Skinny, lonely women and the Danish-American Transition

As we stood by the baggage carousel once again at Chicago O'Hare, I surveyed what remained in my life: 3 suitcases, two boys, a baby jogger. Rolls (and a little Brie) fom the plane. We were all tired and how would I wheel all of this out the door alone? And why had I said good-bye to my whole life once again?

Just the day before I had run Skodsborg Marathon.

A nice cool day, light breeze, no ice or snow. Here are Henriette and I right before the start. Would you believe my hands were too cold the whole race to turn on my music??Rasmus let me run since I'd be with the boys for two weeks without him. I ran the hilly trail marathon in a comfortable 3:32 (well, 3:29 when I came through 26.2 miles), taking second overall, first woman and, as far as I can see a female record on that course (!). I felt awesome. I guess for a lot of reasons. It's about running, it's about loving this area of the world, the people, the life that has become my own. Eating a lot at aid stations.

And then there was O'Hare Airport. I was glad to see my mom, but fell asleep on the way home, not knowing what life would bring. But happy I had some Diet A&W Root Beer at my side.

We've had a number of mornings in a row waking up early: 2:30, 1:45, 2:30, etc. then when the child care opens at the YMCA, I am there! And so are lots of other moms. They are thin, maybe a little hungry, maybe in a bad mood because of that. Or perhaps they're lonely and bored. Just like me. What am I doing in Oconomowoc? Maybe I could make some new friends. Maybe I should get my act together and contact my old friends...

SR has two weeks left of his fellowship. Then he will be joining us at our new rented house in La Crosse.

In the meantime it is the kids, me, my parents. I need to get adjusted. But even my work is over the computer via VPN to the hospital intranet in Denmark. I look at Danish peoples' eyes from the US. Wild. I'm just so glad it works.

At times like this, I never feel like focusing on getting fast. I just want to lose weight. It's sad but true. I am down to 113 lbs. I was between 118 and 120 just 2 months ago when we were in the US. It's a way to get control, of course. But when the woman at the Y saw me with Mattias and said "you are so skinny and you just had a baby!!??" I should have been happy, but I wasn't. Is my life about being thin and in shape? Or um.

This morning I woke up with the boys and there was snow outside. I was happy, too, because SR had read me a letter from Værn om Synet (Vision Protection) saying my PhD project had been awared 200,000 kroner! (like $40,000, though less now that the Euro is doing so poorly). My mom watched the boys while I went for a snowy trail run, 17.5 miles, watching the sun come up and life was more than okay. I got home and told my mom I was going to make a lot of food for Christmas this year for us and the relatives from California: æbelskiver, rød kål, sild, ris à l'amande. I can't just forget that life in Denmark (I just hope this does result in less work for my mom and not just weird, bad food. Anyone who really knows me knows I am not joking.).

And some running music:

Danish of course:
Church of the Real by I've Got You on Tape
Finnish with a Danish record company:
Ode to the Bouncer by Studio Killers

Bon hiver

Estoy de vuelta! I'm late wishing you all "bon hiver" since our first snow was a couple weeks ago, but who knows what it is like in your part of the world.

All is well here. And in just 4 days we're moving back to the US for nearly 8 months. So I figured I had better post some pictures before I don't have access to them anymore! Plus I got SR to babysit (this is the time I normally go to Spanish) while I blog. I never thought it would come to this, but with two kids, if one doesn't need something the other one does. And it wasn't doing a lot for my psyche to ignore them while writing a blog post.

I've missed a lot of you readers. Granted, I've heard from some of you via email and followed some of your lives on Facebook.

Just in case you were wondering, I have not been exercising less. It turns out Mattias loves the babyjogger and he loves going to exercise classes at our gym.

He also kind of likes sitting there in the kitchen while I cook.

Here is Thanksgiving.

And some sadly pastel Christmas cookies that The Lorax chooses to cover up with his piece of cinnamon roll.

Go figure, he also likes playing (not sure why this is sideways).

But Mattias HATES it when I sit down at the computer. This is his trigger to start crying. So every minute he is sleeping, I am working on my PhD project. And finally, I'm caught up!

