running mom

Running Preggers: Healthy Mama; Healthy Baby

Nicole Lowe McBride3 Comments

The default recommendation for pregnant women is to exercise while pregnant, at least three days a week for 30 minutes. Basically, the same recommendation for everyone. There are many benefits to mom if she begins exercising and if she continues exercising while pregnant. Yes, the experts agree it if you haven’t been exercising starting during pregnancy is just fine. You do need to listen to your body and if you have a high-risk pregnancy make sure and check in with your doctor before you start anything.
Many of the benefits are what you would expect because they are the same benefits for everyone: better sleep, better mood, cardiovascular health, decreased levels of stress, weight control, respiratory health, and on.
Mom’s to be also improve their circulation, which helps to prevent constipation (big win). Preventing constipation, of course, reduces your chances of getting hemorrhoids. It also helps with swelling in ankles, varicose veins and leg cramps (ah the joys of pregnancy). Doing some core strengthening can reduce and prevent back pain as well.
But another big benefit for mom’s who exercise throughout their pregnancy is a shorter labor and less likely to have a perineum tear, if you do tear it’s not as bad. Unfortunately, it’s not going to reduce the pain you may experience.
Alright so exercise is good for mama, but that’s not enough to get you off the couch when you are tired, don’t feel good, and moody. Well we can through in a healthy dose of parental guilt then.
An exercise physiologist and anatomist at Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences, Linda May, conducted a study with 66 moms to be and their fetuses. She measured fetal heart rates at 28, 32, and 36 weeks of pregnancy after splitting the women into two groups: those who exercised at least 3 days a week for 30 minutes and those who didn’t.
Linda May was measuring the babies’ heartrate and the heart rate variability. Variability is the span between beats. Increased heart rate variability means a healthier heart and better overall health because the heart functions more efficiently.
In babies whose moms were exercising, Linda May found by 32 weeks there were differences between the two groups and by 36 weeks there was a “big, significant change”—lower heart rate and increased heart rate variability. The moms who exercised more had babies with lower fetal heart rate and increased heart rate variability.
Those benefits to baby didn’t stop after the baby was born either. The benefits continued to be seen when the babies were brought back in at one month of age. So if you can’t do it for yourself, do it for your growing baby.

Weekly Miles: I’m back running from the knee issue this week and started with 18 miles. I’ve found consistent rolling of  my shins is dong the trick, which I don’t normally roll. I plan on running outside more next week. I also picked up a maternity support belt to take some of the pressure of the baby off my bladder.

Badass Mother runner

Nicole Lowe McBrideLeave a comment

So this Sunday is Mother’s Day. If you haven’t bought or created your mom a gift, you should do that now and I hope you have two day shipping on Amazon.

Being a mom is hard. I’ve always thought that birthdays should really be a celebration of not just the child but the mother who fought to bring their screaming naked ass into the world.

Mom’s who are also runners are amazing women. Juggling the responsibilities of being a mom and finding time to run is hard. It takes sacrifice, determination, and creativity. I’ve learned a few tricks of the trade over the last few years.

Include your kids in your running. Strollers, bikes, scooters, the younger you can start including them the easier it will be for you in the future to continue to include them. Make it something you do together. They don’t need to go all the time, because mom needs time for herself too. It’s important for them to know you are taking care of yourself so you can be there for them. We put our children before ourselves all the time, but as our kids get older they need to learn that mom has needs just like they do. Taking time, even if it’s only thirty minutes a few times a week, for yourself will make you a better mom.

Run early or late. When my kids were younger, they are teens now, I would run early enough that I would be home to make breakfast when they got up. Sometimes this meant that I got up at 3 am, but being there for breakfast was important to me. You can also run after they go to bed or at lunch if you are also a working mom.

Because I am also a single mom, my kids have always known the route I was running and what time I would be back. They had a phone to call me if they woke up before I returned. I always stayed close enough to the house that I could get back within ten to fifteen minutes. They knew which neighbors they could go to in case of an emergency. They knew when to call for emergency services. If you have children too young to be left alone, find another mom who is willing to trade running days and child care days.

You’re running is important not just for you, but for your kids. You are modeling healthy habits. Too many children, especially in the United States, haven’t grown up being active. It makes me sad when I walk my dogs each evening and see very few children in the streets playing. They are not even out in their yards. When I was a child, we were always running around outside:exploring our neighborhoods and creating adventures.

