it's not over 2 weeks late; I don't want to have to deal with the decision of being induced or not.

35 weeks + 4 - visit with the midwife

2011-06-29T19:42:00.005+02:00

I suppose I had better write a post before my life of responsibility begins again. Since the departure of my family, my days have consisted of exercising in the morning, working in the afternoon and Skyping and reading at night. True it has felt like an empty life, in comparison to what I am used to, but it wasn't at all boring or unhappy(of course, key to the "not unhappy" was knowing I wouldn't be alone for long). Perhaps the best part was the tv was not turned on for a second. I abhor television (as much as I abhor candy). That is probably the reason I never talk about it. Until I moved in with SR, I had gone my entire adult life without a tv. The fact that one even sits in our apartment is annoying to me, but when you live with other people, their happiness tends to count for something, too.

This morning was typical in that I exercised from 8am to 12:30. There was also a shower in there (before and after the pool) plus socializing, etc. Sound excessive? Well, I guess it would be if I had other responsibilities. But family on another continent + maternity leave = lots of time to do what I want. This morning it was

road bike for 50 minutes
swim for 62 minutes
raod bike for 50 minutes again
trail run for 50 minutes

(this was a relative rest day since none of it was strenuous. And no, I don't precisely plan out these times ahead of time, I just sort of went with the feeling)

Then I finally had to stop to get to my midwife appointment at 1pm.

Appointment Summary

I actually weighed myself beforehand since they don't weigh you here - not even once have I been weighed at an appointment here and I am officially just over 62 kgs now! I thought it was a fluke the last time I weighed myself, but no I am that heavy. So that's a just over 8kg weight gain and I hope this is where I stop - really, he is big enough and so am I.

Blood pressure: well, I was hoping it would be low since blood pressure is always lower right after exercise (unless you're like gushing out blood from an injury or in rhabdo, etc), but it was 108/56. I was a bit disappointed because I always like my health practitioners to think I'm on the verge of fainting. (as an aside, I have one time in my adult non-pregnant life weighed over 130 lbs and at that time my systolic blood pressure was over 130, so I took it as a sign today that I shouldn't gain any more weight. Ie. the higher my blood pressure the closer I am to weighing too much. OCD? Yes.)

Baby's pulse: 130. Dang. I liked it better when it was low, but he seemed quite bothered by the fact that she was fidgeting with him and he was kicking and moving like crazy so I won't obsess about it. Or will I?

Baby's position: head "very deep down" in pelvis. She said he was completely "locked in" now and that nothing anyone could do would turn him. I asked her what she thought it was like to be doing a headstand in a bony pelvis (albeit in water) 24/7. She laughed as if she had never considered it. Of course he must like it, in a way, but I must admit I think about what it must be like all of the time and it just doesn't sound pleasant. Please come out soon baby, then you can sit upright on me and eat my boob.

Fundus measurement: 28 cm. She said "I would automatically have to refer you to a scan now if you hadn't just had one because you're 2-3 cm below the curve". Well, there you have it: Denmark does not systematically ignore small measurements after all!

Internal exam? Nope. They don't do that anymore. The midwife explained it has apparently no predictive value. Plus, "it is unpleasant". I was like, "I find them very pleasant" and winked at her. Okay, I didn't really. Are internal exams still done in the US before labor begins? I remember getting one at 38 weeks with The Lorax.

---

These last two days, while nice for me, have been shadowed by the fact that SR is going through a lot. And I feel terrible about it. He said good-bye to Natti for 3 months. Can any of you moms imagine being away from your child for 3 months? I just don't think I could live without The Lorax for 3 months. And for SR, it is no easier. Every time period he lives without Natti, a little part of him dies; the part that should have been experiencing the world with her, but isn''t. And neither The Lorax nor I nor a new baby can substitute for this feeling of loss.

I keep thinking about the fact that SR went to a movie about penguins with Natti and Andreas and that he cried at the end. When even penguins can become a metaphor for how sad your life is, things are really rough.

---

But on Sunday (already) we are leaving for a week's trip to Sweden. That is SR, The Lorax and I, together with SR's extended family. I am going to soak up this time with SR and The Lorax as never before.

---

Finally, I owe you all at least one running song, and this time it is "Guess I lied" by The Qualia.

While musically it is a great song for running, I was extremely impressed with it because I thought the lyrics were about an incestuous relationship between a brother and a sister. No, I don't condone that kind of relationship - but I just kept thinking "Can you SING that?? In a song??". Now, despite having been an English and French literature double major in college, I am terrible at interpreting poetry. I tend to read tons of things into poems or songs that aren't there. Or just miss the point entirely. This song was no exception because the band says on their website that it is about a brother and a sister "sharing a joint". Well, that basically ruined the song for me. But I still like running to it.

---

Fun facts (now, in times of uncertainty, such as now with SR & Natti, I tend to turn to exercise and weight loss to make me feel in control. No secret there. So I thought I'd share with you a little tidbit I read from the June 23rd New England Journal of Medicine)

Top 3 lifestyle factors associated with weight gain in the US:
1. Quitting smoking
2. French Fries
3. Potato Chips

Top 3 lifestyle factors associate with weight loss in the US:
1. Exercise
2. Yogurt
3. Nuts

---

Ooooh. I can't wait to see SR and The Lorax at the airport tomorrow! It just can't come too soon!

Sorø Triathlon Report

2011-06-26T15:15:00.015+02:00

Yeah, yeah, so I really am insane enough to complete my first pregnant triathlon now 8 months pregnant. But come on, it's only just become triathlon season, so I couldn't start earlier. Plus I suddenly realized I could fit into SR's wetsuit. And my tri club was going. And it was in the nearby beautiful town of Sorø. And SR and The Lorax are still in the US, so I had no responsibilities.

I arrived very, very early. I wanted to run before the start to warm up. It is really important for me to "warm up" now that I am so far along. And I hope you all realize that when I say "warm up" it actually means "evacuate bladder and colon" :). So I decided to run the 4.2 km run route before the tri actually started. Since I was so early, I was awared start number 1!

This is my first time with number 1. (and it seemed ironic and sad that number 1 might also come in last. I just hoped I would't be too far behind everyone else.)

My "warm up" went really well and I figured I was ready.

Here were the distances:

375 meter swim
15 km bike
4.2 km run

Here is the lake and the ladders we used to climb out.

Here is a video of the beginning of the swim. Can you identify the large pregnant woman in a bright orange swim cap scurrying to get to the side before the start so she doesn't get kicked?? Okay - normally I swim with a better stroke, but I was so irritated that the guy in front of me was walking. Is that allowed??!!

(if you can't see that video, like me, here is the link: https://picasaweb.google.com/101306852460861752402/AltanTriSor2011?authkey=Gv1sRgCOqJnJGizYqbfA&feat=directlink#5622486249829061810)

I remained to the side the entire swim, which wasn't the fastest way to accomplish things, but I only got kicked once and not in the uterus. I still ended up finishing in about the middle of the pack in around 18 minutes. By no means a fast swim time, but it was fun! (I adore lake swimming!)

My transition was terrible. First you had to run about a quarter of a km on rocks and across a street to the bikes and then actually getting out of the wetsuit was probably the biggest challenge of the day. I was rolling around like an eel trying to get out of that thing. (they are made for a normally-shaped human body after all).

Why is it I always resemble a boy when I see picture of myself on a bike?

The bike route was fast, except for the big hills, rain, potholes, etc. Okay, so it wasn't that fast. But I was able to use my tri bars nearly the whole time, at the expense of some lung capacity. Let's just say I was happy to pass the hung over high school student talking on her cell phone and biking at the same time. She was the only person I passed who didn't have a flat (and she wasn't even in the tri, so it probably doesn't really count!). Time: 35 minutes. Ouch.

Oh geez, when I arrived, Helene, (seen here)

a good friend from our tri club, had just finished! Wow. She won second woman and I was so proud - had to stop and congratulate! But then I was off.

It was a 2.1 km x 2 (=4.2 km) trail route in a woods. The first loop was slow and I had to make two visits to the bushes. The "warm up" hadn't been as effective as I had hoped. But then, by the second loop, I actually started passing people and came in with a run time of 23 minutes. Hey, hey! Not bad for the end of a tri!

Total time was 1:22, with way too much time spent in transition, but I am just so big and awkward these days. (all of these times were from my watch, by the way, so they are approximations from when I looked down at the time. But I do know we started at 10am and my watch said 11:22 when I crossed the finish line. Turns out it was good I had a watch, by the way, since their timing system stopped working because it got wet in the rain!)

I was awarded a seriously nice black backpack by the Sorø Tri Club because they were so relieved I didn't go into labor. What an awesome morning! Thanks to the Sorø Tri Club and to Daniel for all of the pictures!

32 - A rather lonely birthday

2011-06-23T19:38:00.005+02:00

I believe this is the first birthday I've had without any live contact with a family member. But it has been strangely enjoyable.

I guess the celebration started last night when I went to dinner at Frederiks Have in Copenhagen with a few (hopefully this is nerdy enough for you people) MD, PhD ophthalmologists. Have I mentioned you need to have an impressive cv to eat at the same table as me?

Then, the real treat, the 12 mile run in torrential rain. For once I wore my Garmin, so I knew exactly how long the whole thing took and the distance. It took 3 hours and 1 minute, but I almost felt baptized afterwards. How does it feel to feel baptized, you ask? Well, like it is going to be a good year. My year honestly never starts January 1st, but always on my birthday, June 23rd.

This year I'll be the mom of another little boy.
This year I'll work 10 hours a week.
This year will be spent half in Næstved Denmark and half in La Crosse, WI.
This year The Lorax will learn English.
This year I will get to know my stepson Andreas again.
This year I will set a PR in the 5k, 10k, half marathon and marathon.
This year I will complete an Ironman (well, that might actually be in August next year)
This year I will win Voyageur.
This year I will become slightly less effective at evacuating my colon.

Okay, okay, okay. I know I won't win Voyageur. But beat my 9:43 from 2009? Definitely.

Here I is, just baptized. I don't know why I don't look wet, but trust me, I am soaking.

Wider from the sider.
And here is the birthday present SR bought me, along with birthday money from his parents. They just don't know it yet (Thank you!). A bike for every day. The child seat needs to be added, but otherwise she's ready and fast. My old bike was terrible, but don't get me started. Okay, DO get me started - you had to pedal backwards to break and that resulted in me almost dying at least 15 times when I attempted to use the broken hand break. And it was SO heavy that I couldn't even keep up with The Lorax.

(No, I didn't run over those bags, I just set them there, okay?)
And WHAT on earth is that sitting in the freezer? Nope, no mashed potatoes there. It is extremely fine-ground, very cooked cauliflower mixed with egg, tomatoes, zucchini and pasta (whole wheat pasta - anything else is crap). The soy sauce is yet to come. Ahhh! Now you all know what I like to eat for dinner - but it changes every night. This was just my birthday rendition.
So all of this was fine and good, but it was not quite the same as...

Oh, dear, I am starting to cry now.

Want to give me a birthday present? Well, you guessed it: I want a running song suggestion from you! Please! Or just a hello.

One more thing. Just because you will love it (thanks, Magnus).

5k relay - øv!

2011-06-19T15:14:00.002+02:00

Perhaps we can all agree that young children do not enjoy the sight of a large pregnant woman running next to them clutching her stomach and making noises like a pained animal. I can now also inform you that the pregnant woman does not find it enjoyable either.

Let us now rewind to the beginning of the race. My best friend in Næstved, Stine (that's pronounced STEEN-eh), asked me to run this 5k relay with the athletic instructor team at Scala. I was actually quite honored since I'm not an instructor. I just give free medical advice about their classes. The other big bonus was I got a shocking lime green t-shirt for free. The downside was that their female team had won the year before. And I was not crazy about having time pressure on me.

I was nonetheless really looking forward to it. I mean, they have noticed my big belly, so they weren't putting pressure on me either. The race, by the way, was Danmarksstaffet, which is run in the woods right behind our apartment; on the trails I run on most days of the week.

What was my strategy? Wake up early to eat a smaller breakfast at 6:30. (The race start was 11:00). Then go out for an hour run, to get all of those initial potty breaks out of me. I had hoped this would be just the warm up I needed - I knew it was going to be all about avoiding stomach problems.

I biked to the start in the pouring rain and learned I would be running first. I had just enough time to pee and line up at the start.

I had music today and my garmin. I couldn't help being reminded of this exact race one year ago, where I ran a 20:12 (as the first half of a 10k, actually), which was, according to the local paper, the fastest female time. I felt really energetic, but had to force myself to start in the middle of the pack. The gun went off, and I immediately started passing people, despite the crowded conditions. I ran between a 7:30 and 7:45 pace for the first 2km and felt just awesome. I wondered if I could make it under 24 minutes.

2.5 km came and this is where I got a sudden very sharp pain in my left lower abdomen. It was too much. I had to stop. I walked. Maybe it would go away. I ran again and it got worse. I know my pregnant body well enough at this point to know it was my intestines. I tried to run again, but it was excruciating. I had to walk. I hobbled to 3km and ducked into the woods. I thought I had taken care of the problem, and I had somewhat, but could really only hobble-run in pain the rest of the way. It was so extremely frustrating because I had a TON of energy, but couldn't run through the pain. I walked and ran in spurts and watched everyone I had passed before now pass me.

ØV! It was tough to accept. I do realize I'm over 34 weeks pregnant, but in my mind I am STILL the woman who runs a 20 minute 5k. (øv, by the way, is this little Danish word that conveys both disappointment and a sense of "oh well!") I rallied my strength and ran in terrible pain the last ½ km to cross the line in 27:59. It was not fun. It hurt. I waited for Finnbjørn to kick and that took less than a minute. It's always nice to get that immediate feedback that even though I'm suffering, he's doing just fine.

Ok, so let me level with you all. I hadn't expected to run fast. But the first 2km went so well, that I suddenly thought I could. So give me your opinions: are all these stomach troubles simply due to a big baby pressing on my intestines or do I have a lingering gastroenteritis that needs to be investigated further? Anyone with have personal experience with this?

In other news, SR, The Lorax and Natali left for the US yesterday. Life for the next 11 days will be very strange.

Running songs of the day: Well, I only listend to two songs - Dance Floor by The Apples in Stereo and Colours by Grouplove.

The 2256 gram baby

2011-06-16T13:16:00.002+02:00

No, no. He's not born yet.

Today was finally the day for the ultrasound. For those who are new here, I fell off the normal growth curve in terms of fundal height in week 32 of pregnancy (I measured between 25 and 26 cm to be exact). It was the general consensus of the blog readers that I get a scan to make sure the baby was growing right.

All week I was fielding questions: "Are you sure you have your dates right?" "You can't be 33 weeks" "Can you lift up your shirt so we can get a better look?" (that was actually a woman and not a man ;)). Then yesterday we went to a hospital birth preparation meeting with women who were between 30 and 32 weeks pregnant and SR was like "why do you look so tiny compared to everyone else??" So, I was starting to worry a little. But in reality, my ego was inflating more and more, though with a nagging sense of "what if??"

So at today's appointment I got to talk with an Obstetrics attending. It was nice just to see "attending" (overlæge) on her name badge. She hinted it was a bit silly that I get a scan since it is probably just me and the way the baby is sitting (I couldn't help getting the feeling - like the true socialist I am becoming - that "I don't deserve this scan"). But she scanned away, right there in her office. Gotta say I was surprised when she started getting some measurements that were bigger than expected for my due date! I had never imagined that. I suddenly started wondering if I had my dates mixed up in the opposite way. But, no. He came out measuring almost exactly average for the 33 week 5 day old baby he is at 2256 grams (that's exactly 5 lbs!!). Okay, so in my limited experience average is HUGE! The Lorax weighed 6lbs when he was born at 39 weeks and 1 day. And little Finnbjørn is almost that big right now!

Needless to say SR and I are relieved. And if he were born today, he'd be an ok weight. But I'm starting to wonder how easily the "little" guy will come out on the big day.

