Me last weekend. 155lbs. This picture is so ridiculous I just had to share it.

How I’m Doing, Really

Honestly? Pretty shitty.

Even though pregnancy takes an average of 40 weeks, Lima Bean is considered “full term” at 37 weeks today. That basically means all the important things have been developed already and now he/she just fattens up and grows hair. Lima is probably around six pounds and about the size of a watermelon. Awesome, right? Most definitely.

And this is the point in this blog that I need to provide a disclaimer. I’m going to complain a little. And I’m going to do so with the full knowledge that I have an amazing life and I’m lucky and fortunate and blessed and all that good stuff. So why do it? Because sometimes you just feel crappy even when you know logically you have no right to. Sometimes you’re pregnant and over it. And finally, because it’s my own damn blog and I can complain if I want to, and if you don’t want to read it, there’s other stuff on the internet. Click here to watch a baby panda sneeze instead.

So what’s my problem? Probably that I haven’t written about it. I always feel better when I write about things. Here I am doing this thing that’s supposed to be miraculous and beautiful and while it felt that way just a week ago, now I just feel gargantuan and emotionally unstable. People are out running on the trails in the Bend sunshine, and I hardly have the energy to leave the house. My twitter feed is full of results from amazing races and I’m just sitting here in a chair with my knees spread wide enough for my girth to rest between, itching to be out there again. Damn you Flotrack, damn you.

I don’t know what kind of crazy brain chemistry happens in the last few weeks of pregnancy, but things that were funny a couple weeks ago are infuriating now, such as:

1. The fact that the baby only kicks me within a 2 inch radius under my right rib. Wouldn’t kill ya to mix it up a little before giving me osteoarthritis.
2. Hiccups which used to be cute are now as agitating as when I get them myself.
3. The farting. I mean seriously?!
4. My gonzo breasts were awesomely sexy until my stomach became comedically huge, and now I wouldn’t even have sex with me, much less want anyone else to.
5. Having to take my wedding ring off to accommodate swollen fingers was humorous until I realized I have an unbreakable habit of trying to spin its ghost.
6. Anything that requires bending over, like putting on pants, or tying my shoes.
7. Every random stranger telling me a birth horror story. “Oh you’re about to have a baby…let me tell you this awful thing that happened to my sister.” What is wrong with people?

At first, these annoying moments would come and go, and I could keep a healthy perspective by saying, “Ha! How weird to feel these things! Well, this is pregnancy for ya! What a unifying experience with women around the world! What a cool change from what my life is normally like!” And now I’m like, “Fuck this. I’m tired of my body being a vessel for someone else 24/7. I want my body back for my own kick ass purposes, thank you very much.”

It’s hard to talk about these things because when you are a woman, there is all this pressure to be nothing short of amazed by the beauty of the gift of life that you are about to give. And yeah, I read on Baby Center and other mommy blogs that these feelings are normal at this point in the pregnancy, but it doesn’t mean you don’t feel like a UPS* for having them yourself. I want to feel grateful and excited all the time, but shit, what are you gonna do? You feel what you feel. Should I feel bad for feeling bad? No, running taught me that much; you can’t become your best unless you honor what you feel and keep it real.

All that's missing from the Mountain Buggy is the baby. Come on baby!!

So that’s where I’m at. Three-ish weeks to go with fewer and fewer moments of feeling like my normal self. One thing is for sure, I might be totally over pregnancy, but I am super excited to meet this little fart bundle. I know I will love every square inch of Lima Bean. I already do, which is weird. I am under no delusion that I’ll be anything more than a boob-slave poop-cleaner for a few months before it develops a personality, but the thought of it having it’s own space to occupy outside my body makes me want to jump for joy. This baby deserves to have it’s own life as a liberated human. Break free of the cage Lima Bean! Let the Fleshmom run free!

Until then, maybe tomorrow I’ll try starting the day off right by wearing something besides the standard college girl uniform of sweatpants and flip flops.

Maybe.

If any of my pants still fit.

_______________________________________

*UPS stands for useless piece of…

Nine days ago, I was sitting amongst a circle of my family and friends at my baby shower in Seattle, drinking growlers of limeade and kombucha and smoking candy cigarettes for a laugh. And every day since then, I have been collecting photos, funny memories, and travel stories to help chronicle the most exciting week I’ve had in recent memory, all of which was set to culminate in my first ever experience with the Boston Marathon.

