Running on Empty

A few weeks ago I posted about how I am trying to run/jog/limp at least 2 miles every day. So far, I have been pretty consistent with this, but pregnancy is putting a serious damper on things.
For one, I am about as tired as humanly possible while still being awake. Have you ever watched Intervention, or Trainspotting, or Paula Abdul, and seen how a junkie looks after a hit? It’s that eyes-half-closed, mumbly, incoherent, semi-concious state, where just completing a sentence is a whole lot of effort. That’s pretty much how I look from about noon to 7pm. My day looks like this:

8am – wake up, experience morning sickness, lay around eating crackers and trying not to puke
10-11am – feel a little better, like a mild carsickness. functioning almost like a human being. a really hungry human being that must eat every 20 minutes.
11-1 – begin getting tired, start to think about laying down.
1-6pm – lay around again, look like a drunk passed out on the couch, occasionally mumble things to the children, only leave the recline position to pee in 10 minute intervals
6pm – apologize to Mark about the state of the house, the lack of dinner, and India’s full diaper
7pm – return to a semi-functioning state, help put kids to bed and remind them that I am still alive, alert, and concerned about their wellbeing
9pm – go for a run
10pm – return to vegetative state

As you can see from the productivity chart above, I have a 30-60 minute window of actual conciousness each day. So you can imagine that when the kids are finally asleep, the last thing I want to do is go for a run. I wanna clean up, cross things off the to-do list, catch up on emails, and pretend like I still have it together. But instead, I blow the whole “alert time” on a run and come home completely and utterly exhausted. In the words of Joe Biden, after a run, “it’s more of the same”.

And there are some other reasons why running is insanely difficult right now. Obviously, I’m exhausted. But beyond that, my boobs are so sore that it feels like they are oversized sandbags attached to my skin with a safety pin, bouncing around with each step. Last night I wore two bras and it was still excrutiating. And then there are the injection sites. I am taking progesterone shots every night, that Mark administers with a 3-inch needle into my behind. These shots leave huge rasied welts that cover my butt. Again, each pound in the pavement feels like a slap in the butt. So running is pretty much a torturous experience for me right now.

But, I’ve gotta do it. For one, I refuse to gain the 25 38 50 pounds I gained while pregnant with India. I am determined to maintain some level of fitness during this pregnancy so I don’t find myself wondering how an 8 lb baby left me with 40+ lbs to lose. But also, I have always been able to find any number of excuses why I can’t work out. I’m not going to make this one more excuse.

And at the end of the day, if this chick can run a half marathon with a huge belly bump, then I can get my seven-weeks-pregnant ass off the couch and do eight laps around my .25 mile cul-de-sac.