Now I know why I am vomiting up nearly everything I eat. (and why I seem to get gastronenteritis, of sorts, every time I run) There must simply be no room for him. I woke up this morning with excruciating heart burn. My stomach must be the size of a cheese ball right now. It has meant absolutely NO running or activity of any kind after lunch -otherwise lunch all over clothing and sidewalk, etc. And all of the pressure in my pelvis has turned my legs out so that my toes point away from each other at a 90 degree angle. Despite how silly this looks, and the intestinal issues, I continue to run, which is still a big source of happiness for me. Here is how the last week looked in terms of exercise:

Thursday: 1 hour pulse/core pilates, 2 hour run
Friday: 1 hour run, 1.5 hour bike, 45 min swim
Saturday: 1 hour pulse/core pilates, 2 hour run with SR
Sunday: 2.5 hour run with SR
Monday: 2 hour run
Tuesday: 1 hour pulse/core pilates, 2 hour run
Wednesday: 2 hour bike ride, 1 hour run

The only thing I wish I could change is I wish I could swim more, but the swim club we belong to is only open 1 hour most days and it is hard to get it to fit into my schedule. Plus, there were holidays on Sunday and Monday, so the pool was closed. Soon the ocean will be warm enough to swim without a wet suit (mine is, as you can imagine, much tighter than intended).

A 5k relay is coming up this Sunday (Danmarks Staffet), which I am running with ladies from my athletic club. It will be great to open up my stride a bit and try to run fast. I'll give a full report, I promise.

Scandinavian Slowness

2011-06-13T19:02:00.003+02:00

When I left off last, one week ago, I wrote about how my fundal height measurement at 32 weeks was too small (it was between 25 and 26 cm). There was general concensus among the readers (at least according to the comments) that I should get a scan to make sure the baby was growing properly and there weren't other problems. I said I would figure out who to contact.

So why hanven't I written an update? Because nothing has happened.

I called my nurse (who may actually be a doctor; I can't find it anywhere on the clinic's website) and I got the secretary. The secretary told me the easiest way to contact my nurse/doctor was to write an email. So I did. 3 days later (Friday), I got a reply that she would refer me to an obstetrician. Saturday I received a letter saying I have an appointment with an obstetrician this coming Friday. At that time the obstetrician will decide whether or not I should get a scan.

If something is wrong, we're not going to find out about it in any sort of timely fashion. I feel like if I get that ultrasound before I actually give birth, I will be lucky.

BUT, I don't have any sort of *inkling* that anything is wrong. I feel like everything is going as it should. But, as SR's cousin pointed out: "how would you know something was wrong?". Good question.

So that's on the back burner.

In other news, I feel entirely overwhelmed right now. And it has nothing to do with the pregnancy or my work, actually. It has to do with the fact that my step-daughter, Natali, is moving to the US in 5 days. In these 5 days, I can't make up for the things I have done wrong or the things I wish I had done with her. I can only hope she is happy during her year in the US and that she has gained some self-confidence and a sense she is loved here. As SR has worked out with his ex-wife, she will be moving back to Denmark again after one year. It is a rough life for a 10 year old. I don't envy her one bit. But the whole situation leaves me feeling powerless and tired. In 5 days, she will go from a girl who has basically been my daughter for two years, to a girl I talk to from time to time on Skype. But then I think about how SR feels, and I feel even worse.

Yesterday at a family gathering, a cousin asked Natali "isn't it hard for you to have to move back to the US again?" I expected her to say she was looking forward to it. But instead she said "Yeah, it is hard."

Here is a picture of SR's immediate family from this past Sunday. Sunday and Monday were holidays: Pinse. It is a tradition in Denmark to celebrate the time period when the Apostles had the ability to speak in tongues. It is called Pentecost in English.

Skodsborg 30km race - aka the land down under

2011-06-06T19:49:00.008+02:00

Since the race was run in honour of the Day of The Danish Constitution, it doesn't really make sense that I bring up Australia yet again, but just keep reading.

So, Skodsborg is, of course a half marathon or a marathon. One can choose. I just decided to make my very own race yesterday; 30k sound like a nice race distance to anyone else? Well, it was more or less my stomach that chose the distance, if you were wondering.

So, Skodsborg is simply a marathon among friends in the woods and that's why we keep going back. We can show up 5 minutes before the start and get a good picture taken, fumbling to get things ready.

(Thanks to Karen for all of the following wonderful pictures!!)

In honour of the Danish constitution, I wore my Thai tank top. I think that is what Jerk had in mind when he said we should wear red or white. (I'm not actually sure it's Thai... anyone?)

The odds were stacked against me. Every time I have run since The Copenhagen Marathon, I've gotten sick to my stomach, not that it hurts, but it's more like I have some mild gastroenteritis that even daily iron tablets won't reverse, if you know what I mean.

Here is a quick race summary:

It was a warm day made cooler in the shade of the woods.
SR was going for the course record, which was 3:10. On a warm day and on a tough course, I knew the odds were also stacked against him. Here he is among the early leaders.

My race, not surprisingly, started out pretty "crappy". Let me just say I can totally respect why women don't run at all at this point of pregnancy. Every 5 minutes I was behind another tree. My stomach was a wreck. This lasted about 10 km! Most people would stop, I know. But it was getting better all along. After 10k I started running with two really sweet girls who were running their first half marathon. They had gotten lost on the first loop (just like I had the last race). We had a fun time and I navigated them through the confusing turns.

So 10-20km was lots of fun.

Here Karen told me to pull up my shirt for the picture - how silly.

But problems started again - if it wasn't a side stitch, it was a Braxton Hicks contraction, or both at once. What an awesome surprise when SR came to meet me. He had started out well, but by the half, he realized he was not on pace for the course record, so let it go. He was pleased with his first place in 3:16 until we were informed by Jesper H. that Jesper Noer had actually won and had run it in 2:55! SR had thought he was running a half and I had thought he came late and was trying to catch up. Anyway, awesome race, Jesper! We made it to the aid station with Jesper and Helle (pictured here)
to round 30km for me in 4 hours and 3 minutes--- and I was more than done. But SR and I thoroughly enjoyed another Skodsborg Marathon! So great to see so many friends again.

Here's Birgitte Nielsen, my dear friend, looking beautiful and well on her way to winning for the women in 3:59.

And here Jørgen celebrates running his 100th marathon

- by receiving a Houston Oilers helmet ????? (again fitting for the Day of the Danish Constitution!)

---doctor's appointment---

So, lots to write about today. I saw the nurse practitioner today, who is very nice, but was very adamant that I stop running now. Not for any particular reason that I could get out of her other than she thought the pelvis muscles couldn't take it. I told her my pelvic muscles were stronger for it and she started to hone in on the fact that I wasn't completely normal. We discussed that there really no evidence saying I shouldn't run at this point in pregnancy, but I told her I was cutting back without intending to due to stomach issues.

She did an abdominal exam and said the head was down and that he probably wouldn't move out of that position, so I learned something very good! Then she measured me and I was only 1cm more in fundal height than at 29 weeks, thus WAY under the chart for normal growth at over 32 weeks. I was kind of like - you're not worried about that? "Well, it's just cause you run so much". I actually begged to differ because I think lots of women who run measure normally. But since I measured small last time (though we don't have the records), she said it was probably just me. But this time I had measured at 50th percentile just 8 weeks ago. I told SR and he was like "are you worried?" and I was like "I don't know. Are you?". Okay, so we both are a little worried and that was my last doctor's visit before the birth. Though there is another with the midwife in a few weeks.

I hate how my growth trajectory resembles that of women who have had Malaria in the beginning of pregnancy. Of course it is hard to make sense of it, but does it just naturally go along with running and exercise that one measures small at the end of pregnancy? And should I be worried I haven't gained any weight since week 29?

Of course, everything is probably normal - but I'm also crossing my fingers it's not a fluid problem or growth restriction or any other thing that women who read this blog might feel like mentioning just to make me not fall asleep at night...

But seriously, should we "demand a scan" as SR has suggested??

32 Weeks/Working on a Friday Night

2011-06-03T20:59:00.002+02:00

How does a person who was supposed to start maternity leave today end up working until 8pm on a Friday night??

1. I say yes to too many projects
2. I sleep too much

(feel bad for me?? okay, probably not)

Yes, sweet sleep. I think about it all of the time now. My days consist of at least 9 hours of sleep at night and sometimes a nap on top of that in the afternoon. It is wonderful. I am the type of person who is always bordering on mania. I normally can't fall asleep, I wake up early and I can never nap. But during these last few weeks, I've seen a change in all of that. Yesterday, I fell asleep on SR's lap as we watched a show about Alaska. Maybe he thought I was dead. I've never done this before. And it was amazing. (I would be much more likely to fall asleep watching an episode of Lost than a documentary about Alaska, by the way).

But what is all of this I've said yes to???

1. This is the blog's fault. I started ranting to the head researcher in the population study I'm working with about how bad the Tanita scan is for measuring body fat and how ludicrous the guidelines are that are given to all of our research participants as "healthy fat ranges". I didn't realize this would be such big news to everyone involved in the study, and suddenly I'm the expert on body composition, trying to design a protocol to verify our own Tanita scan and understand the importance of body fat to health.... And I'm supposed to be studying eye diseases!! (trust me, I know a LOT more about body composition than I did a month ago - and WAY more than I ever wanted to know!)

2. This is ALSO the blog's fault. I've become passionate about general medicine again. A number of you have written to me with questions about your own health (yes, I guess you know who you are). And I have realized there is almost nothing I enjoy more than helping people with their general health concerns. I have, almost certainly, come to the conclusion that I am going to do a residency in Family Medicine. It's a big change from Ophthalmology, and it will take some time and effort to work out the details (but at least SR is thrilled).

3. I think I have discovered a major risk factor for the development of macular degeneration, at least in the Danish population. Of course, nothing is published yet and I really shouldn't write preliminary results on a blog. But what the heck, you guys teach me so much; maybe you'll have input on this, too. It seems that even more important in the development of macular degeneration than smoking itself is whether one's parents smoked when one was a kid and/or whether one's mother smoked during pregnancy. It is kind of a long, complicated story how this discovery came about, but I will give you the link to the article when I publish it.

And what about the pregnancy? Well, I feel good but running is anything but effortless. There is no pain per se, but I feel big, sweat a lot, breath really hard, etc.. The weird thing is, one would think I would get faster since I have gone the last 3 weeks without gaining weight, but the opposite is true. But swimming and biking times still remain basically unchanged.

We are running the Skodsborg Marathon on Sunday (NO, I won't run the whole thing!) and, as far as I am concerned, it is going to be kind of a joke ("make it to the next tree, then you can walk!", etc.), but I don't mind spending the day in those beautiful woods again :).

And music. I hardly listen to music anymore when I run. But I heard something on the radio yesterday that made me laugh. If this makes sense to anyone but me, please speak up "Australia is the new Sweden". Exactly. Now that I've been pushing Architecture in Helsinki for the last couple of weeks, it's time to tell you about yet another awesome Australian band, Cloud Control. My current favorite is: This is what I said

Finally -- I need your help. We are looking for a double baby jogger. Anyone have any recommendations? Any warnings about bad ones? Anyone selling theirs.... ???

It almost ruined me

2011-05-29T15:06:00.002+02:00

The fact that I am about to complain must be proof that normally my life is pretty good. I had a crappy week. Monday was okay because I was riding the high of having run the marathon the day before. But Monday-Thursday consisted of 10-12 hour work days (if you count transportation time and the two cancelled trains) in Copenhagen. And it wasn't even really work. It was a course in sports medicine that I finagled my way into as credit toward my PhD. It was an outstanding course, yet I felt horrible and trapped.

On Monday night, I had time for a swim, which felt glorious. But the rest of the week would consist of my trying to sneak in short runs here and there and realizing I absolutely couldn't run anymore (this meant I actually ate during our luch breaks - yikes!). Normally I can run again without too much trouble two days after a marathon. But most of the marathons I run are on trails, so maybe this was an explanation for why my recovery wasn't going so well. But it was as if I had started some processes in my body; I figured my days of running pregnant were over.

My "runs" were like this:
- start running
- after 2 minutes the first contraction would come
- shortly after the first contraction, my bowels would send me an urgent message, sending me behind dumpsters, trees, you name it, 3-4 times on a 20 minute "run", which was in reality 10 minutes of walking, 5 minutes of hiding and 5 minutes of running.

By Wednesday, I decided there was no point in pushing it and I analyzed my legs, which were huge and swollen with fluid. I finally admitted to myself that it was even uncomfortable to walk. My legs were so heavy. Is this what pregnancy feels like for women who don't exercise, I wondered. Or is this simply my own fault because I ran a marathon so late in pregnancy?

The scale was not my friend either and told me I had gained almost 1.5 kgs since the marathon! Depression. AND our poor kids! Neither SR nor I made it home for dinner any of the nights last week and I had to drop of Christian every day at day care so early that he was still sleeping.

I started drinking diet soda to induce premature labor. Okay, not really. But I started thinking - I can't make it to 40 weeks!!!

To make matters worse, the pocket of cellulite on my right upper thigh, which I monitor at least once daily had returned (it had disappeared after our trip to Mallorca).

But the week of terrors came to an end. It was another longish day Friday, but then I went to a pulse/core class Saturday morning while The Lorax played with cars and hand weights beside me and I felt so fresh and happy. And then SR and I ran for another two hours with The Lorax in the baby jogger. And I could run again! And the swelling was almost gone.

Today I did a bike, swim, run and felt amazing. What a relief! I'm not fast at anything, but I am happy again. And the 1.5 extra kgs are gone. And, as odd as it sounds, the pocket of cellulite is gone again, too. And now just one week until maternity leave begins (which I've chosen to work part time during due to pressures with my PhD - but life will at least be more manageable for a while!). Imagine that SR deals with those kind of hours with his transportation every week! As do perhaps some of the readers of this blog - I feel for you!!!

Sorry if this post sounds trite and superficial - but you do want honesty, right??

Running song of the day: Circuital by My Morning Jacket
Biking song of the day: Desert Island by Architecture in Helsinki
Music I like imagining The Lorax will write some day: Stay the Night by James Blunt (doesn't every mom want their son to grow up and write brilliant, happy melodies?). I can't help loving JB despite kinda lame lyrics.

I Love the Copenhagen Marathon

2011-05-23T21:41:00.003+02:00

Yesterday felt like my five minutes, or rather five hours, of fame. When I decided to have SR write "Loeb, Baby" on my big belly, I figured it would make a few people laugh.
I had NO idea what kind of reaction I would get. All along the course of the Copenhagen Marathon, you run through pockets of huge crowds of people. When I would approach one of these crowds, someone would announce the big pregnant woman and the crowd would erupt in cheering - for me. It was totally unreal. Throughout the race, people would hang out of windows to shout I had good style, follow me on bikes to take pictures, yell "viking baby!", offer me watermelon and give me hugs. What a response to a pregnant woman, which everyone is now telling me The Copenhagen Marathon has never seen before - at least not so far along. Well, I by no means started this phenomenon of pregnant marathoning, and of course personally regard it as a "normal" thing to do, so had NO clue it would get such a reaction and such a positive one.

And how did the race go? Well, as an experience, it could never be matched. It may be the most fun I have ever had at a race. As a race, well, I was slow and had stomach issues the entire way until the last 5km when I finally opened up and ran, baby. The one down side of everyone taking note of me was it was really hard to hide when I got sick to my stomach (five times, I think). I mentioned I had mastered the art of peeing without taking my shorts down - and that went great - but the other, well... you get the picture. :)

When you're running with the 5 hour marathoners the whole way, you experience an entirely different race. This is a very diverse group of people. And they don't stare you down wondering if who can run fastest. These people are there 1. just to complete it or 2. just to enjoy the experience. I was in the happy position to be there for both reasons. And I soaked in the street corners and parks and buildings with new, optimistic eyes. And I also suffered with those around me - 5 hours is a long time to be out there.

So was it hard to run a marathon 30 weeks pregnant? Well, after my stomach problems developed, I started getting contractions, and this was only at 18 km (not even to the half marathon) and I started wondering if finishing was realistic. But I walked a bit, drank a lot of sports drink and just took it easy. By 30 km the contractions were gone. Weird, but good. I was also lucky I had eaten and drunk a lot the two days before because I could not stomach food at all and drank only small sips at a time. But the actual running part was not hard. In fact, it was very fun. With 5km to go, I had plenty of reserve and ran a 9 min per mile pace to the end. That gave me an even split on the course and a time of 4:54. I was pleased.