As for running, I might as well not keep it a secret any longer: my new goal is to run the 100km Copenhagen Ultra in April (when back for work) in less than 9:30. If I do this, I can be an alternate on the Danish national team. And, if I switch my citizenship, I may be able to run the world 100k championships. Lots of if's here. I feel the need to mention that our big training race for this will be 3 days of Syllamo in the Ozark Moutains (150k over 3 days). And that will be a lot more fun than the flat 100k.

SR says that my setting ultra goals is an excuse to not get fast. The thing is, I am now certain I've never been faster. I just couldn't prove it until today.

We had run three races that were just odd. But two of them, I took second in overall!!

1. A cannonball marathon outside of Næstved up and down a hill, which I just ran as a training run. I ran it comfortably in 3:34 with a negative split, feeling I could maybe run it again.
I always forget to wear something to cover those nips. Oh well (that's yet another thing Mattias likes). SR had been going for a half marathon PR that day - on a tough route. He ended up with a time just over 1:16 - one should menion he got lost because he ran faster than the leadout bike. Thanks, Lasse, for the picture.

2. A half marathon on sand and seaweed (and road) (Falster Jagtmarathon). I had never thought of seaweed as a running surface but Jørgen showed us all differently. In fact, it felt like perhaps the most authentic Danish experience I have had. I ran the first and last 5k in 21 minutes, but the beach in the middle really got to me and I took a wrong turn at the end. Final time 1:40:07. This, somehow, got me second overall.

SR ran with the babyjogger, though took an alternate, non-weedy route.

3. A babyjogger mud 10k (Herlufsholm Serieløb). So I had no idea it would get so warm that the race would turn into a mud bath, but it did. I got stuck in mud going on an extreme uphill so that I needed to carry the babyjogger out, all the while slipping all over the place with Mattias in it and then the side wheel got stuck in the mud and fell off. But all of the while there were women fast and furiously trying to catch up with me so I had to sprint the runnable sections. His blanket of course was blown off at some point, too. Final time was 51 something. Nothing to write home about but my entire body hurt like never before after that race. I was strangely proud and the good people of our town learned how entirely nuts I am. And I took second for the women!

Here a picture from the home stretch of the race. You probably think you see my underwear there through my pants, but it's just my really white cheeks ;). And that track just to the left is where I run all of my intervals, just so you know.

So, SR was sick of me "frittering away (as Piccola Pinecone says) my speed" on these types of races. He was totally convinced that my every other day three hour runs on rest days were ruining my training. So, I got so fed up that today (after of course a 3 hour run yesterday) I suddenly decided to run a 5k on the treadmill. I had no particular plan as I'm still not used to km/hr so I just ran hard. Ha. And I ended up running a 5k PR! 19:33. (you may remember I had a previous PR of 19:20, but that was from a relay where the time was miscalculated (too fast) and I never corrected it). I just wish I had a race I could run to prove to the world that I am fast. But instead, I will work on"frittering away" my speed on Sunday, running a hilly trail marathon. And it will be great!

Lately I have been listening to Coffee Break Spanish when I run (have gotten through over 30 hours of lessons!), but today during my 5k I listened to "Vi to" by Medina. And that Maroon 5 song "Moves Like Jagger" is such a good song to run to provided you sing out loud and change the lyrics to "I've got to move my jacket!" Much funnier that way.

And if you want a song to simply curl up to in your warm house, appreciating your loved ones "Calgary" by Bon Iver (yeah "Bon hiver"), may be the way to go.

Løberen Skovmarathon: The Human Plasma Lipidome

Certainly there is something mania-inducing about running a marathon hard (that is what we did yesterday). Why is it that after going to bed at 11:30, I wake up at 4:45am wide awake, looking at my two sons next to me, bursting with love and filled with energy wanting to write a blog post? Well, my sympathetic nervous system is still on overdrive, that's why. (Chemicals, don't strangle my pen! (reference, anyone?))

And maybe we shouldn't run so many marathons. It has been 4 weeks since my 50k trail PR at the Glacial Trail and 5 weeks since both of our marathon road PRs in Milwaukee.

The race du jour was Løberen Skovmarathon, a trail marathon outside of the city of Hillerød, in northern Sjælland (is anyone who reads this even interested in where in Denmark these races are run? How many people, I wonder, who read this blog have gotten so far as to look up where Denmark really is, like precisely? (personally, despite having lived for two years in France, I did not know exactly where Denmark was before meeting SR)).

