swimming

 Now that I'm solidly in my 2nd trimester I definitely notice a difference in my energy level than my 1st trimester. I'm not falling asleep at like 10:30/11pm anymore and besides my growing belly, generally don't feel pregnant. Definitely had some low level nausea for a while too, which I think kind of ramped up gradually so that I really only notice it now that it's gone. 

Even so, since the pools opened for the summer, Zach and I have swam every weekend except for 1 or 2. Each week, Zach and I transformed into Laura and John Riskind so that we could use a reserved lane at Mantua pool in Fairfax (or each took a lane if they were free, Zach has become a championship swimmer but still struggles with swimming in a straight line and I have to be vigilant so we don't have a head-on collision). Swimming, IMO, is the best all around exercise you can do for your body, so I'm happy to have kept it up all these years, and it's always listed as a go-to pregnancy exercise. It only seems appropriate that my inaugural first trimester pregnancy barf was in the bathroom at Mantua pool.

Now the outdoor pools are closed, but Zach's mom finagled a spot for us at the JCC pool, and we went for the first time on Friday after I got done working. They aren't taking any new memberships right now so I'm not totally sure how she did this but I think she dropped the preggers card hard on them.  We have 3 free guest passes and then will have to pay $20 per visit, which is fine, although I wish they didn't limit the swims to 45 minutes. Mantua pool had that as well but they were pretty loosy goosy about it as long as lanes weren't in demand. JCC is running a tight ship and does 15 minute cleanings every 45 minutes so you have to get out. I don't know quite what they're cleaning that isn't getting killed by the chlorine, maybe the locker rooms. The lifeguard told us that we were the 2nd and 3rd people to use the pool that whole day- we had the entire pool to ourselves. 

I generally feel the same swimming but have been taking it pretty easy, I don't do more than a 200m at a time and typically am just doing 100s and 50s. I've cut my workout in half to about 1000-1200m/per swim, although most of the decrease is due to a nagging shoulder issue that I think came from upping my yardage too quickly for the triathlon training. While I could physically do the required 1500m swim all in one go and it felt great on my lungs, I think it was too much on my shoulder. It's not too bad and I think I already had a bit of an issue there but I'm babying it a little anyways. Flip turns are still no problem, although I will need to listen to my body on that one if they get uncomfortable. I've read that some swimmers have no problem doing them all through pregnancy, and others start to not feel good doing them. 

One thing I have noticed is that my muscles don't feel quite like they have it in them to go as fast as I could pre-pregnancy. I've heard that your 'fast twitch' muscles decrease during pregnancy because your body is releasing a hormone appropriately named 'relaxin', which among other things literally relaxes your ligaments. This is a little weird for me, because I think in general I have pretty solid fast twitch muscles. I have to take a moment to brag- one of my most satisfying swimming moments was in college when we were having a big multi- school club team meet (club swimmers for schools like UVA that have good NCAA teams are no joke) and I took down the 25m free. The 25m free is 1 lap of the pool, and after 8 years old you never will swim it in a meet again because it doesn't exist as an event, so I guess they decided to do it just for fun. A one lap race is like an animal sprint to the other side that obviously none of us had trained for. So feeling a little slow is weird, but kind of helps put me in a mindset of using the swim to stretch out my muscles and get some length in my stroke. 

Besides swimming, I haven't been doing too much else consistently. I use getting free things from the capitol hill mom's group as an excuse to get on my bike, and try to arrange pickups during lunch at work so I can get off my butt for a few miles and enjoy the amazing fall weather. Otherwise I tend to stay inside in my PJs all day, so that's been good. 

The exercise class that really jolted me back to reality was with FIT4MOM DC. They were having an outdoor free class for their 5 year anniversary, and it said on the website that it was appropriate for prenatal, so I decided to join in. I had already tried one of their actual prenatal classes via Zoom earlier in the summer and it was super easy so I was expecting this to be similar. Wrong, this class was more like a normal exercise class with established moms and I was the only pregnant lady there. We had to do introductions in the beginning and the instructor was surprised that I was pregnant, and kept going on about how it was great for a preggers to get involved in this kind of class. There was quite a bit of running, tons of squat type exercises, and resistance band training. This class was hard as f. I went to a free outdoor HIIT class with a non-mom group the following week that was easier than this. But since it was a mom's group and they knew I was pregnant, I felt no pressure to prove anything, and walked during some of the running, etc. I was so sore for several days after this class, but it also felt good and I realized I need to make sure to keep up a little strength training. 

Last weekend was super fun playing doubles tennis, I felt really good running around a bit and didn't really feel too inhibited besides a few times on my backhand, which I think is probably more core involved than a forehand. It definitely surprised me, I was thinking that things were going to feel awkward out there.  The weather was phenomenal and I'm hoping to keep playing a little tennis through the fall, at least while it still feels good. 

I keep having weird dreams including some nightmares, and in one of them the other night I was walking through the door from an alleyway into some kind of indoor corridor, and passed a hunched old man wearing a robe with a hood over his head. He kind of looked in my direction which sketched me out, so I decided to turn around and go back into the alleyway. As I turned around, I realized that he was now following me, wasn't such an old man after all, and then he started chasing me. I tried to hold the door for a while but realized I was going to have to make a run for it. I was heavily pregnant, but broke out as fast as I could. As I moved along I remember thinking that it was a good thing I had kept in shape during the pregnancy so I could out-run him, and that was the end of the dream. I guess the dream was kind like of a parable. I'm definitely moving into a more vulnerable state than I'm used to, which is going to be weird, but I have a little bit it control over it.

In general though, I'm trying not to overdo things and limit myself to one kind of exercise per day, because the day I did the FIT4MOM class I also went on a planned walk and I was totally spent afterwards. With the pandemic, being outside is about the only thing to do right now so that can be hard, plus I always want/feel like I need to do everything, so I'm just having to be more deliberate right now and say no sometimes. Gotta get some rest too for the growing pup.