Is running a marathon 30 weeks pregnant healthy? Absolutely. My body and soul tell me so. Is it healthy for YOU? Well, that depends. If you think it is healthy for you, it is. And if you are in the shape to run a mararthon, you have given your baby a very healthy environment to grow in, whether or not you actually complete one - at whatever stage of pregnancy.

Yesterday sure felt like it was all about me, but it was about 9000+ people having a magical day, sappy as that sounds. There were some truly amazing people out there, not least of all the people who get so much joy simply out of cheering others on. And then there were three women. One is my athletic club teammate and good friend, Mette, who I have mentioned numerous times. She finished in an incredible 4th place for the women in a time of 2:57. And this was on a windy day. This is a woman I should be and could be as fast as, but I'm not and never will be. What is her secret? She is focused, sticks to a plan and she eats bananas constantly. (trust me, I'm working on the banana thing: it's much easier than the other elements). Then there was Scout Bassett, who ran with a prosthetic leg. She unfortunately got such bad blisters that she had to drop, but what an inspiration. And finally, the only woman who has run every single Copenhagen Marathon, Ruth Hedegaard, turned 70 this year and decided NOT to run. Well, no one should feel they HAVE to run a marathon, but this still mad me sad. There is no reason 70 year olds should not be able to run a marathon if that is what they really want - and I don't know the whole story, but I sure hope she is back next year if that is what she wants.

What do I want? To run another marathon in 2 weeks - with my husband (who sadly had to work yesterday).

The pregnancy competition

2011-05-18T20:50:00.002+02:00

The title is misleading. I don't look at my pregnancy as a sort of competition with other women. But the idea of doing everything right is so attractive. Just as it is in any sort of race, of course. But if my last pregnancy was like a marathon, I basically had to drop out at mile 18 due to pelvic injury. But the analogy of course doesn't quite work because, despite that, I certainly didn't end up a loser and, instead, gave birth to the wonderful Lorax.

Today, I had my 30 week appointment with my midwife and I couldn't help feeling - "I am not only still running this marathon, but I am in the lead." (personality disorder? perhaps) I am, of course aware, it is uncharming to compare oneself to other pregnant women. And, truth be told, I wish everyone felt as good as I do. But I can't pretend for a second I believe that the fact that I feel a lot better than most women at 30 weeks is due to luck. But is the fact that nearly all of my measurements and vitals are on the verge of normal or abnormal possibly dangerous for the baby?

First in the exercise dept:

- in no part of my body do I feel injured or have pain
- still able to do a back bend, can hold myself in a plank for about 2 minutes
- have recently gotten close to cycling times comparable to prepregnancy times on the same routes
- feeling ready for the marathon on Sunday

Vitals:
- blood pressure was 99/48? (I always forget the diastolic), but the systolic has continuously dropped throughout pregnancy
- Pulse 68
- Baby's pulse around 110. (This had me worried for a second when we listened to the doppler and I thought the baby was me) But this is just barely within "normal" (nl. 110-160 bpm) and actually makes me think the baby has a very strong and healthy heart that it's pulse can dip so slow when he's sleeping. A very reliable sign of a healthy heart at any age is pulse variability. Plus the baby's heart rate should be just a little under double the mother's.
-Weight gain 13 lbs (just below current recommendations for normal weight women)
- Fundus measurement 24 cm (just below normal, but my midwife fudged on the sheet and called me 25 cm at 29 weeks to make it fit into the pretty "normal" gray bow)

So my weight gain, fundus measurement and baby's pulse are outside of the range of 95% of pregnant women. But despite this, neither I nor the midwife in any way got the impression that anything was wrong. But should we be worried? There is a lot that is unknown. But, then again... does it need to be known? Can the fact that I am otherwise healthy be the only reassuring factor needed? Well, threre is almost always a point at which things become dangerous. For example, one recent study from 2011 (a small study of 95 patients by William To in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology) showed low weight gain in pregnancy to be associated with not returning to prepregnancy bone mass two years later (regardless of whether or not one breastfeeds). That can definitely be a concern, for athletes in particular, and is one reason I am NOT complaining or worried about being a bit ahead of my weight gain this pregnancy compared to last.

At the end of my visit, my midwife, however, asked the very poignant question: "Will you be able to get yourself to calm down enough for the birth?" Ha. "Calming down" has never been my forté and it didn't take her long to figure that one out. I guess the plan is to try giving birth in water (I tried it last time, but it didn't work out) and she's trained in acupuncture for pain control, so that will probably also come in handy. But yeah, getting an epidural and falling asleep seemed to be what it took last time, but it sure would be nice to experience labor naturally.

In other news, I have mastered the art of peeing with shorts on and not getting wet. Now that I pee approximately every 9 minutes during my first hour of running, this will be extremely practical at the Copenhagen Marathon (where there is a sad paucity of bushes and trees!).

Running song of the day: Naked Kids by Group Love (a nice summer song)

But an even better sound is Natali reading to The Lorax right next to me. These are happy days...

Copenhagen Marathon

2011-05-14T13:18:00.002+02:00

I probably shouldn't have. And even if it is a good idea, I probably shouldn't tell you all about. But here goes: I signed up for the Copenhagen Marathon next weekend.

I am, however, breaking one of my cardinal rules of running in prenancy. Yes, whether or not you want to know, I am going to tell you what those rules are:

1. Cross train
2. Do intense core exercises 2-3 times a week, focussing on back and thighs
3. Run almost exclusively on trails (roads serve only as access to trails)
4. Run in minimalist trail shoes

So yeah, running a marathon on exclusively hard surfaces is not the brightest idea if I want to make it through this pregnancy uninjured. BUT:

1. The excitement of a big city marathon is hard to resist (plus it is kind of my city)
2. It is a flat, easy route
3. I can sign up for half price because I am a student at the University of Copenhagen
4. SR's parents offered to watch the kids
5. I will be in Copenhagen anyway the night before with SR, who is on call over the weekend
6. I went on a pain-free, wonderful 3 hour run today, making me think the marathon distance is still manageable at this point in pregnancy
7. I will be at a sports medicine course all next week so (ironically enough) I'll barely have time to exercise
8. It's a chance to see friends
9. I love the idea of people smiling at the big belly (yes, I admit it)

All of these stars aligning made me realize I couldn't NOT run it. Plus, if anything hurts, I'll just stop (right?).

And most importantly, I have to remind myself over and over: One should never run to prove anything. Well, other people can; sure, that's up to them. But I think the only healthy way of looking at it is - One should run because one loves to run. And if I look at it that way, I am simply excited for next Sunday.

Mega-Llorca: All of the training, none of the guilt

2011-05-10T21:35:00.016+02:00

I recently read an aritcle in Politiken, which discussed a woman who loved running marathons and how her guilt made her "see the light", give up running and return to doing things on weekends that normal women do: watching the kids and tending to the house.

Of course this article would never have been written about a man and that pissed me off.

But I DO sometimes feel guilty about training a lot - and the guilt stems from SR not being there with me. Having kids has out of necessity led us to a schedule where SR and I almost never can run, bike or swim together because one of us has to watch the kids. And when I'm out there longer than him, I feel bad (well a little).

But on the island of Mallorca, everything was suddenly different. We had a full time live-in babysitter along for the week (AND she's interested in being an Au Pair for us in the future!). So SR and I had a large part of the day together to train with our triathlon club and then the second half of the day was spent with the kids. What a dream!

And guess what - the kids loved it, too!

Just to give a little background, Mallorca/Majorca/Mega Llorca (the third being The Lorax's name for it) is a large island off of the east coast of Spain, where Catalan is the official language, but Majorquis is the local dialect. It is an island of extremely diverse geography and is filled with tourists from all over Europe, though the Brits were the ones who made their presence most obvious.

Anyhow, you know it wasn't Americans who wanted "mushy peas". Must be the Atlantic that divides us because SR thought they sounded good and Natali and I were both like - "um, gross!"

So our training schedule looked like this (some of this was on my own or just with SR and/or Anette):

Day 1: 80km cycle in Formentor mountains

Day 2: 3 hour barefoot run on the beach

Day 3: 72 km cycle flat

Day 4: Half marathon on sand and in Albufuera trails

Day 5: 101 km mountain cycle (and there's proof just below that I did it - the longest ride I've ever been on and SR's second longest)

Day 6: 4 hour barefoot run on sand (yep, I was alone - SR left with Natali one day early)

(what a difference from my last pregnancy where I coulnd't run a step bewteen weeks 26 and 36 due to SI joint problems)

Here are SR and Anette on our 101 km ride.

Here is SR on that same ride.

The heights on our mountain rides scared the shit out of me, to put it mildly. I thus used my brakes way too much on the downhills, but it got better with time.

Here I am in the Formentor Mountains. I had adjusted my handles so I sat more upright and biking was no longer uncomfortable.

And training wasn't all we did.

Okay, I just have to say one thing about the above picture - I must be one of the only women in the world who looks better in a bikini 28 weeks pregnant than I do non-pregnant. I guess I better enjoy it for the very short time it lasts.

Just in case you couldn't tell, The Lorax really is eating an apple naked in the ocean with sandals on.

I can't recommend Mallorca enough, despite it being very touristy. Please feel free to contact me if you want advice on a trip to this gorgeous island.

I got so sick of my running songs while I was there. But on my run today, I really got into a new song by Architecture in Helsinki called "Contact High".

Red Front Marathon

2011-05-01T20:10:00.020+02:00

YES!! I could run a marathon 27 weeks pregnant!!

Now, pay attention: this post is in reverse chronological order.

Here was my Garmin, displaying the time and distance from today's Skodsborg Red Front Marathon.

Yes, the distance is important, because I was 1 mile short of 26.2; I got a bit off course - but when everyone is waiting for you to finish after nearly 5 hours, you don't really feel like asking to run one extra mile.

(okay, this post really needn't be in the second person)

Here is my happy family afterwards ejoying the beautiful woods in Skodsborg. Yes, SR ran too, but he had time to drive home, shower and pick up the kids between the time he finished and I finished.

The Lorax cops a feel after I come across the finish line. "Mor! Du har løbet mange gange!" ("Mom! You have run many times!"), he exclaimed gleefully.

I was still running by the time I crossed the finish line. There was actually very little walking and only up the hills. I had Braxton Hicks, but really not that bad.

Here I am (picture à la Tor Ronnow)

walking up one of those hills. Natali, looking beautiful, waiting patiently for her step-mom.

Lots of friends tooday:

May-Britt, Søren & Jerk

Henriette and ??

Jakob and Lars

And pretty scenes repeated 7 times - almost 100% on dirt trails.

Thanks, Karen, for this photo!

Full-body shot at the halfway point. Yes, I am as fat as I look. 59.4 kg of voluptuous pregnant woman (that's a 5.4 extra kilos of love, folks)

SR runs with power by an old black truck. Sexy.

Great pic again, Karen

Here is the start. We are all in red because on May 1st, Danes celebrate Socialism or, as Jerk said, "the idealism of their youth".

Here is SR, who is probably not thinking about socialism. If he was thinking strategy, he didn't really use it since he ran almost two laps with me and finished in 3:45, which actually was not too far behind the winner - it's a tough course, come to think of it.

Sorry about the short post - but we are off to Mallorca for a week tomorrow, so we have to get ready!

Running song of the day: The Past is a Grotesque Animal by Of Montreal (A stunning - and long - song, by a psychiatrically disturbed man, who invites you to join him in his bizarre world. From one of the best albums ever made.)

Chippewa 50k 2011 Race Report

2011-04-25T13:05:00.013+02:00

Yesterday SR and I had the chance to run 50k in on the Chippewa Moraine recreation area, which includes part of the Ice Age Trail in Northern Wisconsin. (I say chance because it was pretty likely that I, now being 26 weeks pregnant, wouldn't be able to run the whole distance. But stay tuned.). This trail system, for those of you unfamiliar with Wisconsin, is just north of Chippewa Falls and in an area where there is a transition zone between the prairies of the Midwest and the coniferous forests of Canada.

Despite me clearly being out of the running for first, I still like eyeing up the men and women and trying to figure out who will win. We had already chatted with Helen Lavin Helen Lavin at our hotel that morning and she seemed like the clear candidate to win the womens' race. She has the female course record and has won the last three years. And then we saw Brian Peterson ,who looked both fit and had the race times to suggest he would win the men's race. But I was secretly hoping SR would surprise everyone and win the artistic rendition of a dissected fish, which was the men's first prize, created by Wynn Davis.

Having gotten up at 4 am, I had found time for a large breakfast and this made the beginning tough. It was also raining a little and cold, which made dressing appropriately a challenge. I had very fortunately received a bunch of awesome Reebok running clothing from Piccola Pinecone, which included the running jacket and pants I wore. Cool stuff. The funny thing was, though, that with the cute pink jacket on, no one could tell I was pregnant.

Which is strange, since it sure seems obvious in this picture from a few hours before the race.

Actually, Ross saw me quickly switch my shirt underneath by the start, revealing my belly, and said "Hey, Sea Legs Girl! I read your blog. I recognize your bump!" He he. I then forgot to even say what my real name was. So he must still think my first name is Sea.

Here is a picture from the rainy, chilly start. You can see Brian Peterson, Helen Lavin and the girl in black all the way to the right was running her first ultra and in Vibrams. Edit: I learned from her comment that she made it to mile 19.5 before her foot was injured. She will certainly be back racing and doing great since she clearly has the right chearful attitude.

After the first mile, I was all the way at the back of the pack, out of breath and feleling crappy. Needless to say, I didn't start out too fast like the rest of the field probably did. Once we got onto nice single track trails in the forest, though, I was in my element. I took it easy, but for nearly the entire first half, I was on track to tie my time from 2008. The was, however a year where the trails were covered with 6 inches of snow. So it made sense my time would be similar. I passed more and more people, which was such a confidence booster.

I should add that this is perhaps the most technical trail race in the Midwest (oops - Helen reminded me of The Superior Hiking Trail races, which I've heard are technical to the extreme). It is not that there is anything completely unrunnable, but you are almost never running on flat land. And the hills are not tiny. Besides this, the trails are very thin and covered with rocks and roots or mud the entire way.

The race is out and back, so that meant I got to see the men's and women's leaders on the way back. And it was very tight in both groups. An unknown woman, who turned out to be Christie Nowak, was in the lead and Helen was actually in 4th, but pretty close behind. The men's race was being led by Brian Peterson, by a narrow margin, and SR was in 6th, but right behind 2nd to 5th. It was a amazing how fast both fields were. I forgot to mention that there were 160 runners, which is a lot for a race on a single track.

Right before the half way point, at around 15 miles, I began thinking my race was over. I started having palpitations. Not just once in a while, but we're talking every other heartbeat and I had a lot of trouble breathing and was afraid I would faint. When I arrived at the aid station, I saw Karen S., who had amazingly been at three aid stations so far. She was a beacon of happiness. I told the workers that I was having palpitations and wondered if they had any electrolyte caps. They rummaged through John Storkamp's drop bag and gave me six (thanks, John!), of which I took two. They reprimanded me for not having taken any so far. I ate and drank a bit and then I was off again. Incredibly, the palpitations were gone and I was back to passing people. I will have to remember to take one or two of those caps when I get palpitations outside of a race.

Then it was just a question of what it was going to be that stopped me from running and, when I did stop, how I would get back to the finish. I know it's a pessimistic attitude, but 31 miles seemed too long in many ways. I was just amazed both my foot and hip weren't giving me problems. Oh and I forgot to mention I had put on the support belt on at the half way point, which was a complete waste and totally irritating. All it did was rub my upper back. It didn't support a thing. And trust me, I readjusted it like 10 times, it wasn't that. I gave it to a spectator, who was heading back to the start.

I put on my music and was still feeling pretty good and had the goal of making it to a marathon. But then, at 18 miles, the contractions started. First mild, but then so painful that I had to take running breaks. By the time they got really strong, at 20 miles, there were two miles form the next aid station. I could run in spurts in the beginning, but then had to just walk. I started getting very cold and my left leg and foot started cramping up. There was absolutely no way to run and walking was very uncomfortable. I talked to people passing me and enjoyed the scenery and my music.