There were just under 200 runners in the marathon, though 2659 participants in the 10k, half marathon and marathon all together. Big race!

We have not run this before and didn't know if it was hilly or technical or what. But we knew it was all on trails.

They have this ingenious set-up where

the trail is like spokes of a wheel and you keep running back to the center where there is an aid station with water, sports drink and bananas. (I have perhaps mentioned before how I get extreme low blood sugar from eating bananas while racing, so I had my large stash of chocolate in my belt like usual).
Then you run around some of the periphery back to the start, where you have completed a half marathon. And then you do it all again (this time hopefully faster :).

Here is my favorite place on the route (pic by Tor Ronnøw)


and it is very representative of the race and of Fall in Denmark.

As is usual for me, I ran after pulse/perceived exertion. This leads me to start out very slowly because right when I start, my pulse surges. When I get into my groove, I start passing people, pulse unchanged. Yesterday was no exception.

I came through the half marathon in 1:43 on the button.

Here was SR coming through the half marathon quite a bit earlier in 1:27:11.

And then I said to myself - now you can really start running and I allowed my pulse to rise a bit. I picked up the pace to sub 7:30 min/mile. It lasted quite a while. I had thought a PR might be possible, but the hills and dirt wore me down too much, I guess. With 4-5k left to go, I became extremely nauseated and almost needed to walk. I thought I would throw up but didn't. I don't really know what happened, but certainly it was related to my being so nervous before the race and having to run to bathrooms/woods with stomach problems many, many times before we started. Plus I think I just reached the point of exhaustion. Better it happened at mile 24 than at mile 16 where it always used to hit me (yes, it is all about not starting too fast. I have learned SOMETHING after nearly 30 marathons and ultras).

My final time was 3:27:35. A 35 second positive split.

Illness

Relief. Not overwhelmed or underwhelmed. Just whelmed.


Feeling like maybe the burst of speed that came from pregnancy isn't going to give me much faster times than my PR in Milwaukee. Time to integrate some regular speed work.
SR ran in 2:54:17 and had a few second negative split. He took 3rd place in a really tight and tough field. Here he is modeling the "comfy, cozy" fleece from the Glacial Trail 50k. And I am modeling Piccola Pinecone's super cool French Canadian racing shirt.

I took second to the amazing Margrethe Frydenborg, below, who killed the course in 3:08:57!
Here was the podium, 3rd place Maibritt Skovgaard, MIA.
Very fine prizes: 500 kroner gift certificate to Løberen for me plus organic make-up, which is now the only make-up I own! Maybe I should give it a try.

Congrats to Henriette Lisse and Rikke Skudbøl on completing 2 marathons in 2 days! Congrats to Daniel Ditlev and Lars Bergelius on awesome PR's.


(sorry, my odd sense of humor is entirely to blame for the subtitle; this post has, as far as I can tell, very little to do with The Human Plasma Lipidome, which was the title of a review article in this week's New England Journal)

Now I return to studying towards my certificate in Global Health online.

Naughty Thoughts

Now that we are back in Denmark and I no longer have the luxury of day care for Mattias or my mom to help, I have reverted to old ways of thinking:

"The easiest way to become a faster runner in the next 7 weeks may be simply to lose weight"

Running for two hours a day every day with a baby jogger at a slow pace is just not going to get me into better shape. So what about a crash diet?

As of this morning I'm 52.2 kg. I'm actually happy with that. If I go much lower, I'll be the annoying skinny woman who always has to wear a sweatshirt while working out slowly on the elliptical. Once you get to the point you can fit your thigh in an "ok" hand sign, you'll no longer be able to run an ultra (I guess I'm pretty far form that).

This weekend I was alone with the two kids. And I caved: I got a babysitter. I guess I have resolved that it's better to spend money and get an intense workout than to rely on anorexia to get faster. Here was the agenda for the morning:

-run to gym (1 mile)
-spinning for one hour (35 minutes over 80% max pulse. Hear me out: spinning in the US does not hold a candle to spinning in Denmark. You make yourself sick with exhaustion here simply because your pulse is being continually monitored and is on display in front of the room for everyone to see, so once you start lagging, everyone knows - and 35 minutes over 80%, at times over 90%, max pulse is NOT easy! I say this so you know how totally hard core I am.)

