"...so...you signed up for another one?"
"Yea!"
".........when is this one?"
"Next July! In wine country! It's going to be so awesome, everyone can come! We'll do wine tasting, sight seeing, we'll race, and go to a vineyard...."
"NEXT July!? Like a YEAR from now!?"
"Yep! Plenty of time to train and plan."
*Silence*
"AM I EVER GOING TO HAVE GRANDCHILDREN!?"
The shit that a married female endurance athlete in her late 20's has to put up with.
Chris and I have been together for almost 8 years and married for 3. I've gotten my fair share of comments and questions, mostly from prospective grandmas and grandpas. Actually I've been getting them since before Chris and I were even married, oddly enough. It seems no one can wait to see just what little terrors Chris and I produce.
And I get it - obviously Chris and I are going to single handedly create the next great summer Olympic team because I'm just going to helicopter mom them until they're brainwashed into thinking that swimming, biking and running your life away is completely normal. And if they have Chris' athletic abilities and my stubborness, I might as well start signing them away to Nike right now.
And of course I want kids. My entire life is kids. I've been a camp counselor and babysitter since I could legally work. I'm a pediatric speech-language pathologist. I coo at even the ugliest babies with the best of them. I'm the girl who cries at the baby clothes at farmer's markets until Chris explains to the cashier that we don't even have kids and he has to peel them out of my cold barren hands. They're so widdle!
The best day of my entire life - over my own wedding day - was when my Godson, Ben, was born. I Skype with Ben on pretty much a daily basis and even though he's always lived at least 1,000 miles away, I barely go 2 months, sometimes two weeks, without seeing him. The second best day of my life was when my Goddaughter, Mercedes, was born. Two weeks early, the day after my Ironman! The excitement from the Ironman was so much for my sister that she gave me the best finisher's prize. Cedes is forever my lucky Kona baby. In all I have 3 nephews and 2 nieces and they are the lights of my life.
But the thing is, I JUST got to where I want to be athletically. I JUST started to reach goals I never thought was possible. 10:34 Ironman? Running a 41 minute 10k? Running a 20 minute 5k? These are things I literally never thought possible for myself.
It's definitely not that I don't want kids, it's just that I'm still not quite done being selfish with my time.
Up until recently, pregnancy was the end of a woman's athletic career. Sponsors fled, paychecks got dropped, everyone would be like, "well she WAS going places, but now she's pregnant" and they would move onto the next female athlete who was, hopefully, younger and not married yet.
Luckily, recently there has been some HUGE pregnant women role models, including 3 time Ironman World Champion Mirinda Carfrae and Olympic gold medalist Gwen Jorgensen. Both top triathlon athletes who kept their sponsors and are training through their pregnancies - hard. Serena Williams is training and playing tennis better than ever pregnant.
And even on the local level. I was at a half marathon last weekend and saw a woman kicking ass in the half marathon who is 7 months along! I've started following multiple pregnant and new moms on instagram who are literally pushing a human out of them and out hiking with them the next week.
Last year, I got my butt kicked on the run of a triathlon. I was talking to the woman after, and turns out she had 2 kids in 3 years, trained through everything and is feeling better than ever. Did I mention she also had a four pack? Of abs, not beer. Come on now.
And female athlete mama role models are everywhere. When I lived in Utah I knew a woman named Krissy who has two beautiful girls who is literally the fastest runner I know. She won the Salt Lake City Marathon in 2:55 and regularly busts out badass mountain runs on a weekly basis. Chris' aunt Mimi is literal body goals (I catch myself just....staring at her biceps) and could probably throw me across the room without a second thought, and she also has two kids.
Little things like that give me hope that just because I want a family (someday. Emphasis on the someday. I swear to God if I start getting calls and texts asking if I'm pregnant I will SHUT THIS BLOG DOWN *Takes gulp of wine for emphasis on the not pregnant*), doesn't mean that I have to give up everything I love and it doesn't mean my athletic goals are trashed. I'm just now starting to hash out the idea it won't be impossible, just different.
Triathlon is such a part of my life that I can't imagine my day without it. Many people give up working out when they have kids because time runs out in the day and they're just exhausted, but to me training isn't something that is a checkmark on my to-do list or something I do because I have to, or I should, it's what makes me, me. I don't feel like myself if I'm not active. My husband REALLY doesn't like me when I'm not active. It's literally how I met Chris and the entire basis of my marriage.