Finally the 22 mile aid station arrived after 5 hours and 15 minutes of being out on the course. The previous director (Rollie?) of the Voyageur trail race was there and took me back to the start. And that was just how the whole day was, aid stations workers and fellow runners willing to help anyone at the drop of a hat.

SR had apparently completed the course exactly an hour before I dropped, in just under 4:15. This was good enough to come in fourth for the men, right in front of fifth and sixth and just behind second and third. The race was won and possibly a course record set (it's down to the second) by Brian Peterson in 3:59.

The women's race was won by Christie Nowak, a cross country skiier from UMD, running her first ultra, in the amazing time of 4:45. Helen came in third in around 5 hours. She was pleased and always has such a good attitude. She said she hasn't trained much at all in six months. Plus she hasn't had time for her Bikram Yoga, and some of you may recall, that is the real secret to her success. Maybe.

There really isn't too much to say about my race. If I had been running ultras since the beginning of the pregnancy, maybe I would have made it further before Braxton Hicks contractions set in, but I'm not sure. I also think part of it was I was having trouble eating or drinking during the race because it just seemed there was no room in my stomach. Dehydration probably brought the contractions on sooner than later. But running for such a long time on such a technical course at 26 weeks is nothing to be ashamed of and, importantly it was really fun until the last couple of miles. PLUS, I'm still not injured! I'm still a pregnant runner and the baby is doing fine. So there was a happy, albeit unimpressive, ending to the attempt at the pregnant ultra.

SR was really pleased with his race and even hinted that he had wished it had been a fifty miler so he could have done better. Hmmm. Gotta admit I'm dreaming of fifty milers, too. Right now, it may not even be in my cards to run a marathon, but I know I'll be back out there in a matter of months competing seriously in 50 milers. For a little while yet, it's a matter of obeying my ever growing, ever changing body, and enjoying that, too.

Here are SR and I on a little hike by Mirror Lake in Wisconsin Dells on the way back to my parents' Easter Morning.

And The Lorax organizing his treasures from our Easter Egg Hunt.

Chippewa 50 k - the morning of

2011-04-23T11:58:00.002+02:00

It is rare I am up in time to write a blog post the morning before a race, but that is what jet lag will do to you. I slept from 8 to 4 and am feeling really ready to tackle the trails of the Chippewa Moraine. SR is sleeping and I am sitting in the Bloomer Inn lobby drinking coffee from Kwik Trip. And I just finished a peanut butter and chocolate rice krispie treat - only slightly less satisfying than the pecan carmel cream cheese pie last night.

I have no particular expectations for today. It is a really nice feeling to have before an ultra. I think this pregnancy will make me learn more about how to run in the future. Really, every race should be like this: going out and enjoying the day, seeing how fast and how much you feel like running simply according to how you feel. It takes a lot of pressure off.

And if I don't finish all 50k today, it' not for lack of gear. I finally caved and bought compression socks. The CEP brand, since if you recall from my post about compression socks, they're the only ones that have some amount of evidence proving they work. So far it has been a good decision because the pitting edema that had been around my ankles for weeks now has disappeared. There is probably no time of life that one could get greater benefit out of those stockings when running than when pregnant.

And I bought a prengancy support belt. I went out running for about 15 minutes with it and noticed absolutely no difference, but I've decided to run with it anyway.

I promise to take pictures and give a full report after the race. Happy Easter weekend, everyone!

Brøderup Half Marathon - 25 weeks pregnant

2011-04-17T19:24:00.010+02:00

Yes, I finally showed up at a race I had on the blog calendar: Brøderup Half Marathon (as you learned from the title). And, boy, aren't races fun? But if you're only here to find out - "how fast can she really run 25 weeks pregnant?", you might as well browse away. This was a technical, hilly race mostly in the woods. Gorgeous? Yes. Fast course? Well, not exactly.

I decided to run this race for a few reasons: 1. it's in a part of Denmark I've never seen, though only a 25 minute drive from where we live. 2. I am going a little stir crazy with my entire family in the US since Wednesday (I had to stay behind due to work) 3. It is put on by The Mogenstrup Athletic Club and they have a way of finding routes that actually require trail running shoes.

Here is some Danish artwork by a church in Snesere, on the way to the race. Sometimes I feel like such a tourist.

Beautiful day, huh? Did I mention the race started at 11?

When I arrived in Tappernøje, I didn't really know anyone. I recognized some people, but felt extremely awkward. Danes have this way of staring at people, like a 3 year old might, and continuing to stare without saying why they are staring or giving any indication if their thoughts are positive or negative. Yes, being now visibly quite pregnant, I felt like a cow on display in this provincial area of Denmark. I just wasn't sure if I was a prize cow or a mutant cow. But who cares? This cow was going to enjoy the race.

Finally two of my friends showed up. One of them, Charlotte, who had won the race for the women last year in a time of 1:46 (if that gives you any idea of how hard the route is - it's not a tiny race). It surprised me how concerned she was that I was going to run "an entire" half marathon pregnant. "Are you sure you should do this????". I told her about the 50k next weekend...

Here is a map of the route. The green areas are woods, so it wasn't on trails the entire time. I do tend to exaggerate, you know.

And here is the elevation profile. Glad I didn't look at this beforehand because I would have spent the race dreading that last uphill.

Picture of the race start by Jonas Christensen

The race started out okay. Actually, I felt kind of crappy. The first 7 or so km were mostly on roads and my calves really hurt when I run on roads in my minimalist trails shoes. Poor me. I figured under 2 hours was unlikely at the beginning - maybe if it were all flat. And then when I came through the first half of the race in just over an hour, I knew under two hours was out of the question.

But, then the trails came. Beautiful. And the weather and the air. Yes!! I started booking it and passing people. I had this recurring thought that what I was doing was nothing compared to O-Lan in The Good Earth. She went out and worked the fields all afternoon the day she had given birth! I may like to run, but don't ask me to farm on post-partum day 0!

We climbed a gigantic hill that no one ran the whole way up and then there was the view of the ocean! This was a runner's high. And I ran on, enjoying the sun and wind at my back - at a 7 min per mile pace. Heaven! With about 5 miles to go, we actually had to run through a river. Everyone had this idea that they couldn't get their shoes wet, but I ran right through- I know better. But then came fatigue and dizziness. Still no contractions, but I felt really faint and had to slow down. No point in risking anything. Thankfully an aid station with a charming older woman serving sports drink appeared at the edge of the woods. I had two large cups and foraged ahead. Now was the time for the uphill. And, damn, it was into the wind. And little contractions started. The last two miles were not the most fun, but I made it in under two hours!! 1:57:14.

Here was the finish line:

I have never been so proud of such a slow time ;). I think I might have even been in the top 5 females (EDIT: well, turns out I was 8/22- and I don't find that shameful at all) What an awesome race. And here I am. The guy who took the picture made me hold up my diploma - I'm not trying to cover the belly. Isn't that a peaceful pavillion behind me? Though a pavillion just ins't the same without SR there to enjoy it with me.This is my crappy, blurry picture of an oceanic bay by Tappernøje. And this picture was too Danish not to include: farm, blonde boy, little car, Danish flag, etc. I don't know if this will work, but here are all of my race details from my Garmin. It's actually not that easy to identify the three stops to pee. Overall pace was 8:53 min/mile.

Unavngivet af lilybriscoe på Garmin Connect - Detaljer

Running Song of the day: Accused of Stealing by the Delgados. (awesome, awesome song which I love as much now as I did in college)

And one more song; a brand new one - Lament by Mount Moriah (I think you will love it the first time you hear it!)

Sugar and artificial sugar: are they poisonous?

2011-04-14T17:47:00.008+02:00

Yesterday some of you may have noticed an article about sugar potentially being a poison in The New York Times. So why is it, you might ask, that I get to write an editorial about it? Because it's my blog and I must be one of the only people in the world who is actually angered by this article. And WHY am I angry, you ask. Because sure, sugar is not the healthiest thing one can eat, but implicating that is a "poison" responsible for the obesity-related health problems in the US is ignoring the real issue.

Educated people in the US (and Denmark), (aka, those people who like what white people like, yeah yeah I've been know to be guilty of this, too) love blaming problems on dietary imbalances and finding fads to turn life around. This will anger over half of my readers, but I am thinking along the lines of the paleo diet and gluten intolerance.

Bare with me (edit: SR just pointed it, I should only use "bare" with me when talking to him and otherwise it's the animal, "bear". It always confuses me!). Sugar is not a poison. But when people sit around all day without exercise and eat foods with added sugar or, even worse, high fructose corn syrup, they get fat and thus develop health problems. No one is denying that. But the real problem is life-style. Sugar is just not very filling, so when people eat it, they tend to simply want to eat more because they don't get full and the problem is exacerbated. But let's take someone who exercises. For example, SR. He has exercise as a part of his daily routine, plus when he works out, it is fairly intense. He eats sugar (candy) constantly! It disgusts me since I know it would make me feel like crap, but will he develop diabetes or heart disease from it? No. Because both exercise and our muscles (yes our muscles are also glands!) keep our blood sugar regulation so amazingly finely tuned that eating a lot of sugar really has no effect other than making you feel kind of tired and crappy. Contrast this with smoking, which truly is toxic at the cellular level. Sugar is simply not toxic. But it can make you fat.

There are people out there who try to blame our society's health problems on fructose (The Healthy Skeptic comes to mind, who I have had angry words with on a few occassions). This is turn leads educated people to do things like not eat fruit because it has fructose in it and thus feel themselves superior to others. Well, guess what? Fruit is healthy! And then bread. Poor bread. There is nothing wrong with bread as long as it is eaten as part of a balanced diet and as long as one is physically active.

I am so frightened of what will happen to Natti and The Lorax and Finnbjørn when we move to the US. They will be forced into that sedentary American lifestyle and suffer for it. I have already told SR my plan of the morning boot camp where the kids and I go out running an hour before school just so they can survive America.

Scientists, educated people, health care workers, I appeal to you, stop blaming sugar and bread for health problems in our society and take a look at the bigger problem which is the sedentary lifestyle. Get off of your high paleolithic horses and get real.

Paleolithic Horse at the Caves of Lascaux.

Ahhh. That felt good.

Edit: As long as we're talking about all things Paleolithic: what is the big difference between now and the Paleolithic Era? The size of the human population. The total population now (6.91 billion) is approximately 1,382 times what it was during the Paleolithic era (5 million)! And why is that? The farming of grains! Yay grain. Does anyone who adheres to The Paleolithic Diet honestly believe it is sustainable at a worldwide level??? No way! It is a HUGE use of resources for people in developed countries to eat Paleolithically. Shouldn't a diet both be healhty and sustainable?

Now, onto diet soda. Or should I call it artificial sweeteners? What I want to talk about is a study that was in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition last June. It was a large Danish study that was actually very well-written. It found that the more diet soda a woman drank, the more likely she was to give birth prematurely. In fact, if a woman drank 4 or more diet sodas a day, her odds of premature birth was increased by 1.86. This is more than if a woman smokes. Amazing, really. And scary for a mom-to-be who likes diet soda. Plus this is just the kind of study the media would L-O-V-E. But what is the catch? Why do I even mention this? Because they played with their data to get a significant result. And if one considers how a study like this could play with a pregnant woman's psyche, it is sickening that the authors would do this to get published. But, as a researcher myself, I know how tempting rationalizations can be, and I am hesitant to blame them, per se. But here were the ingredients of their "fudge":

1. They reported their results in odds ratios rather than relative risk. When looking a prospective cohort, one should report in relative risk unless the expected outcome is exceedingly rare. There is around a 12% chance of premature birth in the developed world, which is not exceedingly rare, so they obviously did this to make their results significant.

2. They broke their analyses up into subgroups when the results weren't significant in the large group: They considered diet soda and other diet beverages two separate things even though they mostly are both sweetened with aspartame. They only did this because all artificially sweetened beverages taken together did not have an effect on premature birth.

3. Just like in the case of sugar, they do not fully address the real problem - socioeconomic class. If there is one meaningful risk factor that has been found for premature birth, it is that. Take a look at this graph, bearing in mind that there is NO increased risk for premature birth in Africa compared with the US (ie it is not genetic).

This is a graph from the CDC. It shows percentage of "late" premature births by race and that is why the "all births" line is only just over 6% and not the 12%, which I quoted above for all premature births.

The New England Journal's review article on "the enigma" of premature birth summed it up best: "Numerous epidemiologic studies have shown the association of poverty, limited maternal education, young maternal age, unmarried status, and inadequate prenatal care with increased risk of preterm birth and low birth weight."

And women who drink more than four glasses of diet soda a day had exactly these characteristics, when they broke down their data, though they failed to control for everything associated with low socioeconomic class and how could they? They have thus not proven causation between diet soda and premature birth (and couldn't with this study design anyway), but have simply shown that drinking excess diet soda goes along with low socioeconomic class, at least in Denmark. Maybe there is something toxic in aspartame, but if there is it is VERY mildly toxic, as they had a huge study and were unable to show a link with all groups of aspartame-sweetened drinks taken together. If anything, they have proven that aspartame is, in fact, not very toxic.

What about me personally? Well, funny thing is, just because of how they taste and make me feel, I've cut down a lot on both refined sugar and artificially sweetened products since getting pregnant. And I have to admit I feel better for it. But when considering the of effects sugar, I am simply saying: be realistic and ---take it with a grain of salt!

Running song of the day: An oldie but a goodie: Cigarettes and Red Vines by Aimee Mann (you tell me which one is the toxin)

24 weeks: The garbage nest swan and me

2011-04-12T16:15:00.011+02:00

It is good that most women find a mate before they get pregnant and not vice versa. Let's just say I don't feel I have a lot going for me right now. First of all, I cough all night (there must be something about being pregnant that makes one cough). And as if that weren't annoying enough, I wet my pants a little, or more than a little, every time I cough. I have pitting edema in my ankles. And my left eye is perpetually red and swollen (this is particularly fun for someone working in ophthalmology).

Then there is my psychiatric state. I can go from saying "I've never been so happy in my life!" to seconds later screaming and crying because I can't take Shakira singing "wakawaka" one more time. I also can't keep track of what I'm doing. The other day, I went to Copenhagen to use a specific statistics program and then forgot to save the work. I then actually got the program onto my computer and, when I turned the assignment for our statistics class, I realized I had forgotten half of it in the printer. This morning I truly left our apartment without shoes on. It was not for a barefoot run, and it was raining outside. I did make the right decision to go back and get my shoes.

My chances of advancing my career are minuscule right now. Rather than learning statistics in the class I'm in now, I sit and study the large map of Europe on the wall, trying to determine in which body of water I would most like to swim naked. I have the opportunity to start some really interesting studies at the moment, but half of my time is spent simply trying to remember what I need to do or doing something again, which I did wrong the first time. Seriously, people.

I read in my Danish pregnancy book that some women feel they get clumsy and absent-minded while pregnant. They then state "this can most likely be alone attributed to increased swelling in women's hands, which makes them drop things." .... right... Allow me to nominate this as the worst hypothesis of the year.

But thank heavens I still have running and exercise, my main sources of self-esteem. What would I do without them? I spend a lot of time talking about how healthy exercise in pregnancy is. But now, when I get asked (as I do frequently at this point) "Are you sure that's safe???", rather than gathering my resources and starting to explain how it actually is healthy, I get the urge to strangle the person and say "don't try to tell me it's unhealthy. I NEED it!" How do women who don't run or exercise SURVIVE pregnancy?

Last weekend was filled with moments of heaven on earth. On Saturday, SR and I went for a run - two times around two lakes on trails, as I call the route around Bagsværd and Lyngby lakes. Two months ago this took me 2:45 minutes, on Saturday, it took just three minutes longer! I have to say, at 24 weeks, exercise is not much harder than it was at the very beginning. On Sunday, I rode my road bike an hour to the pool, swam for 50 minutes and then ran 1.5 hours home through the woods. No part of it was much slower than at the beginning of pregnancy. I am simply writing this so I remember it. These are the moments where I shine.