And now, only a few short hours after the finish line explosions, I am sitting on a plane flying home to Oregon, unable to think of anything else but the whirlwind I just experienced, how horrible the whole thing is, and the series of things that had to happen just-so for me to have my unscathed butt in this seat right now.

Not long before the explosion, I was with my friend Shanna from Oiselle (also pregnant and due June 7^th), doing our damndest to get near the finish line. We had been cheering all morning in Wellesley, and before catching my flight home, we had juuuussst enough time to grab a much needed sandwich and swing by the finish line to experience a little of that famous excitement first hand. As it turned out, the area by the finish was so packed that you couldn’t even move, and the sandwich place turned out to be on the opposite side of the finish shoot anyway which was impossible to get to. We considered staying to watch for a while anyway, but our hunger was so intense that we decided to leave and feed the babies and come back later.

Around the corner was the Fairmont Copley Hotel, where the elite athletes were staying. We had a new plan: grab some overpriced food there and visit my friend Steph Rothstein Bruce (who had finished an amazing 15^th place and was the 3^rd American). As we tucked into our meal with a room full of athletes, coaches, and agents, we heard a loud explosion and felt the room vibrate slightly. It was one of those Jurrassic-Park-rippled-water-glass moments and my stomach turned. It was bad, I just knew it.

People were suddenly quiet, then some nervously mumbled while a few looked out the ground floor windows in the direction of the explosion. At first nothing happened and everyone just looked around at one another. Shalane Flanagan was at the next table over while her husband Steve came back to report what he could see from the window. I tried to read lips, unsuccessfully, and was too paralyzed to ask. Nobody spoke up. People pulled out their phones for information from the outside. A hum of mumblings gradually spread throughout the dining room as the sound of sirens built to a crescendo outside.

...exlosions…

…finish Line…

…many injured…

…bits and pieces fitting into a puzzle. Security people dressed in Boston Marathon yellow jackets came in the room announcing, “all elite athletes please evacuate with us to room ____.” They had to repeat it several times before anyone got up. It was as if we all thought we were watching a movie until that moment, at a safe distance, and then as soon as we started to move together through the hallway we understood that this was real life and nobody knew the ending.

Shanna and I walked briskly toward the stairs to go to Steph and Ben Bruce’s room on the 3^rd floor, since they missed the announcement, and on the way there, we saw Dr. John Ball and his friend Marc who were headed to the same place and didn’t seem to know what was happening. Despite trying to keep my cool, I know I had panic in my eyes because I could see their body language change and they came right with us without asking questions.

In Steph’s room, we all checked our twitter feeds and updated one another on anything we could piece together. Shanna opened a photo of a bloody scene from one of the explosions and my eyes welled up and my heart raced. I could feel Lima Bean moving around like crazy, probably from adrenaline coursing through me, so I kneeled to calm myself down. As soon as the news confirmed the explosions down the street, I texted my immediate family and Jesse’s family to let them know that if they heard anything about a bomb in Boston, I was safe. I squeezed it in just in time; that was the last time my phone would work for the next hour. Cell towers were either overloaded or being shut down. I still don’t know which.

Marc, Dr. Ball and I had flights to catch in less than two hours, and we had to make a quick decision. It seemed as if, with every passing minute, things were getting more and more locked down. We heard our hotel was already locked to outsiders, and we feared we wouldn’t be allowed out soon. We didn’t know if we would be able to catch a taxi or not to the airport, but we decided we had to try or else risk getting stuck in downtown Boston. Now was the moment.

One catch: my bags were left at the front desk of my hotel just a few miles outside the airport, and I needed to swing through there to get them before going to the airport. There was just enough time for a cab to hypothically make the stop on the way…if we could catch a cab.

There were no cabs.

Traffic was totally backed up.

People were everywhere, in mylar finishers blankets, trying unsuccessfully to use their phones, looking confused. There was no panic, only a general feeling of What now? People seemed to be awaiting instructions from a non-existent city-wide megaphone. From a disaster management standpoint, we seemed to be at an angle of repose. We saw the train station and headed straight for it. I had a feeling that if the station wasn’t shut down already, it would be soon once everyone figured out what the hell to do.

