I thought it would last

I haven’t been writing much these days and there’s a good reason for that: I was feeling like absolute crap and basically crashed and burned.

 

I really don’t think anybody could have prepared me for the return of my first trimester, also known as the beginning of my third trimester. In fact, the weeks leading up to the crash, I was riding high for a couple of weeks. I was feeling good, energetic, and dare I say, light on my feet?

During week 28, we flew to Phoenix to visit family, play in the desert, soak up some sunshine, and take a much needed break from life and work.

I was catching sunrise (thanks insomnia) while running on the trails at South Mountain…

I was doing hikes rated as difficult by AllTrails, like climbing to the top of Bear Mountain in Sedona (5 miles with over 2,000 feet of elevation gain)…  

I was power climbing to the top of Piestewa Peak (2.3 miles with over 1,100 feet of gain) in Phoenix…

 

…or simply running around the neighborhood with Gixo while spotting funny cactuses.

In fact, I ran a total of 31 miles that week. I was feeling alive, invigorated, and good. And I thought it would last.

After our lovely week in Phoenix, we were home for two days before heading out to Bend for our annual winter trip with friends and dogs.

One of my best friends from San Francisco and fellow trail runner, CJ, always joins us for this trip and the morning before we left Portland, I managed one of my fastest and strongest feeling trail runs since I’ve started showing (much to my husband’s dismay).

It’s amazing what having good company can do for a run! And I thought it would last.

Once in Bend, I ran every single day: around town….

 

and on the trails…

 

…and even managed to keep up with the group.

I was in the middle of week 29 and feeling big, but also strong and relatively good. I ran a total of 32 miles that week. And I thought it would last…

On the drive home from Bend (on week 30 + 1 day), it was like everything just fell apart.

I was sitting comfortably in the front seat of our fancy Mazda CX-9 Grand Touring (more about this car later), and all of a sudden, I felt like I got hit by a truck. I had to close my eyes and just lay back. I wasn’t sure if I was car sick or just pregnant sick but either way, I was feeling really sick. And for the record, I’m someone who has been able to read and write novels in the car without ever experiencing car sickness. When we returned to Portland, all I could do was sit on the couch. I watched CJ go out for a quick run before her flight home and felt jealous, and sad I couldn’t join her. At that point, just getting myself up from the couch to join Casey and CJ for tacos seemed to be a feat in and of itself.

The next morning, I woke up around 5:15 to get ready to teach yoga and I had to keep sitting back down. One foot through my leggings, time to sit down. Other foot through, sit down. Pull them up, sit down. And on and on. Each and every movement felt labored and difficult. I made my way to the studio in a haze. I taught class, and stayed to take the next class. I felt pretty awful throughout the class but forced myself to move anyway (in between sitting down on my mat to take breaks, of course). I had a boatload of meetings that occupied the rest of my afternoon, and then by the time I got home later that day, I felt an all too familiar feeling – the desperate need to NAP. It was like first trimester all over again. It wasn’t a nap by choice, it was a nap by necessity. It was a nap that just completely overtook me. And just like that I was out.

Once I took that nap, it was like the rest of the week was one big nap. I couldn’t snap out of my funk. I was a zombie going to the studio to teach, faking it to make it through each hour of teaching, only to return home and retreat back to the couch. And I started to worry that this would last.

By Friday night of that week – 5 days in to my eternal nap – I was feeling frustrated, stiff, and bored; I honestly didn’t think I could take another minute of the inactivity. I had spent the majority of the week cooped up in the house – between working, napping and sitting on the couch – the only real movement was getting Abbie out for walks (and even that was hard).

Thankfully, Saturday rolled around and I forced myself out of bed for run club. I managed to put in 5 solid, albeit slow miles on the trails, before teaching class and heading to a friend’s birthday brunch.

I felt the nap urge come on but powered through the day and even went out with friends later that evening. I got up to teach the next morning and even managed to stay for class.

I realized that if I was going to get through these next two months with my sanity still intact that I was going to have to strike a balance: to find a way to give myself a little more grace and to find a way to power through and keep moving when I could.

This pregnancy keeps reminding me that just like in life, nothing is permanent. Nothing lasts forever. It’s a simple reminder to take each day, each moment as they come and embrace wherever I am.

 

Stay sweaty (and nap often),

XO,

Jamie