I left my statistics class early today to run in the cold rain. On days like this, there are not that many people running, even around the lakes in central Copenhagen. And I had a moment to observe the swan I love, who makes her nest out of trash. She takes a lot of grass, but also plastic bags and bottles and strings and other odds and ends to make her enormous nest. I looked carefully today and, sure enough, she's got an egg in there.

I get a lot of comfort out of this swan. She is filled with this desire to make a nest and does it in such a crazy and yet adamant way. No one understands her and yet she is sure she is preparing correctly for the new little swan. Yet, does she even know the new little one is coming?

So pregnancy, a time of hyper vigilance, misdirection and distraction. How can these be turned into anything beneficial? Is there a reason, evolutionarily, we feel this way? Well, my theory is, we are simply building up love for the baby (my alternative hypothesis is simply brain swelling). A loving mother is simply so important for a baby's survival. But can all of this extra energy be used towards anything good here and now? One sure thing is that I suddenly have even more love to give The Lorax. It is not unheard of for me to simply watch him fall asleep and then burst into tears because I will never, ever, ever be able to communicate to him how much I love him. It is TOO much!!

Some women use this energy to paint rooms or buy baby clothing. This is all fine and well, but it is absolutely not me. I guess I choose to focus a lot on diet and exercise because, well, these are really two of the only things I know of that actually improve birth outcomes. So at least I feel I'm doing something. (Drs. Cythia and David pointed out that exercise in pregnancy decreases the risk of pre-ecclampsia: yes this is true! I was at a lecture a couple months ago with one of the world's leading pre-ecclampsia experts and she just could NOT say enough about the benefits of exercise while pregnant.) Plus, what a great way to get in shape (as I've mentioned before). If you've got all of this energy and unrest that you just can't seem to direct, well, exercise seems like a good option.

I actually found a picture of my swan on the internet, but I just don't think it does her justice, so she will have to remain as she is in your imagination.

Instead, I will leave you with a picture of SR trying desperately to escape his crazy wife.

And now that I have made fun of Shakira, I need to leave you with some music from three different countries.

The first is a video that made me cry both times I watched it (but remember, you're getting this from an emotional pregnant chick). It is from Holland and the girl's face reminds me so much of Diana (who lives in Holland) but I just don't think it's her. Diana, you're not a circus gymnast, are you?

Bart Constant - "Do Better" (with Dustin O'Halloran) from Kimmo Films on Vimeo.

Second, my absolute favorite running or biking song right now from Sweden. Short translation of the chorus "I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming. I'm almost there!" (you decide for yourself whether or not the song is sexual...)

Third. The Spanish language in all of it's beauty, from Barcelona. This is one song which really benefits from being as long as it is. Horas Tristes by Mueran Humanos Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExXx3OuCIeE (totally scary picture on their album cover- beware!)

Visit to the ER

2011-04-07T18:06:00.003+02:00

It is amazing how a day can go from uneventful to the exact opposite in less than a second. I simply unplugged our computer from our converter (it's an American computer) and got a painful shock to the right hand. This is normally not the kind of thing a person would think twice about. But it bothered me. What would happen if I got a shock like that while sitting in the bathtub? Would I get burned? Would my heart stop? Well, if the shock went through the uterus, the baby IS essentially in a bathtub. I thought about going immediately to the ER because, well, if it's heart had stopped, something needed to be done immediately. But I told myself that I was a total paranoid hypochondriac. I ran to the train with my computer in backpack, made a phone call, got on the train and then started reading an article about electric shock on the internet. This one: http://drugsafetysite.com/electricity/#

From household voltages of 110 to 220 alternating current, they found a 71% death rate among the fetuses. Most immediate. Others up to three days later. Oh my GOD. I hadn't felt the baby move since the shock. I screamed in my seat on the train. People started looking at me. I ran into the bathroom and started screaming and crying, not knowing what to do. I called SR and he didn't answer. So I called the Danish equivalent of 911, which is 112. They told me to find the train conductor and get him to stop the train. But even in my panicked state, I was not about to have the train conductor stop in the middle of the woods. "Just tell me if it's dangerous or not!!!!" I replied. He got a nurse on the line, who told me to get off the train at the next stop and go to the ER. I had to wait a few minutes for the next stop. SR called back. He told me I was crazy to worry and that he had to go to a meeting. So who was right? I sat down in total agony. And then I thought I felt the baby kick. Oh yes! Yes! But I got off the train anyway and headed to the ER, feeling more than a little reassured.

At the ER they thought I was bat shit crazy. And I would have thought the same thing about me just an hour earlier. But why didn't they know about the dangers? Or what was with that internet website? They did all kinds of monitoring of me and I was like "I am NOT worried about me. I am worried about the baby. Can't I just get a doppler?" I lay there completely bare-chested with ginormous preggo boobs (everything is relative) getting an ekg when the doctor walked in. He smiled and introduced himself and asked if I was SR's wife. They were apparently med school buddies and he was apparently unoffended by my shirtlessness. I told him about my concerns and then he said "Well, I looked it up and found a Danish midwife who had written on an internet forum that there is nothing to worry about."

Is this what modern medicine has come to? Doctor 1 comes to the ER scared by an article on the internet only to have Doctor 2 tell her not to be frightened because he had read something else on the internet? (Anyone starting to understand why I doubt doctors so much?)

I was taken up to the obstetrical department where they once again thought I was bat shit crazy. I had felt the baby move many times by now but just wanted someone knowledgeable to talk to. Well, this wasn't meant to be. I got a doppler from an obstetrical nurse and everything sounded fine. I aksed her if she could at least confer with an obsterician and long as I was there and she did. But I didn't get any sort of an answer other than everything would be okay.

Maybe most other women would have been satisfied. But I had read reports of badly burned babies dying days or weeks later and couldn't let it rest. I mean, at least my understanding from physics was that current in through the hand has to be grounded somewhere and the easiest way to the ground is through the foot (am I wrong?)- and thus through the baby in the little amniotic bathtub on the way.

But remember - negative outcomes are the ones that get published. And women who just get a shock and forget about it never get written about. Yet, I wouldn't blame you for still being worried.

But I am not going to leave you (or myself) in a state of doubt. I found a good study. A study in The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology where they looked at 32 random women who had received shocks from household appliances and other much higher electric voltages and called for advice. Out of the 32, there were two spontaneous abortions, one which was proven to be unrelated and the other one was unlikely to be related. Otherwise all babies survived unaffected.

Accidental electric shock in pregnancy: a prospective cohort study.Einarson A - Am J Obstet Gynecol - 01-MAR-1997; 176(3): 678-81 Their bottom line was "in the typical home scenario ... hand-to-hand electric shock does not pose a major fetal risk."

Thanks to Adrienne Einarson, the author of the study above, this story has a happy ending. But I'm not about to go playing with that converter again while pregnant.

Run at Whale Lake Church

2011-04-03T20:05:00.009+02:00

We are pretty sure there are not any whales in the lakes of Denmark. But we really did run at a place known as Whale Lake Church today. We had planned, in our sort of way of planning, to run the Sydkystmaraton today, but then SR got angry about paying the entry fee. I had actually gotten free entry from Henriette. But paying about $50 bucks for SR's entry fee, for a race mosly on asfalt, wasn't really that appealing to me either. And I have had a bad cold and sore throat over the past week, so I didn't feel like waking up super early or exerting my immune system. Plus, I have begun to have problems with plantar fasciitits again and hard surfaces are the absolute worst. So instead, we went to my favorite place to run in Denmark: Hvalsø Kirke (yes, Whale Lake Church). It is the hilliest place on our island and has a huge area of forest, and is also the place Skovløberen, my favorite Danish marathon, is run. We had set out to run a marathon, but even with the opportunity to run 4 1/2 hours, we didn't quite do that (it did, after all, take me four hours to run a marathon here non-pregnant and in a race). We ran only 23. But somehow it seemed fitting and celebratory to run 23 miles now that I am 23 weeks pregnant. Plus, it was stress-free, my cold is now gone and my plantar fasciitis is only slightly worse.

We ran together the entire time. I think we are at our best and most in love on days like this. Of course, when we get hypoglycemic, we get mean quickly, but that only happend once today. (Danni calls this phenomenon "hangry" by the way, which is great)

At about 18 miles, I started having Braxton Hicks contractions. I really didn't know what it was at first and thought I really had to pee, but no pee came out. I got worried. But then I realized that the pain kept coming and going and went away if I stopped running. And once I realized this, ironically, I wasn't afraid to run anymore. Because one knows it's Braxton Hicks if it goes away when one stops the exertion. Okay, but despite the fact I knew it wasn't dangerous, it wasn't comfortable either. I would describe it as going from feeling normal to feeling as if there is a big bowling ball pressing on your bladder and pelvis. I actually first experienced Braxton Hicks my last pregnancy after I had my running injury, while I was spinning, so I don't remember what they felt like running. Any of you readers have experience with them while running?

I'm not sure how I feel about running all of Chippewa in 3 weeks. 50k seems longer to me today than it did yesterday. And the terrain we ran on today was similar to the Chippewa terrain. It is not that I am worried about running it slowly, I just don't like the idea of running 12 miles or more with contractions. So, of course, I'll just run as much as I'm comfortable with. Chippewa is, after all, in such a beautiful area that just getting the chance to run there - even part of the distance - is something to look forward to. Plus, I know SR has a chance of winning. He is uninjured, light and has had some good long runs, though he adamantly denies being in good shape right now.

I didn't even listen to enough music to have a running song of the day. So instead, you're all stuck with captioned pictures.

Photo of the artist as a young man

23 weeks pregnant - after 23 miles run

The sexiest husband to ever stand on a rock with a Chippewa 50k shirt on, looking for whales in a fresh-water lake

Finding a name for a boy

2011-03-27T14:51:00.003+02:00

SR and I are not the only couple in the history of the world to have had trouble deciding what to name their son. But I wasn't expecting it. Even before I got pregnant with The Lorax, SR and I had the following discussion: "What is your favorite boy name?" "Christian." "Really?! That's mine, too!" End of discussion. I can't remember who said what, but I don't think we fully appreciated the coincidence that two people from different continents would share the same favorite boy name.

But finding a name for our second son has been a huge challenge. I amm trying not to see it as some sort of sign - that when we fell in love, we were in this harmonious state, simply agreeing without much discussion and now, well...

But the truth is, it's even more our parents and families that can't agree. Names that work in Denmark don't work as well in the US and vice versa. Of course we could choose Jakob, Thomas, Daniel, Oliver, Erik or Jesper, but we just can't get ourselves excited about those names. We like somewhat unusual names. We had actually decided on the name Vitus (after Vitus Bering, the Danish explorer who discovered the strait of his namesake). SR's parents loved it. And then we mentioned it to my family and we realized a big problem: though it's pronounced VEE-toose in Denmark, as my sister said, everyone would call him Gingivitis in the US. And that's probably not good.

There are many Danish boy names that simply would never work in the US: Egon, Jerk, Thor, Kim, Toke, Knud, etc. And typical American names tend to sound low-class in Denmark. I did have to laugh, though, when I saw Chastity-Hope was one of the top female names in Germany right now!

My favorite names are simply set-ups for rejection in both countries. They are, after all, very gay: Jean Michel, Sufjan, Orlando, Clair, etc.

The best men's names, in my mind, are unique, musical and fitting of the person, place and time:

Orlando Bloom
Jackson Pollack
Christian Boltanski
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Plaxico Buress
Sufjan Stevens
Gabriel García Márquez
Ambrose Bierce
Brice Feillu

Perhaps our biggest problem is we don't have a "place". If we were staying in Denmark, we'd call him Vitus. If we were permanently in the US, we'd call him Sofus (also a Danish name, but just not as cool here - often used as a name for bunnies, etc.).

But isn't it also fitting that we would finally come to an agreement today on a run together? Somehow The Lorax put up with over two hours in the jogger - maybe because the weather was nice and his parents were in a good mood. Part of it was definitely that we did hill repeats in the woods and SR treated it like a roller coaster. The Lorax screamed and laughed. The name we decided on was actually a name I stumbled upon, not realizing it was a name invented by Astrid Lindgren in the book Ronia the Robber's Daughter. It's not certain we'll use it, but it is nice to be in agreement! Oh yeah, I didn't write the name on purpose, people. The biggest question is whether or not we should ask the opinion of others.

I have to add that SR and I both went on to run almost 4 hours. It was a great day of preparation for the Chippewa 50k, though maybe a bit much considering our marathon next weekend.

Now a music video simply simply because it's beautiful:

Cançó de l'alba - BEDROOM from Compañía Volcánica on Vimeo.

A cautionary tale and injury prevention for the pregnant runner

2011-03-22T18:23:00.005+01:00

When I said I would write my next blog post about injury prevention in pregnant running, I didn't know it would be clouded by such a serious occurrence. No, luckily I have not gotten injured yet, but for those of you who don't read Stefanie Schocke's blog (and I hope she doesn't mind I mention this!), she has just learned that she suffered a stress fracture at the inferior pubic ramus at the end of her pregnancy. She has really been an inspiration to me, with how fast she ran pregnant (made a habit of setting PR's) and how she almost made it to the end before any injury set in. But her injury makes me realize how serious, relevant and poorly understood this topic is among pregnant runners.

I also didn't know when I said I'd write this post that the incidence of pelvic/hip/groin injury was so common in pregnant runners )you are, of course, all smart enough to take a poll on my blog with a grain of salt - but it's hard not to find it a little interesting).

You are more likely than not to have your running curtailed by an injury while pregnant. And the most likely injury (67%) is of the pelvis.

And I consider any groin, hip or pelvic injury to be equivalent. They all occur in the above ring and occur by the same basic mechanism: the uneven loosening of/stress on the pelvis.

What I am about to write is simply an amalgamation of what I have learned in medical school and years of reading about running and pregnancy and is not from any particular research, though I quote one study. The only good reason you have to read it is you probably won't be able to find much else written on this topic (if you do, let me know! I want to read it.).

So, let's get started with my interpretation of the biomechanics that predispose to pelvic injury:

1. The belly grows, of course. This changes the body's position while running. Initially I thought if one ran with a backpack that one would balance out "the problem", but this is the opposite of the truth. (yes, this is my very own illustration)

The truth is, the larger the belly grows, the more a woman leans back to compensate. This puts stress on the sacroiliac joint and the back of the pelvis.

2. At the same time, the ligaments loosen in the pelvis in response to the hormone relaxin. This makes good sense for pushing a baby through. But when things loosen, they unfortunately tend to loosen unevenly.

So what to do to protect the pregnant pelvis while running?

First, buy shoes that promote running on the forefoot. This will give you a posture where you are leaning more forward and less stress with be placed on the pelvis and SI joint this way. If you already run with vibrams or barefoot, you really can't do anything more in this department.

I have now taught myself to run in shoes with very minimal cushion with more of a forward-leaning style. My feet and calves have taken a beating. And it was a while before I could run 3 hours straight in these shoes, but yesterday I did 3 1/2 hours and it went well. I will add that running on dirt as opposed to asphalt makes transition to this running style a lot easier.

Second, you need to have balance in the strength of the muslces that support and surround the pelvis. The balance of strength is perhaps equally important to strength itself when preventing uneven loosening of the pelvis. So what do I recommend? Well, if you run, you legs are strong, but you need to strengthen your abs, back, inner and outer thighs, butt and even upper body to balance things out. Remember this is all theory.

My favorite exercises involve the exercise ball and I attend classes where we focus on the entire body and core. It is easy to overdo the abs and forget the inner and outer thighs for example. Balancing acts (which I have perfected while waiting for trains with my backpack on) are great for strengthening our neglected deep core muscles.

Now, the topic that gets everybody's undies in a bundle: weight gain. It seems intuitive that the less weight one adds to the pelvis, the less chance one has of injuring the pelvis. And I think this is generally true that women who gain less tend to be able to run longer while pregnant. It is very simple mechanics of course, though there are always confounding factors involved.

