Mommy the Triathlete

"Nancy Hill, from Spring Hill, Tennessee, YOU are a triathlete!"

That's what I heard yesterday morning as I crossed the finish line, right in front of the Parthenon.  

I am a triathlete!

It was so. much. fun.  I have honestly wanted to do a triathlon for as long as I can remember.  Even as a kid, I thought it sounded awesome and like indisputable proof that I was a real athlete.  So I guess now I am! 


One of my preemie mama friends came down all the way from Owensboro, Kentucky to do it with me, and it made all the difference in the world to have a friend going through it with me.  Becca's super fantastic physical therapist was the one who got us into it, so she was there as well (cheering me on when I was starting the run after she had finished the whole thing :) ), as was her super sweet husband Kyle. 

I finished (note the operative verb) in 1 hour, 19 minutes and 3 seconds.  In about the time it takes to watch two commercial-free episodes of NCIS, I swam 250 yards, shimmied into bike shorts, 2 shirts (it was freezing - just over 50 degrees!), socks, running shoes and a bright yellow helmet, biked 8 miles, racked my bike and helmet and wrote a note to a friend, and ran (/walked) 2 miles.  If you are interested in such things, I finished 184th out of 227 "competitors."(There was nothing competitive about this race, at least not among the participants like me!  Everyone was SO encouraging!)  I "placed" (if you could call it that!) 21st out of 30 in my age group.  The swim was my strongest section (6:54, including entry, exit and scrambling to the transition area - which was the 133rd fastest swim), the bike was my worst (43:01, #194), and the run was in the middle (23:20, #174).  But really, I don't care about these numbers (though they are fun to look at).  What I care about are these numbers:

My blood pressure has always run in the 120's over the 80's, even before I was pregnant.  Okay, I thought my blood presure had always run in the 120's over the 80's, even before AND SINCE I was pregnant.  But I just looked back over my medical records (via myhealthatvanderbilt.com, which is super-convenient), and after I had Becca, my blood pressure stayed fairly high.  Unfortunately, they don't have my vital signs recorded (in that system) from when I was inpatient and pre-eclamptic, but I know that at one point at least, my blood pressure was over 160/100 because that's the point at which they told us to go to the hospital.  I'm not sure where it went from there.  (I'm horrible at remembering numbers, even important ones.)  But after Becca was born, the doctors where happy enough with my recovery that I wasn't treated with BP meds, which I thought was great.  But now that I'm looking back at the stats they had recorded for me, and all of the BP readings are high - one of them as high as 143/93!  Holy crap!  (I'm not sure why they didn't say anything about this - I will say that I didn't get the best post-partum care for several reasons, but I won't go into that right now.  Needless to say, I will no longer accept, "Well, it's probably up because you are nervous about seeing the doctor," as an excuse not to treat or discuss it!) 


Even before discovering that I was in even worse shape than I thought I was, I was motivated to get off my butt when I read this article which reports the American Heart Association recognizing pre-eclampsia as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease later in life - a risk factor of the same magnitude as having FAILED a stress test!  Ouch!  (The previous thought about pre-e was that once the mom recovered, she recovered.  This move indicates that the leading research shows that having had pre-e has lasting effects on the mom's symptoms, which makes sense to me!)  I don't know about you, but I think having failed a stress test at age 31 is pretty crappy!  I have a lot of life that I'd like to live, and I'd like that life to include running around and chasing grandbabies for a good, long time, thank you! 


But 110/72?  That's someone in good cardiac health!  Maybe not great, but good!  And a pulse rate of 71 when pushing a cart full of groceries and little girl all the way through Publix (where I always take my blood pressure) is pretty good, too - average, even!  Just think of it...me, average!  :)  Of course, I'm still carrying around extra weight, but even with the weight, my numbers look good!  (I didn't seem to LOSE much weight in the training process, but I've definitely got more muscle and maybe slightly less fat.)


And you know what other numbers I care about?  How about the 1 baby that is born prematurely out of every 7 babies born in Tennessee?  Or the 236 preemies born in Tennessee each week?  And what about the nearly $200 that my Triathlon for Trimesters training raised to fight against those numbers?  Yeah, those are numbers that I care about.  (And my gracious sponsors will soon be hearing more about those numbers in an e-mail.  Each dime you sponsored earned $7.50 for the March for Babies!) 


I'm hoping to do another triathlon soon.  I'm looking for sprint triathlons held on Saturday.  (Most are held on Sunday, when I'm kind of busy...and about to be really busy...but more on that another day!)  Now that I'm hooked, I might start caring about that first set of numbers as I work to get my times down...but in the meantime, I'll be proud of what I've done to the rest of the numbers.  Thanks for helping me get there.

p.s.  Becca can now say "triathlon" (="tiafyon") and knows that Mommy went in the "simming pool," "ride bike," and "did running."  Such a great cheerleader - I can't wait to do one with her watching!

