[DaemonCorax]

Well I completely missed the boat on this challenge. Work ate my life for months, and on Sept 9th part of my massive project ended. My brain is massively hungover, so I'm just now trying to get back in the swing of things. I also might be embarking on proto-human growth experiment #2 shortly (yay! limbo!), so I'm going to need all the moral support I can get in the exercise dept. When I was pregnant with #1 (1) I was so so so exhausted at first and at the end but (2) exercise was so so so important to making me feel like a functional human. So here we go.

 

No goals formally speaking. Our desert protagonist has spent the last two month holed up waiting for regional stability to return in life. I just want to post workouts here for tracking.

[sarakingdom]

23 hours ago, DaemonCorax said:

My brain is massively hungover, so I'm just now trying to get back in the swing of things.

 

I sense a two-week September challenge here...

[Elastigirl]

Hey there, glad to see you!

[DaemonCorax]

Recap for this week:

 

On Saturday (24th. So last week. Whatever), my friend, her doggo, and I went up Mt Audubon. It's a gentle trail ending in some talus hopping at the top. The wind was epic. We were going to do a ridge traverse to Mt Paiute, but were unable to stand up straight on the north ridge of Audubon, so we scratched that. We sat in a wind shelter (rock alcove) at the top and had snacks before talus hopping off trail down the east fast to dodge the wind, before regaining the trail once it was a little more protected. Later in the morning the wind settled a tiny bit and we had time for a beer (it was too windy on the summit) on the way down. (Yes yes, alcohol at high altitude. This is practically a ritual for us at this point. We're both good with the elevation, so it's not biggie.)

 

Monday: Gym with same friend early morning. Climbed and did bench press since I had a spotter who also lifts.

45 7x2 (form adjustments)

55 7x

65 7x - since I've benched exactly twice in the past few years I didn't want to go all crazy with this. Felt pretty good.

Got some pull-ups in too. 3. Just 3. Sigh.

 

Tuesday: Rode to work

Wednesday: Carpet cleaning - that counts as a workout right? Did most of our upstairs floor (two bedrooms and a hallway and stairs, skipped the guest room/WFH den)

 

Friday (today): Gym solo. Climbed and did squats. Basically started from scratch here because of the workout break that work caused. So I'm falling off 10+s and 11-s, but I'm making myself downclimb anything under a 5.9 when I'm on the autobelay. Makes this more interesting.

Squat was 45 5x

95 5x3

105 5x

115 6x in two attempts. Rep 4 felt incomplete so I paused and redid the last two.

 

And yes. I am potentially incubating a new small human (so whoops about that beer, but it'll be ok). Because of scarring from last time, once I have a belly I'm going to have to lay of the big abdominally intensive lifts (deadlifts I'm looking at you unfortunately), but I have a better full body harness this time, so I'm trying to make plans to do other things. I'm also trying to stick with morning workouts through the first trimester because last time learning that I was just too wiped out at the end of the day to get a workout in was a tough lesson.

 

Spoiler

There was a small, probably loss, a couple months ago for me. So I'm mentioning that I'm pregnant here because it has such a monstrously huge effect on my energy level, workouts, how I time my eating, and my blood pressure (it gets LOW), but I also am holding my breath a little bit about it. I want to talk about my plans here to get through the pregnancy, but I don't think I'm actually going to completely believe everything's ok for a few months....yup. Typing it out helps. I'm at peace with being pregnant again, but there are some dark and twisty corners about this for me mentally.

 

[Elastigirl]

Congrats on the new little one. Hoping it all goes well.

Spoiler

I was remembering that your last baby you had a really hard delivery. So, that makes sense that mentally it can be tough. 

 

[KB Girl]

Glad typing it out helps with the dark and twisty! Planning is ok and I hope you can also be happy about it, if not now then soon! 

You're definitely in a better place starting out this pregnancy, lots of work done and lots of lessons learned from last time. The second one was easier for me, sometimes I want a third just to see how it would go with everything I've learned since

 

[Salinger]

❤️❤️❤️ xx

[DaemonCorax]

7 hours ago, KB Girl said:

sometimes I want a third just to see how it would go with everything I've learned since

 

Oh heeeeeeeellllllll no. For me anyway.