But, but, but, but. And I admit this actually occurred to me in the last week: women who are pregnant are in essence amenorrheic. They don't have the cyclical estrogen and progesterone spikes that keep female bones strong. Not only this (here comes the one study), but increased prolactin levels cause decreased bone mineral density. Black et al. (J Bone Miner Res 2000; 15:557-63) showed an average decrease in bone mineral density in the spine of 3.5% in 10 women over the course of their pregnancies. First of all, it is thus important to get adequate calcium and vitamin D. But another thing that keeps bones strong is a little extra weight. It is therefore, in theory, important to gain ENOUGH weight so our bones don't weaken too much. (just as an aside, I would love to do a study taking serial dexa scans of women to see if there is a correlation between weight gain while pregnant and the development of osteopenia - or fractures for that matter.).

Sorry, was that just total blabber or what?

Running songs of the day:

Safari Disco Club and Que veux-tu/ by Yelle

Also - Amour du sol by Yelle (can't find a video for it)

The deformity scan

2011-03-15T20:06:00.004+01:00

Yesterday was finally the day of the ”deformity scan”. I'm not calling it that as some kind of pathetic joke. That is what it is called in Denmark. They had the options of "20 week scan", "midpregnancy scan" and ”deformity scan” and went with the latter (I imagine so it would be paid for by taxes). I couldn't help but being affected by the name. Unlike the my scan with The Lorax at the same point in pregnancy, I was really worried.

There has been a lot of negative energy in our life lately. Not because of anything bad in particular, but because SR and I work way too much. And that is all I have to say about that. But am I wrong in believing that when there is negative energy and a feeling of ”unluckiness” that things tend to go badly?

The weeks leading up to the scan seemed to take eons. And the more time that went by, the more nervous I became. But when friends and family talked to me about the scan, they simply wanted to know the following: ”are you one of those people who wants to find out the sex?” and then, since I always answered ”yes, I'm one of those people”, they would ask what my preference was. Well, just because one wants to know certainly doesn't mean one has a preference. I just feel that knowing the sex somehow allows me to imagine the little one better and more specifically direct all of my love. SR and I had discussed it a lot and there were pluses and minuses to both. The biggest plus to having a girl was that we loved the name we had picked out. Plus, people tend to look at families with one of each as balanced and perfect. But since our family will never come close to appearing balanced, with all of the confusing sibling, step-sibling relationships, that really wasn't a consideration. Finally, the day before the scan, I said that having a girl would be nice because it would be different. I was, of course, well aware that the odds were stacked against that. And right after I said it, I regretted it. Because – whatever it is – once you say it, you start to believe it. And before that, I really hadn't had much of a preference.

God, I write a lot of nothing these days.

So on the day of the scan, when they put the probe on my belly and the baby looked healthy, I burst out into tears. I was so happy. I imagine ultrasound techs are used to hormonal pregnant behavior. No matter what I wanted to believe or how I looked at the baby on the screen, it just looked like a boy. But maybe they all do. They went through every single organ, it seemed, before they got to the penis-clitoris matter. Then one of them said something about a ”tap” in Danish and I smiled at our little son. A ”tap” is a rod. Not the first word I use when describing a penis, but it was nonetheless clear that we were not expecting a girl with a rod.

(just goes to show you can't determine sex by the severity of nausea!)

When I got home, I finally got in touch with SR at work and he started crying like a baby, apparently right there in the middle of the hospital ward. ”I just get so happy imagining another Lorax” he said, choking on his words. I was afraid that this baby would somehow be ”just the fourth kid” to him; I cried too, mostly because I had underestimated my husband.

Meet Finnbjørn (again). And remember - that's just his name in utero :).

First from the outside

And from the inside

Running songs of the day: 1. Eager for your Love by Tristan 2. Civilian by Wye Oak

Take note of the poll to the right. My next post will talk about why it is pregnant women get injured while running - and what they (maybe) can do to avoid it

Humor on a Wednesday in March

2011-03-09T20:23:00.007+01:00

I considered calling this post "Wednesday Humor" but that would somehow put pressure on me to be funny on more than one Wednesday. That is just too much to ask of a woman who has developed a syndrome - the "I am a mom in my 30's and I am NO LONGER FUNNY".

You're probably thinking "SLG, but you were never actually funny." And you may be right, but some would disagree. You see, in both junior high and high school I was voted "funniest girl" (I was actually just runner up in high school, if you really want the truth). Seeing as I wasn't winning any beauty or popularity contests, I took this very seriously.

But something has happened. And rather than pontificating about whether or not this is an evolutionary phenomenon in women (getting less funny during motherhood) or just a phase in my life, I will simply say that I am grateful to be surrounded by humorous things. And, more specifically, I am glad that I haven't yet resorted to pictures of small animals in precarious situations as my main source of humor.

For example, today I received an email from a woman named Lone Bitsch-Olsen. She was kindly asking hospital employees to move their fucking cars, which were parked illegally.

(No, I didn't make up that name. I also really like using "fucking" without *'s or #'s or even %'s because that is just how unrefined and untalented I have become).

Then, later this evening, I spent 435 kroner ($81) to fill 10 gallons in our almost 11 gallon Hyundai Getz with gasoline. For those who are less mathematically inclined, that is $8.10 per gallon. This is the lowest gas prices have been in the last week and I went to the cheapest station in town at the cheapest time of the day. Okay, okay, it's not funny, but it did make me laugh out loud.

Then The Lorax.

This is actually not The Lorax, but a boy who bears a strange resemblance to the Lorax (minus the brown eyes) with the haircut I would like The Lorax to get on Friday. Christian (Lorax's real name) saw this picture and said pointedly "That is not Christian. That is a tomato." Needless to say, I think he likes the haircut.

Finally, step daughter showed me this video. I admit it is kind of annoying to post of video instead of actually writing something funny (but if you've been paying attention, I'm not funny anyway) - but this is such a classic example of good Scandinavian humor, that I would be amiss not showing it (there are subtitles).

I think the best part of the above video was going over it moment by moment afterwards with SR, both of us laughing so hard, remembering in some way how we fell in love in the first place. I didn't mean it was a smelly ass that made us fall in love, but come to think of it...

Now, please, brighten my spirits - who are some of your favorite female comedians?

Giving Birth in The Gambia

2011-03-06T07:19:00.005+01:00

So, I haven't actually been to The Gambia. I just enjoy saying it because it is one of the few countries that gets a The. Not even La France gets a The, even though they call themselves "The France".

Anyway, I finally went to my first appointment with my "earth mother" (jordmor) here in Denmark. This is the woman who is assigned to deliver our baby; the American/British equivalent is a midwife. Nobody here is assigned a doctor for delivery - unless for some reason you are pegged as having a high risk pregnancy. My first appointment was supposed to be around week 13, but because things are so backed up here, I had to wait until just before week 19.

I don't know what I was expecting - but I was expecting something. But she (actually there were two of them there) just talked to me. "Wow - that's great you run so much! You saved me time convincing you to exercise. You should take more iron. Here are some brochures about breastfeeding. Here's the number to call when you go in labor." They didn't weigh me, take my blood pressure, measure me. And then they were like - "well, since you're just two weeks away from the next appointment with us, we'll just skip that one and you can come back in week 29. See ya in the third trimester! Good luck! Keep running!"

I admit, I did get to listen to the fetal heart sound for the first time. Sure that was nice, but I knew it would have a heart beat since I feel it kick nearly hourly.

So I started thinking... is it actually dangerous to give birth in Denmark? I mean how they heck do the ever get the impression something is wrong?

And that's when I started thinking about giving birth in places like The Gambia. I did a bit of research and found their infant mortality rate is around the 31st highest in the world. Angola actually has the highest at almost 20%! So is Denmark even close to this? Of course not. Denmark's infant mortality rate is .46%, the 12th lowest in the world and is, not surprisingly, lower than that in the US (.63%). But this number isn't really that interesting when talking about giving birth. Infant mortality rate includes all deaths in the first year of life. Most infant deaths that occur in the third world are sometime later in that first year due to infection.

So what about actual birth outcomes? Everyone reading this knows that mothers and babies alike are much less likely to die at birth in the developed world than in the third world. But why is this? And what if I told you that in the 1940's the perinatal and maternal mortality in the US were similar to what they are in the 3rd world now (between 3 and 4%)? What is it then that has made the difference and what should all mothers worldwide have available when giving birth?

Unfortunately the answer is not at all simple. So much changed between the 40's and the 60's. Well, actually, the improvement is not that complicated when it comes to maternal death; that rate fell drastically after the introduction of penicillin in the 50's. But what about perinatal mortality? In developing countries, most perinatal mortality occurs due to the baby in some way getting stuck, the umbilical cord getting compressed and the baby asphyxiating before it can come out. A myriad of things came together at once in the 50's and 60's ensuring that this basically never happens in the developed world anymore: fetal heart rate monitors and people who know how to read them, quick access to a person skilled with forceps or a cesarean section with anesthesiologists and obstetricians. APGAR scores give an idea of how the baby is doing seconds after birth and neonatal intensivists are on hand to take over if the baby was not doing well. And prenatal ultrasounds give warning when there may be a problem in utero. This, along with many, many other little interventions, is the modern "obstetrical package". And it consists of so many elements that have never been analyzed separately, so it is tough to say what really made the difference. Today almost all perinatal mortality occurs due to premature birth, and with access to a neonatal intensive care unit, it is only the very, very premature that don't survive. And, in all honesty, when born before 25 weeks, most will lead a life fraught with disabilities and health problems (there are exceptions).

So, thankfully, I have access to all of these modern interventins here and that is why Denmark does just as well as The US (I should also mention that there are two sets of ultrasounds here - my second is next week) and for much less money.

But, when my earth mothers asked if I wanted to give birth at home, I said no, no, no. And why, if my water breaks before 33 weeks, I'm going to have SR drive me to Copenhagen - or I'll drive myself. I have to be near a good NICU.

Normally I am not one for much medical intervention. But I have worked in the 3rd world delivering babies - and have seen how frequently things can go wrong. I was involved in a case where the umbilical cord came out before the baby- the family doc there gave me a warm saline bottle to hold the cord in, so the cord wouldn't spasm in cold air and cut off the blood supply. I sat there for almost an hour in the middle of the night, with my hands between this woman's legs. She only spoke Tz'utujil , and well, a little Spanish, so we were able to very little small talk. The Fam Med doc, who normally would have had my help, set up for a c- section. Finally another family doc arrived to set up the anesthesia. We performed a c-section, the baby was delivered, and the mother could not stop hugging me. But an hour later, the baby started not breathing properly and not reacting right. I apologized to her, but I will never know if she understood. They were driven to Guatemala City and the baby died on the way.

This is not a reality people reading this blog deal with and if they ever did, they would sue. When the blood supply of a baby is compromised time is brain cells and very, very unfortunately nothing happened quickly that night.

It's probably good for me to put things in perspective - and admit that most of the things I talk about on this blog (exercise, weight gain, etc) are not factors that make a big difference in birth outcome.

The modern "obstetrical package" is one of the few examples in medicine of an group of interventions that has saved a huge amount of lives. But, the other side of this coin is that deliveries in the US (and Europe) have become over-medicalized. Women's labors are started if they go slightly past their due date. If labor is too slow or there is even a blip of heart-rate deceleration on the heart rate monitor, women are rushed to the OR for a c-section. Not based on evidence, but simply on the idea that one must "do everything" and "not take chances". I'm not criticizing; it is tough to make decisions when it's no longer ethical to due a study about not using one of the interventions.

To end this post on a running note, this is perhaps one of the biggest benefits of running while pregnant: much lower chance of emergency c-section. Babies heart rates don't decelerate - they are strong due to all of that blood flow variation they have gotten through their exercising mom. So doctors worry less. Also, babies of running moms are much less likely to be large for gestational age and, to some extent, they are less likely to go beyond their due date. Run for your own health - and run to avoid the risks of the overmedicalization of labor and delivery! But the real risk of problems at birth is dependent on where you live - not what you do.

I have to thank The WHO, The CIA, James Clapp and Atul Gawande for their writings and reports, which I used in this blog post.

And finally, since SR is in Portugal this weekend, I have turned to dreaming about singing a pop duet with Enrique Iglesias. My two running songs of the day were "Escape" and "Heartbeat" by Enrique Iglesias. The only downside is his lyrics are uninteresting. But they worked well on my long run- on the first warm day of the year in Denmark!

Cannonball: 18 weeks pregnant marathon

2011-02-27T16:03:00.005+01:00

The cannonball concept in running is fairly simple: you arrange a marathon on the spur of the moment. This is the kind of marathon we ran today. In all honesty, we had signed up for it nearly a month ago, so it would be a stretch to call it spontaneous. It even has a lovely website.

I have been such an emotional mess lately that I opted not to mention it on the blog. I am subject to changing my mind at the spur of the moment and didn't want to deal with explaining why I didn't run, if I were to wimp out. But this morning I was game, despite my ever-worsening plantar fasciits. If nothing else, I figured I would try to run the same amount of time as SR and then we could go home together.

The race start was a 10 minute run from our apartment and there were about 25 other runners, most of whom we knew. It was just the kind of race I needed. I need support right now. I hate to sound fragile, but I have been letting people get to me. In the last week I have had three female doctors tell me they would never run pregnant because it was too dangerous. When someone says this to me, I get big crazy eyes and ask in slow monotone "how exactly is it crazy?" - still big... crazy... eyes. And then I get stupid answers - "it shakes the baby too much", or "I read that somewhere once, I think". Maybe I give people too much credibility just because of the doctor title (and in honestly, they certainly do know a lot about the field they are in!). But, God, no one wants to hear that what they're doing is a threat to their baby. Sometimes I wish I lived in a bubble where I could just run as much as I wanted and I wouldn't have to deal with having (undeserved) guilt being bestowed upon me from all directions.

The run started ingloriously. Lots of cold, wind and hills. I claim to like these conditions, but then again, I've almost forgotten what it is like to run a flat marathon in nice weather. The latter would have been nice today.

The race was set up in 7 loops of 6 km. I ran the first two with a really nice guy, Claus Fischer, who helped me forget all of the disturbing noise in my head. And everyone there seemed to know I was pregnant - I got comments like "respect!" and "incredible!". It was great. No, I don't want my ego fed, and I'm not running marathons to look like a hero. I run them because I enjoy them and I truly believe it is a healthy thing to do in pregnancy. AND I am an absolutely normal woman who has found herself scrutinized and criticized by many a woman in Denmark, after and article was written about me in the magazine I form (there was not a lot or criticism - but the negativity that was there echos in my head every day).

After Claus went ahead, I focused a lot on my foot and decided to drop. It was killing me. But then Birgitte joined me. She has now run 184 marathons (almost all with her dad, who was there and has run over 420!) and she was like a pain killer and - and her presence simply an inspiration. We had a lot to talk about, including her own pregnancy and how she hated people giving her a hard time. She said she eventually stopped talking about it with anyone and ran in secret. Anyway, she left me after the 4th loop - and by this time I knew I could run the whole thing. My foot felt strangely better. I had run into SR who was doing well and said he'd meet me at the finish with The Lorax. Well, knowing they were going to be there was a big incentive. I was able to pick up the pace and, for the first time, turned on my music. My friend, Jerk was right behind me the rest of the way. My mantra was simply "I must beat Jerk!". I ended up feeling great the last two miles and was able to beat my pregnancy PR (4:19:59), with a time of 4:18:06. Nothing really to write a blog post about, but I was thrilled and, best of all, felt awesome! And I got a solid second place for the females (out of five?). The Lorax and SR were there to give me a hug.

SR had almost certainly beaten the course record, but had not worn a watch, so had no proof (his time was around 3:15). His comment "I don't wear watches on training runs". We thus missed out on winning a bottle of wine, which neither or us would have drunk anyway.

Morten deserves many thanks for a perfectly arranged race. Morten, I just ate a piece of your wonderful cake :).

Running song of they day: Sentimentally Falling by The Rumour Said Fire

Edit: Here is a shot of the marathoners pre-race. No, I did not wear a backpack the entire race. I just ran it to the aid station so my chocolates and non-functional camera would be waiting for me after each loop. I just realized how cool I would be if I had a pair of non-black running tights.

Madison, Minnesconsin

2011-02-24T12:32:00.003+01:00

About 3 months ago, I found out I would most likely be kicked out of Denmark. I had gotten confused about what I was supposed to do to extend my residency permit, asked the authorities, never got an answer and then applied too late. At the same time, Denmark tightened their rules concerning foreigners and I got message that I was living and working here illegally. Yet I received no concrete message that I should leave.

