You may have noticed in recent days weeks months that while I've talked a lot about running, I haven't done a whole lot of it.
In fact, my feet haven't pounded any pavement since last Sunday. And, really, I wasn't pounding anything but rather trotting/waddling/jogging 11+ minute miles on the treadmill.
Is it jogging or yogging? It might be a soft "J", I don't know.
A month ago, I penned a post about learning to accept a new pace in my pregnant running career, but at this point, even running slowly is flat out uncomfortable.
Instead, it might be time for me to focus on something that I'll have even more difficulty with: giving up running altogether for at least the next 8 weeks until LBA is born.
While I'm no stranger to having some downtime in between racing seasons (I usually maintain an extremely light schedule of 10-15 miles per week from about November through January), this particular break has been hard to stomach and even harder to write about.
I'm about to get all serious here, so excuse me for a second or two.
I think it's safe to say that we've all fallen into the blogger comparison trap before, and I'm certainly no stranger to that. In meticulously keeping tabs on all of my favorite blogging runners, I've definitely browsed PRs, chips times, and mile splits, wondering just how I fit in to the big picture.
When I got pregnant, I searched out women like me - pregnant ladies who continued to run and race - and compared myself against their times and efforts.
I wanted so much to be like Dorothy, who ran through three pregnancies and right up until the day she gave birth, or Kimberly, who highlighted her posts with a daily workout even into the final weeks of her pregnancies.
They just seemed so... bad ass. I like being bad ass. I like when people approach me and say with (at least feigned) awe, "Wow, 30-some-odd weeks and still running, huh?" Rarely in my average life have people eyed me with awe, feigned or not.
So, in my head, I kept telling myself that I'd slog through runs, however uncomfortable they were. My feet and I signed a deluded promissory note with the local gym, saying we'd pay it hours of exercise right up until January 13th.
I was going to be one of those "oh-my-God-she-ran-right-up-until-the-baby-came-out" women, damn it.
But now, I'm pretty sure that I won't be.
And even though I've run a good 100+ miles while pregnant, including three races, I feel like I haven't tried hard enough. I feel guilty when I head home to crash on the couch instead of lacing up my running shoes or squeezing into a pair of now-too-small running shorts.
You can call me selfish, delusional, ridiculous, and whiny. I mean, it is rather nice sitting in my ivory tower right now, complaining about not being able to run for two months when there are far more terrible things in the world to bemoan right now.
But grant me this one day, this one post to be all of that and more as I get this out of my system. I know I'll inevitably head back to the road stronger and faster than before, but for today, being all positive and perky just isn't cutting it.
There's one event left on my docket for the year: the Detroit Turkey Trot 5k. I'd planned on running it in full 33-weeks glory, but at best I'll probably do some form of trotting through downtown, looking like a fresh turkey ready for basting instead. The clock will probably show 35-40 minutes when I finish, and I'll have to to be okay with that.
Apologies in advance if you came to this post looking for cool pictures and positive running vibes and Rainbow-Bright-puppies-and-kittens-thesunwillcomeouttomorrow-type writing and instead got an unusually glum, snark-less post containing a rehashed, low-quality Anchorman clip and a bunch of talk about why I won't be running much in the near future.
Because it's that kind of day, I welcome your similarly glum comments below. Feel free to let loose. You know that blog comments are the best place to lay it all out on the table.