-I then attempted to simulate a sprint triathlon transition by changing my shoes and jumping on a treadmill (this WAS interrupted by cleaning my bike off). I ran a 1km warm-up (that was dumb in retrospect, if I were trying to simulate a triathlon) and then forced out a 5k in 22:14. Holy cow. It was great. I could hardly move. But I had a little time before
-CX works, so I hopped on the stair climber and then went to the class.

A killer wokout with 30 minutes of core afterwards. Much better than sitting around trying not to eat.

For those of you hoping for other sorts of naughty thoughts: don't worry, I have those, too.

Remember my love for Andy Schleck? Well, after seeing this picture, I felt a little, well, betrayed...


And Enrique Iglesias hasn't made any new songs lately.

So while I was running the 5k on the mill, I fell for a figure skater: Adam Rippon.

The fact that he missed a few landings at the ISU championships in Canada today made me like him all the more. (let's ignore the fact he must be half my age)

See SR, this is what your weekends on call do to me!

And it is a good thing I have a soft spot for boys who like girls. Yesterday, a woman came up to The Lorax, Mattias and me and said "what a cute baby! And that must be her older sister!" Oh, my. Where to begin? Nevermind the fact Mattias was in blue and The Lorax in Spiderman. The thing is, this is not the first but the 10th time it has happened and soon The Lorax will be embarrassed.

You judge for yourselves. They look like boys to me. (taken 10 minutes ago)

Okay, so maybe it is time to make an appointment for a haircut.


I've owed you a song for a long time. I have no new running songs. But I like this song (it's nice):
Diamond Heart by Active Child

Treadmill PR

Sometimes I guess you need to kick energy and happiness back into yourself! I woke up with a cold and cough and am boarding a 9 hour transatlantic flight tonight with two little boys. I've had a workout routine this past week where I run 16.5 miles every other day in Lapham Peak segment of the Ice Age Trail and on the other days cross train, but also run a fast 5k on the treadmill at the YMCA. I didn't think I had it in me to run it fast today, but boy am I glad I did. After an hour run + CX works (great core class! wow.), I ran a 20:46 5k (3.1 miles) on the treadmill and basically fell over with exhaustion afterwards, but my cold is gone. Now I'm ready for the flight. (I guess I should specify - it's just a PR for the treadmill and not an overall PR, but maybe that was obvious).

I am really going to miss the luxury of having day care at the Y.

As an aside, I've decided this persona exists at every workout center worldwide: cachectic female who spends hours on end on elliptical/stair stepper, not working up a sweat but leafing through a magazine, wearing a heavy sweatshirt. Anyone else spotted her?

Question of the day: how is hegemony pronounced? I heard someone say it on the radio in a way that rhymed with rice a roni. I always thought it was heGEMmany

Here are some pictures I took yesterday of the aforementioned Lapham Peak section of the Ice Age Trail. I may just look back on these longingly from Denmark.

I'm too old for this

That is what SR said to me as he was about to board the SAS flight back to Copenhagen. I couldn't have said it better myself. Not that he was too old. But that we can't keep dividing our life between two continents.

I'm still in Wisconsin with the two boys. We're going back to Denmark on Tuesday. And then we'll all be returning to Wisconsin once again this winter.

Since I have been in the US I have had this at times overwhelming feeling of panic that, yes, I am getting old. When I left for Europe three years ago, I was the energetic, optimistic, new-baked 20-something mom and now I am a 30-something mother of two. Wisconsin is the same, basically (other than people are ever worse at "good" and "well" and I even heard the word "weller"), but we have changed.

When you are feeling like I am feeling, it is probably not a good idea to read a biography of the Brontë family. Five of the six children died before they reached my age: 32. Only Charlotte lived to 38. They died of "consumption" (tuberculosis, of course - which turns out wasn't very accurately named as it is not the mycobateria that consumed, but our body's response to them that does the damage). Granted, they lived in the first half of the 19th century and times were different. But by the time Emily died at age 30, she had already written Wuthering Heights. And what have I done?

So that was the other odd part about our trip back: what are we going to "do with our lives" if/when we did move permanently to the US? SR was not as enthralled with working in the ER as he had previously been and is hoping to get a job as a Hematologist. But since he did his fellowship in Denmark and not in the US, it may be more difficult than we thought for him to work in the US. This is because unless you do your fellowship here, you can't take the boards and if you can't take the boards, well, at least some hospitals don't accept this.