Three months went by and I wondered if I would actually get a PhD, if I would get prenatal care and maternity leave, if our family would go on living in Denmark. We read in the news about foreigners getting kicked out, Americans included, for applying past their deadlines. It was getting to be time to devise a Plan B.

But last weekend, we received a letter saying I was allowed to stay and was again living and working legally. Not being big on committing international crimes, this was a relief. (The one additional thing we needed to provide was proof that we were living in an apartment that was sufficient for our family. I was surprised to notice that our apartment just barely met the requirements for square meters for a family of four. Needless to say, we're not living extravagantly, but we're not cramped.)

And now we are allowed to go on planning for the future.

For the greater part of my year's maternity leave next year, we are going to be living in Madison, Wisconsin. It is a very logical place for a whole slew of reasons – not the least of which is SR will be close to all four of his kids. Meantime I'll be working 10 hours a week on my PhD, all the while being paid for full time work (thanks, Denmark!).

This change in work hours for me just cannot come too soon. Right now, I work 12 hours days three days a week. And work regular 7-8 hours the two other week days. If SR didn't have a four hour commute each day, this wouldn't be such a big deal. But as it is, The Lorax is in day care 12 hours a day, three days a week. I should admit, I get time off in the middle of the day to run/swim whatever – that is I make time to prevent insanity – but The Lorax is getting the shaft. As is Natty who sits at home alone and is responsible for making her own dinner, etc. This is not fun for a 10 year old, I imagine.

This morning, it really hit me how detrimental this situation could be if it went on long-term. I had time to eat breakfast with The Lorax this morning and made him some toast with Nutella, per his request, only to have him tell me that he would prefer to eat breakfast at day care. He stared blankly, and with the honest numbness only a three year old can have, letting me know day care was becoming his home and he felt strangely abandoned. This is the kind of signal a dad might ignore. And maybe it is meaningless. But I attach a lot of meaning to it.

And thus, I find that in three years, when we do move back to the US, that I don't want to do a medical or surgical or whatever residency where I have to work 80 hours. For SR, me not doing a residency is unthinkable. Yet, I can't help dreaming of living in the US and working part time while doing a masters in say Music Ethnography (one can't accuse me of being overly practical). Or studying more of the history of medicine. Anyway, residency might have to wait until the children are older. Not that I don't want to do a residency – it sure would make finding a job easier. But I also have to be fair to myself here- it's not what I want.

If I did residency in Denmark, the work would be 40 hours a week – and manageable, partly becuase day care here is so darn good. But 80 hours a week in the US, even if just for two years, is to me, not an option. We could have the greatest nanny or au pair in the world and I would be left feeling miserable. And it would never be just two years, because I'd want to do a fellowship afterwards and bla bla bla.

The other thing about moving back to the US that will suck is I fail to understand the political views of most people there. And the way the society functions in general. I had trouble understanding it when I still lived there, and now it has become even more foreign to me. So, since I refuse to be a pessimist, I will just imagine that between now and when we move there, Wisconsin and Minnesota will join forces, becoming of course the country, Minnesconsin, where bike lanes, high speed trains, windmills and socialism rule (Wisconsin needs some help right now, Minn.). But it is pointless to talk politics because no one ever changes anyone elses' mind.

Instead, I will mention my pregnancy. All is well. Lots of kicking (or rather baby movement) and people are actually asking me if I'm with baby now, which preferable to the "you have put on a few" stare. Speaking of which, I still haven't gained a pound in the last five weeks. I'm happy about that because I feel like I look better and I also feel better. Maybe it is simply that I feel I have some semblance of control over the current chaos in my life. Regardless, I don't feel the baby is being harmed in any way. Oh I know people will write angrily at me for this, but you know what, I'm not attempting to not gain weight – I feel it is just my body saying more is not necessary at the moment.

Have to add a little interesting tidbit. I talked with my mom about pregnancy weight gain and she mentioned that both of my grandmas gained under 15 lbs in their pregnancies. Not only did I get the impression that my weight gain tendencies are indeed genetic, but I also was surprised when she told me that this is what was recommended to them – that they gain less than 15 lbs so that they baby wouldn't get so big that they would need a c-section. Just some interesting history, I guess. Though there was very little uniformity in physicians' recommendations those days.

Running Song of the day: Love is All by The Tallest Man on Earth

Edit: So the drama with my residency permit continues. I just got an email from Foreign Services, right after I wrote this post, stating our rental contract was insufficient and because it depends on my employment at the hospital. I thus need to provide a work contract stating I will be employed until 2013!!! How many people can provide that?! The laws here are unbelievable!

The Perfect Pregnancy Plan

2011-02-16T20:29:00.006+01:00

Excuse the alliteration, but for some reason this post deserves it.

In the future, much as there is discussion about an optimal training plan, women will talk about the optimal pregnancy plan: to lose weight and get into the shape of their lives.

But let's back up. Why isn't it like that now? (and why do you feel that just because I suggest it, I'm perverse??) Well, Heather said it best in her comments: our way of looking at pregnancy is "anitquated". In the 19th century, life was different in the sense that only the upper class had the "luxury" of a pregnancy of rest and lots of weight gain. I imagine that (as is true today) pregnancy outcomes were greatly influenced by socio-economic class and thus these women did at least appear to have healthier pregnancies.

During the 20th century, women gradually looked at physical activity and leanness as desirable. But the rules about pregnancy weight gain and being sedentary remained. Thus women saw their physical condition and weight as something they had to "sacrifice" for the health of the baby. Women now typically get out of shape and overweight due to pregnancy. And most never get back to their pre-pregnancy weight or physical condition. And that's why you find my suggestion "perverse" - because it should be a time of sacrifice. (But while sacrifices for a good reason are noble, sacrificies without reason are simply self-gratifying).

And women don't always make "sacrifices" if they don't find them convenient. Some women go on drinking large amounts of alcohol while pregnant and we have learned from them that babies don't do well when drowned in alcohol. The would have done well making a "sacrifice". Other women went against conventional wisdom and ran multiple marathons, crossed the English Chanel swimming or won biking or running races while pregnant. The reason these women did this is perhaps not difficult for my readers to understand: exercise is healthy when not pregnant - it hardly makes sense that it wouldn't be while pregnant. The body of evidence showing it's health and safety grows and grows: these women have healthy kids.

And not only do they have healthy kids, they have healthier kids. They don't get overweight and they score better on tests of motor and verbal development.

The new "sacrifice" will thus be - I am giving up my unhealthy sendentary lifestyle and my extra pounds during this pregnancy. Pregnancy is wonderful for many, many reasons - among which is a golden opportunity to get into the shape of your life.

Let's consider the example of Stefanie Shocke. She just had a beautiful 7lb 9oz little girl. How much weight would you wager she gained? Answer: 9-10 lbs. (Bet that wasn't your guess unless you have been reading her blog). Even more impressive is the fact that she set a very fast PR in both the marathon (3:31 at 22 weeks) and half marathon (1:35 at 18 weeks) distances midway through her pregnancy! SHE exemplifies the Perfect Pregnancy Plan.

If you are reading this and thinking "everyone already agrees with you, SLG, so just shut it already!", then you have been spending too much time reading my blog. (No, not too much time, just time :)).

Here are the recommendations from the ACOG castle (that's the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, of course):

pregnant women should be encouraged to engage in regular, moderate intensity physical activity

(am I the only one who reads this and wonders - if intense is dangerous, then is moderate a little dangerous?)

And here's a quote from Running Times Nov. 2010.

As the research suggests, in most cases, runners are encouraged to run through much of pregnancy, but not to set any big training goals. While more than 30 minutes may be safe, this is not the time to hog mileage. Smart training will ward off stress fractures and sprains, as well as keep the baby healthy. Like a monster hill at mile 25 of a marathon, knowing what to expect can make all the difference.

I remember clearly reading this the first time and thinking "what the hell does that mean?" - basically the whole paragraph is a confusing mess. But "not the time to hog mileage" - why does there always have to be a guilt trip - and for no reason??? Sometimes all of this bullshit makes me throw up in my mouth. This whole "take it easy, don't do too much" comes from no scientific evidence and is simply ANTIQUATED. I applaud people who set new training goals, run farther and faster than ever. Heck, I ran way more miles a day during my very own first pregnancy than I had ever run before - why is it exactly that the working hypothesis is this is dangerous?

Because all of our working hypotheses stem from (another Heather quote I love) "you must rest during pregnancy, you poor delicate reproductive blob"

And here in Denmark, it is no different: - no high intensity exercise, - no long-distance running, - nothing more intense than you did before you became pregnant. Says the Danish Ministry of Health.

Not only is the above not supported by research, but it is confusing. Again what is "high intensity" - running up a hill? running a 100 miler?

I have imagined many possible scenarios in which a study could be done which would clear up this confusion. But these studies are really hard to do - I get tired just thinking of all of the confounders. The truth is more and more women will find they become more physically active than they were before pregnancy and more will participate in sports at an intense level. And this is how or views of exercise in pregnancy will change. You may not agree with me - but your kids will!

And since I'm prophesying - the weight gain recommendations will also continue to come down or widen. They were just lowered in 2009 after the recommendation of the Institutes of Medicine and now women who are normal weight should gain between 25-35 lbs. Some women can "get away" with gaining this much - and it certainly must be genetic. But many, many women who eat healthy, listen to their bodies and exercise find they gain significantly less than is currently recommended. And they are more likely to return quickly to their pre-pregnancy weight.

As I have discussed before, the current recommendations are based on one study, where women who gained less in the second trimester had babies that did worse. But the study is flawed from the outset because babies who have an illness or condition to begin with often don't grow correctly and thus these mothers ALSO gain less - making it appear as though the mother's weight gain was the problem when the baby had the problem from the beginning. Anyway, I am certain the weight gain guidelines will also widen to include much lower weight gains as being healthy. One day.

Now I am tired of writing.

I will simply mention that I had a beautiful 3 hour run in the hilly woods around Næstved - and have to admit this was the running song of the day (since I may have listened to it 8 times): Go Do by Jónsi. (Thanks for the rec again Steve Q. I have decided you are allowed to make a running music library for me to save me some time :).)

Edit: Okay, I rarely add something to my posts as an afterthought, but I really need to make one thing clear (thought it would just be assumed, but it's actually not that obvious) - there is no "perfect plan" for every pregnant woman, just like there is no "perfect plan" for everyone who wants to run fast. There are only perfect plans for every individual. Stefanie's pregnancy was simply one example of a plan. And if you're more for the high mileage preganncy, then I guess you'd be following more of my sort of plan. The LAST thing I wanted to do was make people scared or guilty because they feel they're not doing enough.

3/10 Narrative

2011-02-14T16:12:00.006+01:00

I guess I could apologize for my absence - but you probably didn't even notice you missed me! To clear up any confusion, I am not the type of person who doesn't post because things are going badly. I tend to post more than ever in tough times. I think I have simply reached that horrendously busy period of doing a PhD that everyone talks about. I thought if I planned right that it would never come, but here it is.

And I keep getting involved in extra things - like starting a prospective study on what body fat range is healthy for women based on development of morbidity and mortality (yep, this blog does give me some ideas).

Now what is this about 3/10?

It sounds like a terribly difficult time signature for a song. In fact, I can't find an example of a single song that was written in 3/10.

Everyone talks about John 3:16. But what about John 3:10?

"This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister."

Ever get the feeling that The Bible is a bit harsh and anachronistic? I mean who can do "what is right" all the time?

The Lorax and Natty turned 3 and 10 respectively this last week. When I think about the line from the Bible verse about loving your brother and sister, then I am as convinced as ever that these two are God's children. There must be something about being seven years apart and step siblings that unites them. I personally grew up with constant sibling rivalry, but it is almost completely absent with Natty and The Lorax. I get tears in my eyes thinking about Natty moving back to the US this summer. What will they do without each other?

Here is a picture from The Lorax's celebration.

Is my child a south paw? (do you see the useful animation tricks one learns as a PhD student? - time not wasted!)

Speaking of loving your siblings, my very own sister was just accepted to the PhD program in Cognitive Sciences at The University of Minnesota. Feel free to congratulate her here :).

I guess it has been a long time since I have talked about the pregnancy or running.

Almost exactly a week ago, I started feeling the baby kick. That is more than 4 weeks earlier than I started feeling The Lorax. People say it's because you remember what it feels like, but I am convinced the nerves around the uterus become more sensitive after the first birth - I mean I don't think I could have been confused about what this feeling was the first time around.

Since I am oh so scientific, I believe one can tell the gender of the baby by how they kick. I was convinced The Lorax kicked like a boy before the scan and now I think this one kicks like a girl. Of course, if it is a boy and he goes on to become a soccer player, he'll be so mad about this post :).

In other news, I am slightly worried about my blood sugar. I haven't checked it, but I am peeing way more than I should and in large quantities! Besides that, eating sugar makes me feel absolutely lousy (multiple birthday parties with cake = multiple panic attacks following sugar bolus). I have now almost completely given up on sugary foods and I feel much, much better. I am going to do a fasting blood sugar on myself one of these days, though I know pregnant women are supposed to do the oral glucose challenge for gestational diabetes, I'll certainly get an idea if something is wrong if my fasting is up. (BTW, you don't get tested for gestational diabetes here unless you meet certain criteria, which apparently I didn't meet and would have refused anyway - but alas).

My weight gain is a little less than 6 lbs so far and is exactly where I was with The Lorax at 16-17 weeks, and this is with really not making a conscious effort to be a specific weight; it is all seeming so genetic (though certainly exercising has kept the weight gain to a healthy amount). I gained the first 5 lbs in the first 12 weeks and then 1lb the last 4-5 weeks (exactly like I did with The Lorax). So FINALLY this week I am below the IOM guidelines for weight gain and thus know I am on track to a nice pregnancy like the last. (I simply can't stand the thought of gaining much more than last time - everything went so well, and it took a few months to get back to my prepregnancy weight anyway. So I'm saying 16 lbs is the limit again!).

My big running news was that I ran a 31 km (19.2 mile) hilly trail run last weekend in 2:58! This would even be acceptable for me on a non-pregnant day! I ran with a group of guys from Næstved and it certainly was the group that inspired me to pull it off.

And I have finally found the shoes that will save my pregnant hips from injury!!!

Minimalist, fast shoes with killer tread for trail running! Watch out Chippewa 50k participants - prepare to get preggo-chicked!

Finally - SR is travelling with Natty and The Lorax to the US for two weeks at the end of June (when I am 33-35 weeks pregnant) and I am really on the fence about whether or not I should go. According to the airline, it is acceptable. But I am feeling wussy. It will just be really weird because I will already be on maternity leave - add no work to being completely alone and I might just go nuts (or love it). The worst part is this is my chance to say good-bye to Natty before her move back to the US. Any advice?

Running song coming (once I get home and check the music library!).

Daring to discuss teratogens in the culture of blame and guilt

2011-02-03T20:24:00.005+01:00

I know I am in over my head. Once again the disclaimer: I'm not an obstetrician. And now I'm adding this one: I'm not an expert on teratogens.

But, that being said, I feel it is my role to bring a little balance back into the universe. I get very angry when I see discussion forums where women discuss what it was that caused their miscarriage, their baby's neural tube defect, etc. There are just endless comments such as this: "I had a fever when I was 3 weeks pregnant and a miscarriage at 6 weeks. People try to tell me that is not what caused it, but I know better...". Come on now. Fevers are common. Miscarriages are common. A woman having a fever and then a miscarriage proves nothing. And bear in mind, women who have a fever and don't develop any problems never write anything. This is how myths develop. The women who write these comments think that they are helping solve the mysteries of the human body. But they are actually doing a huge disservice to other women who become fearful after they develop a fever.

Now for a little personal background: I am a professional sauna sitter.

That is not me in the picture. If it were, I'd be naked like all the other Danes.

