All good things must come to an end. The last bit of an ice cream cone. The last page of a great book. The final chord of a favorite hymn. The final steps across the finish line of an
amazing race. And yes, even maternity
leave.This past week has been a celebration of my time at home with Baby K. We’ve spent more time physically active together. We had two great power walks this week. Wednesday was the usual trip to the library. The day was bright and sunny. I actually had to take off my track jacket halfway through because (a) it was warm and (b) I was working hard enough to generate a good lather.
On Friday, Baby K and I had Striders business over at Quiet
Waters (mark your calendars for the Anniversary Run 15K on December 14). While we were there, and since it was an
amazing day, we decided to get in our power walk there. The trail that rings the park was
surprisingly bustling with walkers, joggers and strollers for mid-day during
the work week.
I’m not much of a walker, but one of the interesting things
I’ve learned while power walking these past several weeks with Baby K is that
walking can be a great glute workout – especially when you focus on your foot
strike, speed and stead movement. I
can’t tell you the number of times I’ve finished and felt like I’d done a
workout especially focused on that particularly troublesome muscle for
women. While I’m happy to be moving back
into full-time running (not as a function of time or fitness, but because I’ll
be going back to my lunch time runs at work), I’ve learned a bit about the
benefits of walking.
In addition to the two power walks, I also logged three
runs. Wednesday and Thursday I took on
my usual 4 mile route out College Parkway to Log Inn Road and back. You can tell spring sports season is upon us
because I had to play chicken with a number of soccer mom vehicles all rushing
to get their kids to practice at Bay Head Park.
Car dodging aside, finding the rhythm that works for my feet, my heart
and my head has been invigorating. You
don’t realize how much something is part of you are forced into a bit of a
vacation. This particular route is
familiar enough to help me regain that rhythm.
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Saturday found me back on the streets of DTA (that’s
downtown Annapolis for you non-Annapolitans) with my bestest of best running
buddies, Brie. I was so happy to be
hitting the pavement with her. It’s been
months…at least since October. It’s
funny, at the end of 2012 and into 2013 I was getting faster and she was
slowing down as she advanced in her pregnancy.
Then this past year she was getting faster as I was slowing down as I
advanced in pregnancy. For the next future
period of time, I think we’re both moving forward and eventually I will regain
my speed so I don’t slow her down anymore.
Sun and warm spring temperatures propelled us through DTA,
across the Naval Academy and back through her neighborhood to browse the yard
sales as we made our way back to her house.
It was slow, but improving. Give
me another month and I bet I can bring my average pace down to 9-10 minutes per
mile.
As for the weight loss challenge – week one saw me with an
overall body percentage loss of nearly 2%.
I’m not going to lie, ensuring I put down 100 ounces of water a day was
tough but the daily booty blast workout was tougher. Oh yeah, and then I learned that I was doing
more than necessary…in fact double on those exercises that should have been
alternating legs not the rep number per leg.
Who knows, maybe as a result my booty will be that much more
irresistible come bikini season.
So as I return to a more normal routine, back to work, back
to normal, I will look back on maternity leave fondly for what it taught me and
the time it gave me to be with Baby K but I will look forward to really getting
that rhythm back – or maybe even a better rhythm. Happy trails!!!
Stats – (There’s a week worth of backlog here, so bear with me)
Miles: 4.01 (Wed),
4.1 (Wed power walk); 4.25 (Thurs); 4.22 (Fri power walk); 7.15 (Sat)
Times: 42:12 (10:31);
1:03:47 (15:33); 45:40 (10:44); 1:10:00 (16:35); 1:19:30 (11:07)
Location: Broadneck
Peninsula and Quiet Waters Park
Feeling: everything
works, despite the exhausted glutes from the booty blast workouts
