It has been 15 weeks since Ryan & I welcomed our beautiful daughter Polly Jean into this world and over two years since my last blog post! I just completed Week #7 of full-time running postpartum (full-time meaning running 4-6 days that week and between 20-36 miles so far for each week). Since the beginning of our pregnancy journey I have turned to googling any question that pops into my head and I often find myself on different mom blogs and mommy forums reading about other women's experiences and seeing how their journey can relate to my own. This is the #1 reason why I decided to re-start my blog because maybe writing about my own journey as a mom and runner might be of interest to other moms, moms to be, runners, or mom-runners/mom to be-runners. The #2 reason is to hold myself more accountable to my ultimate goal of getting back to being a more competitive runner. It is going to take time and dedication, but I was inspired this week with the release of the USATF 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials Standards. During my best racing years my personal bests would predict my marathon potential between 2:39:17 to 2:44:56 using the McMillan Calculator. My marathon PB is 2:49:25 from when I trained and failed to meet the 2016 USATF Olympic Marathon Trials Standard. I learned a lot about myself from training for two marathons pre-pregnancy and I am excited to see how I can become a better marathon runner after becoming a mom. It is definitely a challenge, but I am up for it! In addition to writing about my training I thought it would be fun to include funny anecdotes and what I have learned recently about being a mom in each blog post. This post's story is not for those with a weak stomach so if you are up for it see below.Funny Mom Anecdote: Breastfeeding moms beware it is true your baby poops what you eat! I LOVE mangoes and decided to buy a box of 12 mangoes from Sam's Club during my weekly grocery shopping trip. Later that week when Polly had not pooped for over 32 hours I decided to: A. Google foods that can make a breastfed baby constipated and of course mangoes are on the list! B. Google how long it is okay for breastfeeding babies to go without pooping (some articles said 7-10 days?!?) Well sure enough Polly had what I have termed a 'poop explosion' right around the 48 hour mark and I could not believe the overpowering sweet & tangy mango smell! Lessons learned: 1. I would never have realized how obsessed I would be with when the last time my baby had pooped. 2. If you eat a lot of mangoes & breastfeed your baby there will be some sweet & tangy smells coming your way for days!