Update on Itty Bitty Becca's Team

It's t-minus 7 days until the 2011 March for Babies!  (And, in case you are wondering, that's exactly why the Becca blog posts have been so few and far between as of late.  But have no fear - I have been snapping pictures and videos to upload and share with you when my schedule is a little bit back to normal.)


So how is Itty Bitty Becca's Team doing?  Quite well!  In 2009 and 2010, we averaged about $1500.  This year, we are already up to...wait for it...$3710!  WOW!  That's 247% of our average!  We've made a big jump this year by branching out with our fundraising efforts and by having more of our team members reach out to their friends and family to raise funds, too - big thanks go to Ashley, Christy and Emily, who have raised almost $600 among them!  Our team is consistently tracking in second place among the Music City family teams, but there are 3 teams right on our heels.  I think it's going to come down to the wire!  The first team place is over $10,000, so I don't think we're going to catch them, but we could hold our second-place position with a solid final week push!  (But I'm not competitive or anything...)  


I've revised our team goal up to $4,000, which solidly ranks us among the top family teams.  We are $290 away from that goal, so I think we can make it - but of course, we need the help of all of our favorite procrastinators...so if you've been meaning to give but just have gotten around to taking the time to do so, take a minute now and donate at www.marchforbabies.org/ittybittybecca.   That's Becca's personal fundraising page - I've set it up so that she can be a Top Walker herself (that's the VIP status for walkers who raise over $1,000) - after all, she is the most important walker on our team!  :)


You may be wondering how the triathlon training is going...and I've been meaning to give it a dedicated post, but since I haven't gotten around to it yet, I'll give you the skinny here.  So, first off, let me say that it's going well-ish, and I'm confident that I'll be able to complete the race, as long as there isn't a time limit they haven't told us about.  :)  But let me introduce you to my new best friend:

Yep, after all of the concerns about Becca's lungs, I'm the first one to be diagnosed with asthma!  Wohoo!  Of course I'd rather it be me than her, but I'd prefer that none of us have to deal with it.  I had some really super minor asthma issues as a kid, and according to the pulmonologist (yep, the first time Becca met a pulmonologist was at my appointment - ironic!), it's not unusual for it to come back in adulthood.  Turns out things like training for a triathlon bring such issues to light.  I've got the "rescue inhaler" above that I take when I need it and/or before working out, and we're trying out a maintenance inhaler that I take nightly.  They both seem to be helping but they haven't exactly made the problem disappear like I had hoped.  That's probably a little too much to ask for, but we'll see what the doc says at my follow up in a few weeks.

So, needless to say, that set my training back a little bit.  Add to that John's being sick over a couple of weekends and Becca's impromptu hospital stay and subsequent recovery, on top of the busiest season at work, and I haven't exactly hit my training goals, especially not in terms of the Tri's for Tri's fundraising.  Right now my fine sponsors owe a whopping $3.35 for every dime sponsored, which is far from my original goal of $15 per dime and still far from my revised (and much more realistic) goal of $10 per dime, so, for all those sponsors willing to bear with me, I'm extending the fundraising period until up to the triathlon.  That gives me about an extra month post-March for Babies to hit the training hard and make up for some lost time.  In retrospect, that's what I should have arranged from the beginning, but I'm not sure I really conceived of how busy the weeks leading up to March for Babies would be.  And since we can collect March for Babies money through the month of May, the dimes will still count toward our team total.  Sponsors, if you're not on board with the extension, feel free to cash out now at www.marchforbabies.org/ittybittybecca.  Otherwise, know that I'll be working hard to earn your dimes - staring next week.  :)

Our team t-shirts should be shipping to me tomorrow, so I'll probably be able to start handing them out at church on Wednesday.  If you haven't yet paid for your shirt(s), you can send me a check or drop me an e-mail or facebook message, and I'll give you instructions on how to pay through PayPal.  

And just in case you need a reminder of why we Itty Bitty Hills are working hard for the March of Dimes, see below.  The money we raise gives other mommies and daddies the chance to cuddle with their little lambs, too. Thanks for all your help!

Thoughts on Tri's

My pregnancy with Becca ended right at 28 weeks, which, depending on how you measure, is the end of the second trimester.  That means, of course, that she and I only got TWO TRImesters.  Which I guess means that we got 2 semesters, really.  If there is no third, a pregnancy can't really be divided into trimesters, right?  