 

I do feel better prepared. I also am trying to feel accepting that:

(1) With my work project delivering very late and running me into the ground in the process, I haven't had a break

(2) Pregnancy is NOT a break, nor is maternity leave

(3) Therefore I'm not going into this with what I need, with any energy reserve, so I'm trying to create what I need as I go.

(4) I made a major change in my role at work (that my boss says I didn't NEED to make because he was looking out, but that's not always achievable in real life), that takes me out of on-call nighttime lab work. It feels like backing down. The imposter syndrome is alive and well. But really, this is what anyone would do in my position given the power to do it.

 

So there are a LOT of thoughts going on right now. I will obviously not be telling my boss about this new development for a few months.

I'm veering off into proposal work - his plan, and a good one, and coding work - my plan, that I put into action by cold-emailing the lead of another division at my institution. The work I have done for the past 2.5 years I am very proud of, but it has been too much. The project lead (we have a grid structure) was completely on board, as my coding work will directly be for the project that I just completed test engineer work for.

 

The phrase I used with both my boss and my project lead a couple months ago was "my family has not decided if we're having another kid, but hey, I got sick every 3 weeks from Nov to July, which is unreasonable in any version of the future" They're both good, smart, dads. That I even had the liberty to say THAT is something I appreciate immensely. I actually turned down a much higher paying job in January, and again recently, because their leave policy was basically assuming a stay-at-home spouse.

 

Its like my whole body has been on high alert, and now I'm trying very hard to create space mentally and physically to rest (and have time with my kid, time with MFH, time outside by myself), and I'm not quite believing that I'm working hard enough as my role changes, even though, of course, I'm going to work hard to do a good job.

 

Anyway. Workouts:

 

Sunday: high altitude mtn biking in the morning with the small one and friends. Some of the adults rode a couple miles at adult pace, but then a lot of time was spent chasing the cutest 3-year old ever on the cutest mtn bike on the trail that day.

 

Monday: WFH with no gym visit. Did some shoulder stuff/pull-up work in the basement though. Felt super sick after lunch. This has been a THING. Afternoon hormones are apparently hateful badgers.

Tuesday(today): Rode the long way in around sunrise. 12 mi. Heavy backpack but otherwise wonderful. Will ride home, then go get the small. will be about 24 mi total.

 

Wednesday (tomorrow): Morning gym. Should do some climbing and 1-2 big lifts.

Thursday: unknown

Friday: Doing a 13er I've done before with a friend who hasn't

 

 

[Elastigirl]

12 hours ago, KB Girl said:

Glad typing it out helps with the dark and twisty! Planning is ok and I hope you can also be happy about it, if not now then soon! 

You're definitely in a better place starting out this pregnancy, lots of work done and lots of lessons learned from last time. The second one was easier for me, sometimes I want a third just to see how it would go with everything I've learned since

 

What  my friends who have several kids have said is that they think they have it all figured out when they have two, then the next kid is totally different and they realize they know nothing.😉 

[Salinger]

Hey DC, hope all is good for you this week xx

[KB Girl]

Will you be joining this next challenge? How goes? 

[DaemonCorax]

Ok. I dropped of the radar a bit, I know.

 

First trimester fatigue is no joke. It's an in-the-bones tired I've never experience not pregnant.

So here we are. Week 11.

 

Week 10 was just as hellish as last time. I wasn't as much of an emotional wreck, but I was having a lot of trouble with food and exhaustion. And then my 3yo brought home the stomach flu and it hit me WAY harder than it hit him. I had two days that were pretty awful, but I was so wrecked afterwards, it seemed like everything in the kitchen was a new food aversion. I'm just coming out of that and have developed a strange attachment to overly salty asian noodle soups from the grocery store and baked potatoes with cheese. At least one of those has some nutrition!

 

This week I'm not trying to get in on the current challenge. I should try to set up for the next one, but we'll be traveling back east to see family in mid-December. (yay?) So we'll see. I'm getting used to a new workout schedule - or trying to have one - and the weird accountability guilt I have from working from home more. But I think I'm turning the corner on first trimester nightmares, so maybe by Thanksgiving I'll feel up to cooking for our friends (I better!).

[Elastigirl]

Here's hoping that you start to have a bit more energy as you get past the first trimester.  Flu when you are pregnant and already not feeling well sounds brutal!

[KB Girl]

Week 12 now? Always a milestone

Hope you're reaching the end of that intense tiredness!