It was open and thanks to Marc’s navigation skills, we got tickets, found our way to the correct train, and got on board. I was in a bit of a pickle because I was now on my way to the airport without any of my luggage, but I decided I would get off at the airport and try to take a taxi to my hotel and back. There was (maybe) just enough time.

When I got in the taxi, my phone finally started working again and I quickly called Jesse and very briefly answered the concerned texts from my family and friends. I got word that public transportation was being shut down in the city just as I got back to the airport. The terminal security line was absolutely slammed with people moving at a snails pace due to what I can only assume were beefed up security measures, and I never would have made it through in time if an airline employee hadn’t escorted a handful of us directly to the front. With only a couple minutes to spare, I made it onto the plane and couldn’t help but wonder if the airport would shut down before we took off.

It wasn’t until the engines roared and inertia shoved me snugly into my seat that I was convinced I was going to make it home. Only then did I take a deep breath and pull my hood over my eyes to hide the swell of my emotions.

There are so many things I want to write about the Boston Marathon. I want to write about the friendly and interesting people who came to see me at the expo, getting to know the 110% crew, the reunion with my college coach, a rare opportunity for tea with my sisters in sport from Rhodes Island, the thrill of having my column announced at the Runner’s World Party, funny observations about the culture of the event, what it was like to watch instead of compete, how much more open and happy I feel in my sport now than a year ago. I wish I could write about what it was like to watch Steph run deep in the shadows of the well-deserved media favorites Kara and Shalane, fighting for every step in her quest to reach their level where her heart tells her she belongs, even though her body isn’t quite ready yet. I want to write about so many things, but all I can focus on is the horrible thing that happened, that is in fact still happening for many people, while I stew in this uncomfortable mixture of relief and guilt that I’m lucky enough to be going home.

The Boston Marathon has so many stories from thousands of people that won’t be told , because a few people are cruel and crazy and impossible to understand, and that makes me even sadder than I already am.

Ahhhh, Boston.

At long last, the big marathon weekend is here. The elite drama; the hum of nervous energy and enthusiasm of the masses; the squeakers; the history; the miles of KT Tape and gallons of Icy Hot.

The race numbers; the shwag; the last minute race kit adjustments; the obsession over details; the quiet anticipation of your family and friends that it will finally be over and you’ll stop talking about it.

I can’t wait!

I’m flying to Boston today so I can be a part of all the craziness, and I want to meet you, and so does limabean. So oh so quickly, here’s where I’ll be and what’s going on in Lauren land. If you are a Picky Club member, you’ll want to perk up a bit cuz there’s a special deal for you.

EXPO:

110 PlayHarder Booth: 2000 row

Saturday 2-4 and Sunday 11-2

Come say hi, take a pic, get an autograph, and check out some awesome compression gear! Picky Club Members will get a 15% discount on 110% products and I’ll be there with the list! There will be samples of Picky Bars too of course .

 Runner’s World Booth: 2600 row

Saturday: 4-5

Sunday: 3-4

I’ll be there with Olympian Ro McGettigan signing autographs and copies of the Believe I Am Journal. This weekend is a special price of $15 ($10 off) in honor of the marathon, both in the RW booth and online! Take advantage of this and get a copy for a friend, yourself, your lady and get it signed.

Monday: 

I’ll be cheering in Wellesley at Getty Gear for the marathon, hanging out with a bunch of crazy ass chicks, many of them Oiselle birdies. Everyone promises me this will be the best place to find questionable female behavior, and so of course I am intrigued and eager to partake. Alas, I won’t be joining the flashers this year; I’m not quite ready to go from never flashing anyone in public to full-on pregnant exposure. There’s simply too much going on up in there right now! There is an open invitation to join us if you are looking for a place to cheer!

And that’s why we pregnant people prefer to wear clothes. Big clothes. This next photo was taken minutes later, and voilà! This is exactly how I always look after going to Chipotle.

General Observations:

If my pregnant life were an ice cream sunday recipe, it would be three scoops of exhilaration and one scoop of terrified, drizzled with foggy confusion, and topped off with spontaneous sprinklings of f#@*ing exhausted. “FOUR SCOOPS?!” you say? I may have misjudged. Add another scoop of “what the hell is happening to my body” in there.