Actually, I am not a professional. I just sit in a sauna about 3 times a week. When I got pregnant, I didn't think twice about continuing, granted I can't sit in there nearly as long. I even told my swimming friends about my pregnancy in the sauna. Tons of pregnant women sauna sit in Denmark; it is simply part of the culture here. One day, a woman was telling me a personal story in the sauna and I suddenly got the emergent need to GET OUT. When I got out, I felt terrible in like the primordial terrible kind of way. I almost threw up, but didn't. This was the first time I thought "maybe that wasn't so healthy". But I reassured myself that pregnant women get fevers all the time (with certainly higher core temperatures for longer periods of time) and end up with perfectly healthy babies. If we've evolved through fevers, we must be able to tolerate saunas.

But what does research show?

In 2002 a study was done in Denmark in 24,000 pregnant women demonstrating no relationship between fever and miscarriage or still birth, regardless of how high the fever was or how long it lasted. So one must conclude that if there is an association, it is a very small one because this was an exceptionally large study. (The Lancet, Volume 360, Issue 9345, Pages 1552 - 1556, 16 November 2002 )

What about neural tube defects? Well I will point out first an observational study from Finland where they found that 98.5% of expectant mothers visited the sauna regularly and that Finland has close to if not the lowest percentage of neural tube defects in the world. Now, that is not to say saunas are beneficial, just to say that they are likely not very harmful (Saxén, Sauna and congenital defects, Teratology Volume 25, Issue 3, pages 309–313, June 1982).

So where did all the fear come from? First animal studies. And then a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1992. In a study of nearly 24,000 pregnant women, there was no significant association between any single heat exposure (hot tub, sauna, electric blanket or hot tub) and neural tube defect when they were examined together randomly. BUT there was an association between hot tube use and neural tube defect that was significant. This was NOT true for fevers, electric blankets or saunas. From this, somehow it was deduced that any heat exposure (including that from exercise!) was potentially dangerous to the developing fetus. THIS (and animal studies) is where the "don't overheat during exercise while pregnant" comes from. Read the study for yourself and decide what you think (Mulinsky et al JAMA. 1992 Aug 19;268(7):882-5.). My personal interpretation of this is it tends to be women of a lower socioeconomic class that frequent hot tubs in the US while pregnant and that this group also tends to have poorer nutrition and higher percentages of substance and alcohol abuse. This was not controlled for, likely because they thought the study would not get published if they did not show any significant associations (studies with positive associations are about 9 times more likely to be published).

Bottom line - don't worry about an increase in body temperature from exercise in pregnancy inducing a neural tube defect (neither fevers nor saunas have an association, so why should exercise, which almost always rises the core body temp less?)But watch out for yourself like usual! Heat stroke is always dangerous (but is, by the way, much less likely while pregnant due to improved heat dissipation). I am still uncertain what the significance of the hot tub - neural tube defect is.

But now you can see why I didn't go into Ob-Gyn in the US. Can you imagine the lawsuits?! But on this blog, I feel free to give you all my honest opinion. Heck, when it comes to pregnancy, I am a scardy-cat. But no one needs to worry about things that aren't actually dangerous.

Remember, we are all nomads from Africa genetically - it simply doesn't make sense that an increase in body temperature from exercise would be dangerous.

On HOT SPERM

There has been a little banter going on between Piccola Pinecone and myself about whether or not a female's core body temperature rising slows down sperm transport, thus decreasing fertility. PPC said that she had read this in a Clapp book (does he have more than one?). Anyhow, I have not been able to find this study or any related study for that matter, but I simply want to point out why this theory doesn't make sense to me.

Sperm like to live in relatively cool temperatures. That's why they live outside the body (in the testicles). It is well documented that a rise in temperature in "the balls" causes DNA damage to the sperm and can affect fertility. But certainly once sperm enter the female body (or go into their active state), they have to be "ready" for the increased temperature inside the female body. Otherwise none of us would be here. And if an increase in a woman's body temperature (from for example exercise) negatively impacts the sperm, why is it evolutionarily speaking that we get so warm (as in exercise) during the actual act of baby making?

Okay, that last part was more "something to chew on" :) rather than proof of anything.

Running songs of the day:

Something old - Jesus He Knows Me by Genesis
Something new - Freedom Hangs like Heaven by Iron & Wine

Skodsborg Marathon marks 14 weeks of pregnancy

2011-01-30T13:24:00.008+01:00

There is really only one adjective which can be used to describe the Skodsborg Marathon and that is the Danish word, hyggelig. It is a small, enjoyable run in a friendly environment. Yes, all of that can be said in one word!

Anyway, here are all of the runners just before the start. Actually Jerk, who is the race director (that's pronounced "Yerk", folks), took the photo but would also run. A few of these people ran the half marathon, though most ran the marathon.

The girl to the far right, Teresa Petersen, turned out to be a woman who I under no imaginable circumstances could have beaten. She ran a minute faster than my PR on a hilly, windy, cold route. In fact, she actually started running the race with SR.

What was my goal? Well, I thought I would like to run in less than 4 hours. But, I didn't know the route would be so hilly. The route consisted of 3.4 miles of asfalt around a woods and through a neighborhood repeated 8 times with a little shortcut on the last repitition.

Jerk said something very ominous at the beginning: "No one has ever gotten lost". I knew immediately this meant disaster for me. And halfway into the second loop, I took a wrong turn, sprinting down a hill, but luckily eventually heard Jerk himself yelling after me. It was not an ideal start. I did what I always do - started sprinting to make up for lost time. That, of course, came back to haunt me later.

When one runs a marathon essentially alone, there is a lot of time to think. Especially when one isn't running terribly fast and there is no specific competition. I thought a lot about comments that have been written on this blog. I thought in particular about the pregnancy sentiment "I'm just not taking any chances". I wonder - what exactly is that chance/s people are referring to? What is the physiological mechanism behind what people fear? There is so little known about exercise in pregnancy - but why is it that being passive is always seen as safer than active? Beyond that, why is going on a light run safer than running a PR marathon? Let me put it an entirely different way - we don't go into uterine failure when we run as fast or as hard as we can, so how is it we are going to do damage to this organ, which is suddenly even more protected than ever while pregnant, by simply running hard? I don't claim to know everything - obviously no one does- I simply claim to have researched this subject to the extreme. I would specifically really like to take a look at peoples' fears and see how legitmate they are and whether they make physiological sense.

There are only two sports-related scenarios that makes sense to me to fear: 1. is a hard blow to the uterus (as in getting kicked by a horse, etc) 2. is running a 100 mile race in extreme heat, for example, not drinking enough and going into kidney failure. Bear in mind this has only been reported in men, but if it happened in a pregnant woman, toxins could certainly build up, some of which might cross over the placenta. Okay, so those are the two extremes that make sense to me to fear. Other than that, I am at a loss. Oh yeah - don't dope! Ha - that will definitely increase your chances of a miscarriage.

Anyway, despite not being scared of hurting the baby yesterday, I really didn't feel like going for a PR. Nor could I have run a PR, considering I have had one speedwork session in the past 14 weeks. And that was 4 days prior.

At the halfway point, Karen, Jerk's wife, who had just run the half marathon, took these pictures of me. Thank you, Karen!

I ran the first half marathon in just under 2 hours, knowing getting under 4 hours for the entire distance was really unlikely. At about this time, SR lapped me, Morten and Rune. He didn't waste much time with us, that's for sure. He ran the first half very slowly - with Teresa as mentioned above - and then decided to go all out for the second half marathon. The next time I saw SR, he was doubling over, saying he was sorry he couldn't run with me. He had just taken first and set a new course record of 3:09.

I was struggling at this point. My left knee was really bothering me and I considered dropping. I was running my first marathon in minimalist shoes (Ecco Bioms) and had to wonder if that was what was bothering my knee. But I honestly think it was my lingering plantar faciitis (from my old thick-soled shoes) that was making me run a little funny.

But then I turned on my i-pod. And I was pushed along by a Swede, Lennart Skoog. We kept passing each other back and forth. Every time we passed each other, he said something to me in Swedish. I had a heck of a time understanding him. The fundamental problem was, he assumed I was Danish and no Danes have trouble understanding Swedish.

We sprinted to the finish together, him passing me at the last second, and me ending up with a time of 4:19:59. This was about 15 minutes faster than my 9 week pregnant marathon and on a tougher route. So I wasn't too disappointed.

Thanks to Jerk and Morten for fun morning.

Running Song of the Day: Senegal Fast Food by Amadou & Miriam with Manu Chao (an old favorite was just what I needed).

I had no idea I could do that!

2011-01-25T18:08:00.005+01:00

Many of you have been kind enough to ask how I'm feeling and how my pregnancy symptoms are. I think the best way I can answer this is by saying I really felt like running fast today. I have never tried speedwork while pregnant. I never considered it during my first pregnancy (because I had never considered it UNpregnant) and this pregnancy, I have felt like such crap all along that regular running at a slow pace was enough. But I finally feel different.

I have also had three one hour spinning sessions with my heart rate at or around 90% max, so I thought, if I can do it while spinning, why can't I raise my pulse the same way, doing what I love most?

I decided to a do an 8 mile tempo run - with the goal of simply staying under 8 min. per mile pace. It seemed reasonable, but thought it might be tough since that is the pace I had run the OUC Half Marathon at just 6 weeks pregnant. Well, after about 2 miles, I realized that goal would not be difficult to achieve at all. I kept dipping below 7 min/mile pace and seriously had to hold myself back. I felt awesome! After 4 miles, I had to take a pee break and noticed my pelvic area was bothering me. But it was that same gas feeling I often get. It was hard to not get a little worried, but I have also had stomach issues the last couple of days and have them basically every time I run fast when not pregnant. And I felt so great otherwise, that I couldn't stop.

I ended up running the whole 8 miles in 60:40. That is just over a 7:30 pace! I had absolutely no idea I still had it in me. That is 12.9 km at 4:40 min/km.

I fear that some women will read this and think I am simply bragging. But let's be honest, it's not really that fast. I simply mention it because I am no longer scared. I have thought a lot about Stefanie's blog and Kate's blog. They documented so well all of their fast training sessions and their healthy pregnancies and I am really indebted to them. I don't think I would have run so fast today had it not been for them. I only hope that I can help to put some other pregnant runners at ease when they are worried about racing or training with a little speedwork while pregnant.

Now all of you women out there who think I am crazy and Stefanie is crazy and Kate is crazy, I want to hear from you. I want to hear why! I don't want to exist in a bubble of "confirmation bias" as one anonymous reader put it. I want the truth about running in pregancy to come out - I have exhaused every nook and cranny I have found. If ANYONE has evidence that speedwork in pregnancy is dangerous, speak up. (you are also allowed to speak up if you don't think it's dangerous)

And since you are oh, so tempted not to believe me, here is a runner's proof:

And, if you take a look at my current reading material, you'll understand why I get so excited by talking about running - "Complement Factor H Polymorphism p.Tyr402His and Cuticular Drusen".(if anyone finds this blog by searching for that, I do apologize, but send me an email - because we must be researching the same thing!)

Running song of the day (should I really admit it?): In my Head by Jason Derulo - when it comes to running fast, it's all about whatever works!

i-phone message sent from Target

2011-01-23T19:00:00.008+01:00

Like so many other things, it drips into your heart - through a pinhole. I didn’t truly realize it until I got an email from my mom’s new i-phone. She was shopping at Target and wrote she was so relieved about the ultrasound.

I was suddenly transported to this happy, safe place: Target with my mom. I don’t even like Target, or shopping for that matter (I do like my mom). That is why it is so strange. It has taken me over two years to realize how much I miss the US. Not only this, but I have allowed myself to admit it.

I think when you move by choice to a new country, you inevitably go through a honeymoon phase where things in general are just better and more exciting than in your native land. But lately I have been overcome with nostalgia and an almost childlike excitement when I read about races in the US, places I would like to travel or … shopping trips to Target.

Maybe, as I said to SR earlier today, adults are not evolutionarily made to live in a country where life doesn’t intuitively make sense. No, there is nothing rotten in Denmark. There are just so many things that I can't understand about life here that Danes take for granted. I, for example, will never dress correctly. And I will never be able to say the right things at the right times. In fact, I am the same way in the US. But, in the US, somehow this is ever-so-slightly cool and part of my individuality. But there is nothing cool about it here. There are just certain things one has to do to show that one “gets it” here and if you don’t do them, you are simply a little less respected. Or people just think you’re odd.

Then there is this issue of food. I am partially defined by the fact that I am a vegetarian and in Denmark, it is a lifestyle that doesn’t make sense. Meat is viewed by most Danes as the healthiest thing one can eat. And they really care for their livestock, raise them properly and prepare them properly. This is something Danes are really proud of. And it makes me feel like turd for being a vegetarian. But, when all is said and done, I will go to the expensive, organic store to buy bagels and hummus rather than putting liver paté on rye bread like everyone else. Am I just too old to change? Maybe I've simply realized I don't have to keep suppressing it.

Why is it I'm not suppressing it anymore? Well, because we're going to be spending most of my year of maternity leave in the US. And I'm looking forward to it so much more than I expected.

Since we've moved here, I've wanted to appear as Danish as possible, just to avoid people's xenophobic stares, but I find myself becoming fanatic about things that make me more American: my cheap, ugly running clothing, my ultra running obsession, my desire to gain as little weight as possible while pregnant, veggie burgers, barefoot running, yoga, vegetarianism. I have even signed up for piano lessons to make me feel more like I'm back "home". I know that not all of these things are obviously American, but they feel American to me and that is what matters. I NEVER would have guessed I would write that last sentence a year ago. Last year, I would have felt like a failure writing it.

On my run today, I posed some questions: Denmark, what is it you want from me? What am I actually doing here? (we are, after all, going to be moving back here for at least two years after my maternity leave). More than three hours and no answer. I guess I didn't want an answer anyway.

Running Song of the Day: Empire by Jukebox the Ghost

Piano performace of the Day: Schubert's Impromptu in G flat major D899 No.3 peformed by Horowitz in Vienna (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6_SbflSwAg)

I saw our child for the first time

2011-01-18T19:27:00.003+01:00

It's totally incredible. One moment I'm sitting in a waiting room filled with nervous couples. Judging by the size of the bellies around me, everyone was there for their 12 week scan. They call it the neck fold scan for Down Syndrome. I figured it was by some mistake they had called me in for a scan - but what I wouldn't do to see a beating heart - or two. Not that I wanted a child with two hearts. I was thinking more along the line of twins.

I, as usual, stuck out among everyone there since I was in running attire, for one, and since I was alone. This is generally a thing couples do together, but SR had to miss it due to work. I felt bad for him - I know he wanted to be there. But things like this simply must be more important to moms. Or am I wrong? To me, this was the single most important event of the last, oh, six months perhaps. Or, I thought it would be. But what if they just found a big bladder and a bunch of fat tissue? That would suck.

They called me back for the scan and asked if I wanted to be tested for Down Syndrome. I just sat there, kind of quite and uncomfortable. "If I say no do I still get the scan?" The ultrasound tech looked relieved. Of course you do. And for someone as young as you, I wouldn't recommend the measurement for Downs anyway - you have such a little chance and the measurement isn't very precise. Well, that was a relief.

And then I'm laying on a table with wet goo all over me and a probe on my belly. And suddenly, there is our child.

The most amazing thing is, up on that big screen, you just can't tell the difference between a 12 week 5 cm baby and a real newborn. It was moving around and had a beating heart and every part a baby has. Or so it appeared. Here's a picture, but of course, it could never do the event justice.

(Plus I can't figure out how to crop since I'm on a computer I don't normally use.)

I went home a new person, having seen our child for the first time. I wanted so badly to share it with SR, but he was with patients and couldn't answer the phone.

I went on a run, feeling so warm and happy. I even put on black underwear - as a symbol to myself that I wasn't afraid of bleeding from a miscarriage anymore. I had just seen our child move and it was doing ok! Maybe I could even do some speedwork - naaaah.

To most people in the town of Næstved, it seemed like an unremarkable day. But today was the first day one could run on trails again without slipping all over ice. And there was short green grass everywhere, trampled and beaten by the winter. This is completely amazing to someone used to winters in the Midwest. It reminded me of pictures I've seen of Ireland with short green grass and green moss over everything. Was January 18th the first day of spring? I ran for three hours. I couldn't help it. It was nearly effortless. I would have run longer had I not had a meeting to get to.

It feels like the beginning of something good.

Running song of the Day: River by Akron/Family