And then I was waxing poetic and saying that I wanted to be a sports medicine journalist on the side, whatever I did. This suddenly gave SR the idea "you should do a residency in Physical Medicine & Rehab in Wisconsin or Minnesota". And we pondered this on one of our three hour drives from La Crosse to Hartland.

Odd that the next morning I read that the University of Minnesota had just a week earlier posted they would soon have an open position in PM&R for a physician who had done a Transitional Residency. So basically, there couldn't be that many people who could apply, but this described me perfectly. I wrote to the program secretary asking about the start date, not having any idea how I would manage a PhD and residency plus two kids at once. Turns out the start date was January, which I could not manage, so residency will wait a little longer. But SR probably has a point that PM & R would be a good fit for me.

The truth is, a life in two countries is more taxing than we had ever imagined, and nothing sounds better at this point than a home with routines and all the other normal things we may have once tried to avoid. (but don't send me emails with houses you are trying to sell! - trust me we've gotten enough in the last couple of weeks).

Here I am singing with the boys. I think I've owed you all a picture for a long time.

Running a marathon pregnant: Is it safe??

(This is probably not what you expected to read...)

Amber Miller's completion of the Chicago Marathon 38 weeks and 5 days pregnant has changed the world of women's running. Now runners and non runners alike know it is possible for a pregnant woman to run a marathon.

Was her doctor right to let her do it? Well, there has thus far been no evidence that running a marathon pregnant is dangerous for the mother or baby. The evidence is only anecdotal, though. There is however a lot of evidence that "moderate" running is both safe and healthy (and may even produce calmer, healthier, more coordinated and smarter kids... but Klapp's studies were small).

I ran 6 marathons during my most recent pregnancy. Almost every reader here probably thinks I am a biased proponent of running marathons and am going to try to convince you that there are no dangers. But that is actually not the case.

The fact that Amber's marathon appeared to induce her labor brings up a lot of concerns. Had she run the marathon at, say, 34 weeks, would it also have induced labor? Is there enough anecdotal evidence to say no?

She was already far enough along in her pregnancy that the baby could be born without any of the risks of prematurity. But what if she hadn't been so far along?

The last marathon I ran while pregnant was at 30 weeks and was the Copenhagen Marathon. I ran it in 4:54, which didn't seem that fast at the time, but in retrospect was probably too fast and more than my body could tolerate. I felt fine the night after, but the following week, I felt unwell, extremely fatigued and merely walking was enough to induce Braxton Hicks. Two weeks after, I was better again. But WAS I close to inducing premature labor? Was my water close to breaking? I do not know. There is simply not enough evidence.

The 5 pregnant marathons I had run prior to this did not take nearly the same toll on me. Perhaps not unimportantly, they were all run in very small races.

What would my advice as a physician be to women who want to run a marathon pregnant? Well, if they feel they are up to it, I would say it is safe, if their pregnancy was uncomplicated and they were healthy, experienced runners. HOWEVER, I would strongly encourage women who are beyond 26 or 27 weeks to avoid large city marathons and simply run the marathon in a small group or with friends. I find that in large city marathons people push themselves beyond what may be healthy for their body, simply due to the excitement and cheering crowds. If a woman gets too caught up in this, she may start ignoring warning signals that might otherwise stop her from continuing.

It is only a theoretical risk, but until there is more evidence, that would be my recommendation.

But where is that evidence going to come from? Well, I got an idea today. I am going to start a database of pregnant marathons. If you have run a pregnant marathon (or ultramarathon), you are more than welcome to contribute. You send me an email at sealegsgirlblog@gmail.com and I send you a rather extensive questionnaire about the race/s you ran, your time, your previous running experience, how far along you were, how you felt short-term afterwards and of course the pregnancy outcome (also be prepared to answer questions about your medical and obstetrical history). It is biased, sloppy reserach. But it is likely the only kind of research one can do about pregnant marathoning and it is better than nothing. The database will be found at a website, which I don't have a link to yet. Here women who are interested in running a marathon or half marathon pregnant can see what other womens' experiences have been and then contribute their own. Ultimately, women will get connected to it, not through this blog, but through the new website.

As of now, I'm open to any sort of suggestions you have as this project will take a while to implement if it is going to be a good resource.