Muscles + Convex stomach expansion =

Those abs that everyone teases me about from the cover of Runners’ World don’t do “pregnant” very well. The individual abs that once formed a neatly rowed six-pack dispersed into separate lumps resembling fig newtons strewn atop a bosu ball. It wasn’t until I hit seven months that the newtons finally atrophied completely, allowing me to trade in my tent shirts for more fitted options befitting a smoother dome.

Super-Nose

One cool thing about pregnancy that happens immediately is a super-human sense of smell. It’s like you’re a character in X Men, experiencing the world in an enhanced way. At first I thought I could use my skill to better mankind, or at the very least, finally detect some of those “subtle notes” that winos are always going on about. But then I remembered wine is not part of the pregnancy diet. Furthermore, one week of super-nose showed me that the world is full of WAY more disgusting scents than pleasant ones. An “inferior” nose is what allows you to focus on the words coming out of your friends’ mouths, rather than their death breath. A normal nose allows you to appreciate the historic districts of cities without being distracted by their urination history. Unless you are a crime scene investigator or work for the DEA, this super-power is no bueno.

Always use Google first

Weird shit happens when you are pregnant. Normal experiences are amplified to the point where you are convinced there is a problem. A tendency to get a tight neck in your normal life comes on like a fractured spine when pregnant. If I had used google, I could have saved myself a trip to the orthopedist. When I started sneezing LITERALLY 150 times a day and my nose turned into a faucet in what appeared to be EXTREME allergies, I spent four hours cleaning my house. When that didn’t work, I hired professional house cleaners. When that didn’t work, I hired professional carpet cleaners. And when that didn’t work, after writhing on the carpet in a tantrum of frustration, I decided to google “pregnancy and allergies” only to discover that 20-30% of women suffer from what is called pregnancy rhinitis, which described my symptoms to the tee. Lesson learned.

My husband has a secret protective side

Jesse and I have an extremely relaxed relationship when it comes to restricting one another’s activities. If he wants to ride his bike on an icy road at midnight, that’s his prerogative. I don’t let my mind worry. And Jesse has always treated me the same way…until I got pregnant. I want to go for a run at dusk? Mr. Thomas suddenly has a very strong opinion on the subject. I’m not talking about one of those suggestive comments like “are you sure that is safe?” Picture instead Jesse in overalls waving his pitchfork saying “WOMAN!! You think you goin runnin out thar with my baby?! Have you gone lost yur mind?!” I’m surprised by this, and sometimes I wave my iron skillet back at him, but mostly I’m relieved to see that even though he isn’t physically effected by pregnancy, something very real is happening in that head of his that is prepping him for parenthood, and I like it.

Running isn’t that bad

I thought that running with a 20 pound weight vest would be awful, and that my stomach would be jiggling around like an un-bound enormous third boob, but the baby is cradled in the pelvis nice and snug, and my legs have grown stronger to accommodate the weight gradually.

Sure I have to pee every ten minutes, my back seizes up now and then forcing me to take a day off, and my running pace has decreased by over a minute per mile, but running is still something I really look forward to. Since I decided to opt out of any kind of heroic pregnancy training plan, it doesn’t bother me to only run 4-5 days a week, and take walk breaks now and then. Except for those times when it really bothers me.

The key has been listening to my body, running with friends that make me focus on having fun, and wearing running gear that expands well and doesn’t make you feel like a fat cow. My next blog I’ll do a gear rundown on my favorite pregnancy pieces for anyone who is curious. Until then, go power up a hill for me, or run 6 miles without stopping. Fleshman signing off!

Duh! Why didn’t I think of this? How has this not been invented before?

These guys made me say "Duh" big time.

That happened to me last December when I was in Austin for “The Running Event.” For those of you who don’t know, the event is basically an annual expo/showroom for all the new running products that will be coming out over the next year. It’s a great place to discover new innovations, and each year has it’s product trends. This year was flush with compression sock companies, all fighting for market share. As I walked past booth after booth of compression stuff, I couldn’t help but think that in two years time, most of these brands would be goners, especially since they were all doing pretty much the same thing: compressing.

Paula Radcliffe always rocks the squeezers, shown here in white person skin tone.

