Tales from a Pregnant Runner

Today, which ends week 17 of my pregnancy, I bring you 2 tales:  Tales from a pregnant runner’s body and (humorous) tales from the track.

Tales from a pregnant runner’s loosey-goosey body

And no, I don’t mean the loose way that can cause pregnancy.

During pregnancy, the body releases a hormone called relaxin, which loosens joints and softens ligaments in preparation for delivery. Relaxin affects more than just the pelvis and causes abnormal motion in many other joints of the body, allowing joints to easily misalign. Interesting fact: relaxin is actually found in higher amounts early in pregnancy than close to the time of birth.

I’m here to tell you that a pregnant runner can feel relaxin.  I’ve been observing its effect on many joint groups in my body.  I ran easy and solo for the month of September during weeks 7 through 10 of pregnancy. I first felt relaxin’s effect around week 8.  I was running an easy flat route. My pelvis felt like it was too loose. It was like my legs weren’t attached to my pelvis tightly enough.  It’s a weird sensation.  It doesn’t interfere with running performance and it’s not painful, just weird.  It went away within a few days.

I felt it in my ankles next.  For a few runs, they became loosey-goosey and then they seemed to tighten back up.  Or I got used to their new loose state.  Not sure which. My shoulders and elbows were the strangest joints while loosening. I sleep curled up on my side. I woke up one day with sore shoulders and elbows, like they had working really hard. Yet all they had been doing was sleeping.  The loosening must have put strain on ligaments and tendons while I slept all night.  They remained sore a few days and the soreness magically disappeared.

During my 14^th week of pregnancy, my right IT band felt tight.  Save for running 100km on a severely damaged African road, I never have tight IT bands.  My detective skills make me suspect that my knee joints were loosening some and my IT band was picking up the slack.  Again, it went away in a few runs.

On it’s racecourse through my body, relaxin has arrived at my SI joint and the effect is slow to disappear. Given my SI joint history, I knew that it likely would not disappear without help.

Anatomy lesson. There are 2 sacroiliac joints formed by the articulation between the sacrum and 2 ilium bones of the pelvis.  In real words, the sacroiliac joints are where the spine joins the pelvis.  I’ve had to be diligent about my SI joint during my last few training cycles.

In the training cycle leading up to both Boston Marathon 2010 and my fall half-marathon in 2010, I had SI joint issues.  A weak core was at the root of my SI joint pain.  A weak core allows the pelvis to tilt back and forth ever so slightly while running.  This movement stresses the SI joints = pain at the base of the spine where it joins the pelvis.  In my training cycle leading up to Boston Marathon 2011 and Gambia 2011, I worked really hard at strengthening my core and this problem disappeared.

Now the core muscles that I worked really hard to develop are stretched over my expanding baby bump.  Thus the tilty pelvis has returned.  Enter chiropractor Jason Gray.  Jason can fix the pain in my SI joint easily with spinal manipulation.  Because of my circulating relaxin, spinal manipulation is even easier and takes less force on behalf of the practitioner. Yes, chiropractic care is safe and healthy during pregnancy.  You can read more here and here.

As long as Baby Poirier is healthy, maintaining my fitness and continuing to run is very important to me.  My SI joint isn’t injured.  I just need to stay on top of it and keep it that way.  Core workouts helped keep my SI joint healthy in the past.

Unsurprisingly, a google search for core workouts for pregnant women yields nothing of use. In such a case, when you are a pregnant runner, want to do core workouts and can’t find any information about pregnancy core workouts, it’s good to know the right people.  My friend Candice is a physiotherapist and put together a modified pregnant core workout for me.  Thanks, Candice!

Tales from the Track:

Onto the SMU track where I still spend Tuesday and Thursdays.  Or at least try to.

Two weeks ago, I showed up to run on Tuesday. I ran 15 minutes for warm up.  I went to the portapotty and got a little bit dizzy and sweaty because all of a sudden I was so hungry. I did 2 rows of A-skips then dug into the candy stash in my track bag as I was ravenous.  I told Norma that I needed a cheeseburger.  I did a few more drills and was still starving.  I ate more candy.  I drank some Gatorade. I ate “godfather” J’s granola bar (read more about baby Poirier’s self appointed godfathers here).  Then I decided that I had to go home.  I was simply too hungry to do my workout.

This incident led to my discovery that everyone loves a pregnant-runner joke.

Last Tuesday, I was late getting to the track and training partner Mike ran warm-up without me.  When we met up after, I explained that my car had broken down and I had to run to SMU.  “Oh, I figured you just got hungry,” he says.  Everyone laughed.

Then “godfather” G tried to joke and tell me that I needed to stop eating so many cheeseburgers, pointing to my expanding baby bump.  So I fired G from “godfather” role for calling me fat and appointed J lead godfather.  J is delighted.  G is highly offended.  “It’s not fair!” G protests.  “Besides, J is going to screw up in like 5 minutes.”

I continue to do my warm-up drills with Mike while J yells across the track, “You don’t look fat!  You just look pregnant.” He’s gloating in front of G.  And making everyone laugh.

When I show up for practice on Thursday, G jumps up and gushes, “Wow, Erin, you look so beautiful tonight.”  He’s sucking up, wanting to get his godfather status back.

Not to be outdone, J runs over to me and puts his face up to my baby bump, “How’s my godson doing!”

My 22-year-old godfathers continue like this, entertaining everyone.  Eventually, I agree that G can have his co-godfather status back.

While entertained, I also continue to run well at the track, closing out 17 healthy weeks of pregnancy.