After weeks of feeling like the top half of my body and the bottom half weren't connected, at around 10 weeks I started to feel like myself again. Everything started to work together. My fitness plan, however, has been much more bipolar. One minute I'm looking up flights for a race in May and the next I'm searching in the medicine cabinet for painkillers. I'll have a workout that is breakthrough material and the next one will feel like I'm at square one. One evening last week, I felt so good that I turned my 8 pm dog walk into a jog (not running yet!). The next night I wasn't able to budge from the couch. But even with these highs and lows, I still feel like I'm inching closer to my goals.
What keeps me going is that the low moments keep getting better and better. The "struggles" of working out just keep improving. Today, for example, I was upset because I couldn't hold a 1:25 interval in the pool. Then, I thought back to last week when I didn't even attempt intervals. The week before that, I didn't even make it to the pool. Instead of being discouraged, I'm enjoying this period where everything is improving - the good days and the bad.
The other thing I'm enjoying is Amy! She is still one happy baby. She smiles at and laughs with anyone who pays attention to her. She's even started smiling at the dog (the dog has get to smile back). The sleeping through the night thing is still a work in progress. Some nights her sleeps are Ironman distance and some nights they are more like a sprint. Every morning, she wakes up at 5:30 to eat breakfast, which could only mean that she's well on her way to becoming a triathlete!
This balancing act of having a new baby and trying to get back in shape continues to be a challenge, but I have a crew of people who believe in me and have stuck with me through all of this. Nike, Cervelo, the New York Athletic Club, ZICO, Rudy Project and First Endurance are so enthusiastically supportive of women being both moms and professional athletes.
--Bec