Despite the fact that one of my idols in the sport popularized them, and every single triathlete I’ve ever met can’t seem to take them off, I never really took to compression personally, other than for long flights, or after the occasional leg-abusing long run or track workout. I’ve read the science, and yeah, it gets you thinking, but there is always a lot of science in sport that I don’t bother listening to. Science recommends so many freaking things, and changes it’s mind so frequently, that I tend to buffer what science says with some good old fashioned “what works for me” and “what’s worth incorporating into my already full life.” Something has to provide a lot of value for me to add it into my program.

I digress…So during my company-spying in Austin, I walked past the 110% Play Harder booth and saw something unexpectedly different. There were compression socks hanging everywhere, as usual, but there were also these funny little calf sleeves connected to them, and what looked like ice cube trays made out of fabric and plastic, and capri tights full of kangeroo pouches, and silver insulator bags that looked like they could keep your sub sandwiches cold for days. What in the hell was going on here?

I had to ask, of course.

Rachel was a sprinter in college, before she took up a new sport: destroying pregnant pro athlete's confidence.

Rachel, (pictured kicking my slightly-more-luscious-than-usual-butt last week on a run in San Francisco,) kindly walked me through the product line and explained what the deal was: compression + ice, or heat. No more wrapping a ziplock baggie of ice to my injury with a kitchen towel or never-tight-enough saran wrap. The booth was full of products that make self-maintence easy. Gone is the excuse that you don’t have time to heat or ice something…you can do it anywhere, anytime, while doing anything else. And that was my “Aha” moment. All I could think was, Why hasn’t anyone invented this before? I really could have used these for the past 15 years. And then of course my next thought was, I wonder if she’ll hook me up with some free stuff?

She did…under the condition that I let her win all our runs together. And for three months I’ve tested the products, both as a runner and as a pregnant person, and confirmed that they rock on both accounts. Lucky for me, 110% thinks I’d be a great addition to their athlete roster of “Playmakers” so I have the opportunity to bring them on as an official sponsor. Check them out online and you’ll see that they have been featured in like a zillion publications recently and won some cool innovation awards. I’m very grateful to have their support this year.

I assume by now the suspense is killing you and despite the fact that your coffee is getting cold while you read this, you simply HAVE to know how these products caught my eye, and how I plan to use them. Well, wait no more. In six photos, you will see what the fuss is about, and will probably also smack your forehead saying, Why didn’t I think of that?

1. The Socks

Here is one compression sock shown alone, and one with the Overdrive sleeve over the top.

 2. The Inserts

Inserts that you can cut to size, and either freeze or microwave.

 3. The Unexpected

Slide that little bugger onto a trouble area with heat before exercise to warm it up, or ice afterwards. This piece is perfect size for plantar fasciitis, or inserted upward through the heal slot instead for achilles problems. The Overdrive sleeve holds it on tight, while the bottom compression sock protects your skin and keeps the blood circulating.

4. The Obvious

Sore calves? Boom. Or if you're me, you put 4 x this amount of ice in when your ankles get swollen and fat from carrying around an unborn child.

5. The Flexibility

Ideally, you kick back and relax when stuffing your capris with ice or heat, but in case you just can't stop...In seriousness, these "juggler knickers" are what I was most impressed by because they have pockets to treat any other area a runner could possibly hurt that the socks don't cover. Specifically for me, I can ice my knee and heat my achy low back at the same time. Plus there's pockets for my tots. (Picky Bars and cleavage not included).

6. Portability

And finally, they come in a thermal zip pouch that keeps your ice cold for like six hours, or something crazy like that. You can basically pack your recovery with you on your way to your race, or Sunday long run, and then get your recovery on while you eat brunch with your friends. WHAT?! Yeah, I know.

And The Best Part:

110% is bringing me out to Boston Marathon to hang out at the EXPO and see the race, so for all my readers who are going to be there, COME SAY HI! I’ll fill you in one more details later, including where I’ll be and when, and info about a special discount for my “Homeboys” (that’s you), and other fun stuff on the horizon.

I’m 90% of the way through another blog with a more thorough update about life due out Friday, but since a press release was going out today about 110%, I wanted to make sure you knew what the deal was from my fingertips. Feel free to comment and let me know what you think about compression. I’m particularly interested in how other athletes incorporate compression successfully into their routine, and where you draw the line for use, i.e. it’s ok to wear compression gear at a restaurant, but not ok to elevate your legs on the table…