So I have been rolling around the idea of running a marathon. In the last few months I have really gotten back into running again and I have actually found that I am faster and in better shape now than I was before I had Abby. I guess this is fairly common for a lot of women as the changes that occur both during and after pregnancy can help enhance exercise performance.
From what I have read..."during pregnancy your cardio is enhanced - your blood volume increases by about 40 percent and your heart rate increases about 15 beats a minute to supply the growing baby mild exercise 24 hours a day over 40 weeks, adding just a little more load each day, your respiratory rate increases, thus raising your oxygen uptake. Apparently just being pregnant is great marathon training."
So since I am perhaps in the best shape of my life, I figure that this would be a good time to accomplish my goal of running a full marathon. I have done several half-marathons and I always felt really good about training for and accomplishing those 13.1 miles, but I have always wanted to do the entire thing....26.2 miles to glory, right? My sister Tasha is considering running another marathon this November in Richmond, Virginia and I think I will run it with her. The only thing that would prevent me at this point is becoming pregnant before then (definitely a possibility) but then maybe I could just run the 5-mile race that is held the same day. I have already printed out a training schedule and I am actually pretty excited about the whole prospect of training for and running it. Call me crazy, but I think I'm going to do this!!!