I still grieve the loss of that third trimester - for me, for her, for us.  I REALLY wanted to get big and fat and waddly and complain about my hips hurting, not being able to get comfortable, not having any room to eat because the baby was taking up so much room in there.  I REALLY wanted to have baby showers (which I did end up having, thankfully, but in a different way).  I wanted to nest.  I wanted to worry about where my water was going to break - what if I was in a patient's room at the hospital?  Or in the middle of an IPR group with my awkward male supervisor?  


Instead -- and I'm not saying this to be dramatic, it's just God's honest truth -- I planned Becca's funeral.  I can still tell you where it was going to be, who was going to do what, where I wanted her remains placed.  When I encounter an emotional trigger (like a child's funeral), I still find myself thinking about it and re-planning it.  (Now she loves to sing "Jesus Loves Me," so we'll include that, for example.)  Hello, post-traumatic stress disorder.  It's good to see you're still sticking around.  There's no reason to think at this point that I'll outlive Becca, but part of me is still all too acutely aware of that possibility.  Because of that damn missing trimester.


If she understood it, I'm sure Becca would be grieving that trimester, too.  It's the reason she's covered in IV scars.  It's the reason she has to be fed through a hole in her stomach (what, all kids don't get "tummy milk"?).  It's the reason I have to give her a shot every single night for the next 10 years.  I's the reason she ran screaming from me when she saw me coming towards her with medicine.  It's the reason she can't keep up with her peers in the classroom or on the playground.  It's the reason why she can't jump, walk up or down stairs, get her hands messy or (we think at the moment) hear well.  It's the reason that she'll be in multiple therapy disciplines for several more years.  It's the reason that she's thrown up 11 times in the past 2 weeks.  All because of 3 months we missed out on in 2008.  


Mind you, I've very aware of how far she has come, and I'm grateful for every small step she makes, but I'm also becoming aware that she's likely not going to be one of the luckiest preemies who have fully recovered from their prematurity before they even realized they were different from other kids.  I'm confident that with her personality she will deal with these differences with the stubbornness and humor that already fill my days with bemused exasperation.  She'll be okay, even if she's not "normal".  


But, darn it, I want that trimester back!  I'd give my left arm to have that time with her developing properly inside me.  (Of course, I am very aware that not everything goes perfectly with full-term babies, either, but, wow, getting our full 40 weeks would have given her a much better start!)  But I can't.  There is no rewind button in life, and even if there were, there's nothing I could do to change things.  S^&t happens, and Becca and I got a crappy placenta and umbilical cord and a severe reaction in my body.  What's done is done.


But what I can do -- what we can do together -- is to help other women (and maybe even myself someday) have full-term pregnancies.  And you just might poop in your pants when you hear what I'm going to do about it.


In honor of the TRImester that Becca and I never had, I have signed up to participate in a TRIathlon.  


Whoa.  


Those of you who have known me a loooong time may remember that I was a vaguely athletic person at one point.  Those of you who have gotten to know me in recent years are probably thinking, "Um.  Okay.  I'll believe it when I see it."  And for those of you who don't know me personally, let me just tell you that it's going to take a heckuva lot of work over the next 10 weeks to haul all 196 pounds of me across that finish line.  


It's the Ramblin' Rose women's-only triathlon, which will be held on May 15th in Nashville.  It's a great length for a beginner - a 250 yard swim (10 pool lengths in a regular lap pool), a 9 mile bike ride and a 2 mile run.  And I've already paid my $86.50 to register, so my cheap butt is going. to. do. this.


But, I need your help!  Let me introduce you to a new (borrowed from a friend) logo:

In order to a) get me motivated to get into shape; and b) use this experience to actually help other families get all 3 of their trimesters, I'm asking you guys to sponsor my training...in dimes, of course!  


I'm basing sponsorship opportunities on training units.  One training unit = 1 mile run, 2 miles biked, or 150 yards swum.  You can choose your sponsorship level: for example, if you sponsor 2 dimes per training unit and I run 2 miles one day, you'd donate $0.40 for that day's workout.  I'm capping my training units (for sponsorship purposes) at 150, so the maximum donation a 1 dime sponsorship would necessitate is $15.  All the money raised will go towards our March for Babies team.  With only 7 weeks left until the March for Babies, I'll be pushing it to get to the 150 level, given how out of shape I am now.  So your sponsorship will definitely be motivating to me!


If you are interested in sponsoring me, just leave a comment on this post, noting how many dimes per training unit you'd like to contribute.  As always, your gift to the March of Dimes is tax deductible, and I'll provide you with a receipt after the March for Babies (which is on April 17th).  Let's see how those dimes -- and my efforts -- can add up!


And don't forget - you can still sign up to be part of Itty Bitty Becca's Team and/or donate directly on our team page.  


Thanks for being such a wonderful support system - for me and for Itty Bitty!