The hardest decision comes when you have a conflict in schedule with your child’s such as when there is a race you really want to do, but your child also has an event that day and time. This may be an easy decision for some, but for others, me included, it’s hard. I typically went with being there for my kids. The race will be there when they are older. They will never participate in the event in the same way.

Happy Mother’s Day and Happy Running.

 

Ultraparenting

Nicole Lowe McBride1 Comment

 

My Boys and Me
My Boys and Me

Parenting has taught me a lot about running, but running has taught me even more about parenting. Both endeavors throw unexpected challenges right before your feet and expect your best effort in return. There are going to be good days, and bad days. You don’t always get to choose which one you are going to have on any given day. You don’t really get to choose the children or runs you have.

Yes, picking a good partner is helpful, having structure, rules and love is a great foundation to build upon, but that doesn’t always guarantee you anything when it comes to kids or runs. Every child and run is individual.  You can only control so much of what goes into them.

Although, I cannot promise you will have an epic run if you put all the training in, I guarantee that if you put nothing into parenting or running, you will get negative experiences out of them. The more you put in, the more likely you are to get what you want out of it. What comes out is not always what you expect and in that, lays the challenge and beauty.

Parenting like running is hard and sometimes it hurts. There are many excuses to not take the time to be actively involved with your kids on a day-to-day basis. Everyone is busy working and trying to stay on top of everything they have going on in their lives. Kids are more independent and mobile than ever before. They have more freedom and more time without adult supervision, and many of parents expect them to be more independent and dependable than they are actually ready for, which causes our children to rebel when we turn around and try to set limits on their activities.

All of these are reasons to be more involved and know who your kids are with and where they are. You would never just show up at the starting line of a marathon without training and expect a good result. You cannot throw your children into the world without training and expect a good result either.

Most people are amazed when they find out that I have a seventeen-year-old son and a thirteen-year-old son. “You are not old enough to have a child that age,” is the ubiquitous response.  Nevertheless, I am, and I do. Yes, I started early. I was seventeen when my oldest was born. Actually, I never intended to have children in the first place just as I never intended to become a runner and athlete.

Once it happened, I embraced it and have never turned back. I could not imagine my life any other way. I don’t claim to be a phenomenal parent or an expert on parenting just as I don’t claim to be a phenomenal runner or a running expert. I am the first one to admit my parenting flaws. I give it my best, and I never call it quits.

Thanks Mom

Nicole Lowe McBride3 Comments

On July 10, 1997, I became a mother. I was seventeen years old. At the time, I did not realize that it would be the most life altering moment I would ever experience. In my short life, I had already had been through some pretty extreme situations, which happens when you live on the streets and hitchhike up the western coast of the US using and dealing drugs. I was a runner back then too. But, it was a very different type of running. I ran away from home, I ran away from school, and mostly I ran away from myself.

Being a teen mom is generally a sentence to poverty, illiteracy, and crime. For me, it became the trailhead for the most magnificent journey I would ever take. Sapphire blue eyes, fine black downy hair, and tiny fingers, the first time I held Jasper Freedom in my arms was the first day I began to really live.

After Jasper was born, I returned home and to school. I finished my high school diploma one semester behind my class, graduating in December of 1998. I graduated with my Associates degree in 2000 from Salt Lake Community College and applied to the University of Utah. I graduated with by Bachelor’s degree in Psychology in 2002. I started working for the State doing child abuse investigations. After three years, I applied to law school at the U of U and was accepted. As a lawyer, I have continued to work in child welfare where I feel like I can make a difference for children.

Now, seventeen years later, I run as a form self-expression. I run because it’s a challenge. I run to face my fears. I run to be alone with myself.

I have my mother and my children to thank for my achievements. Because when I was unable to fight for myself, they provided me with a reason to be strong, to dream big, and ultimately to fight for who I was and what I believed in.

There has not been a day that has gone by that my mom has not been there for me. Despite all of my self-destructive choices, my mom was always there with open arms waiting for me to come home. She never gave up on me, even when everyone else had, years before.

Today, she is the first person I call upon when things are tough and when things are amazing. I don’t think that I can ever thank her enough for believing in me and showing me what it is to be a mother.