And Chris is the MOST supportive. Everytime we start talking about it and I get flustered, he reminds me that most women who don't work out during pregnancies or after having kids, probably weren't that into it in the first place and didn't prioritize it prior, which I think is somewhat true - obviously ruling out medical necessity because I'm 100% aware stuff happens and baby is priority. He lovingly reminds me that I'm a real weirdo for loving training so much. And also he promised me if I grow the baby for 9 months while he races, he'll give me a year of holding the baby while I race...and we can switch off and rope grandparents into coming to races after that. Again, to us, triathlon isn't something we do, it's our lifestyle. Thank God for incredible husbands.
I'm so inspired that there are women who are running, biking, swimming, climbing, hiking and staying active through their pregnancies and after they have kids. Things like that make me feel so much better because I know if they can do it, I can do it too. And when the time comes that Chris and I decide to take that next step, I'm comforted knowing that I can continue to be myself.
But, until then, I'm literally the world's best aunt. Self proclaimed.
Here are some good articles and blogs I've read, for those interested in the athletically inclined mama:
http://www.gwenjorgensen.com/blog/
http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-ironman-events/ci_31055417/ironman-boulder-joyce-relishes-first-win-since-2013
http://www.ironman.com/triathlon/news/articles/2017/05/advice-from-athlete-moms.aspx#axzz4qgRyt7lO
http://www.ironman.com/triathlon/news/articles/2015/02/pregnancy-and-athletes.aspx#axzz4qgRyt7lO
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/tennis/2017/08/03/pregnant-serena-williams-maintains-training-regimen/535699001/
http://www.active.com/women/articles/fitness-training-for-pregnant-athletes-876109
"Yea!"
".........when is this one?"
"Next July! In wine country! It's going to be so awesome, everyone can come! We'll do wine tasting, sight seeing, we'll race, and go to a vineyard...."
"NEXT July!? Like a YEAR from now!?"
"Yep! Plenty of time to train and plan."
*Silence*
"AM I EVER GOING TO HAVE GRANDCHILDREN!?"
The shit that a married female endurance athlete in her late 20's has to put up with.
Chris and I have been together for almost 8 years and married for 3. I've gotten my fair share of comments and questions, mostly from prospective grandmas and grandpas. Actually I've been getting them since before Chris and I were even married, oddly enough. It seems no one can wait to see just what little terrors Chris and I produce.
And I get it - obviously Chris and I are going to single handedly create the next great summer Olympic team because I'm just going to helicopter mom them until they're brainwashed into thinking that swimming, biking and running your life away is completely normal. And if they have Chris' athletic abilities and my stubborness, I might as well start signing them away to Nike right now.
And of course I want kids. My entire life is kids. I've been a camp counselor and babysitter since I could legally work. I'm a pediatric speech-language pathologist. I coo at even the ugliest babies with the best of them. I'm the girl who cries at the baby clothes at farmer's markets until Chris explains to the cashier that we don't even have kids and he has to peel them out of my cold barren hands. They're so widdle!
The best day of my entire life - over my own wedding day - was when my Godson, Ben, was born. I Skype with Ben on pretty much a daily basis and even though he's always lived at least 1,000 miles away, I barely go 2 months, sometimes two weeks, without seeing him. The second best day of my life was when my Goddaughter, Mercedes, was born. Two weeks early, the day after my Ironman! The excitement from the Ironman was so much for my sister that she gave me the best finisher's prize. Cedes is forever my lucky Kona baby. In all I have 3 nephews and 2 nieces and they are the lights of my life.
But the thing is, I JUST got to where I want to be athletically. I JUST started to reach goals I never thought was possible. 10:34 Ironman? Running a 41 minute 10k? Running a 20 minute 5k? These are things I literally never thought possible for myself.
It's definitely not that I don't want kids, it's just that I'm still not quite done being selfish with my time.
Up until recently, pregnancy was the end of a woman's athletic career. Sponsors fled, paychecks got dropped, everyone would be like, "well she WAS going places, but now she's pregnant" and they would move onto the next female athlete who was, hopefully, younger and not married yet.
Luckily, recently there has been some HUGE pregnant women role models, including 3 time Ironman World Champion Mirinda Carfrae and Olympic gold medalist Gwen Jorgensen. Both top triathlon athletes who kept their sponsors and are training through their pregnancies - hard. Serena Williams is training and playing tennis better than ever pregnant.
And even on the local level. I was at a half marathon last weekend and saw a woman kicking ass in the half marathon who is 7 months along! I've started following multiple pregnant and new moms on instagram who are literally pushing a human out of them and out hiking with them the next week.
Last year, I got my butt kicked on the run of a triathlon. I was talking to the woman after, and turns out she had 2 kids in 3 years, trained through everything and is feeling better than ever. Did I mention she also had a four pack? Of abs, not beer. Come on now.
And female athlete mama role models are everywhere. When I lived in Utah I knew a woman named Krissy who has two beautiful girls who is literally the fastest runner I know. She won the Salt Lake City Marathon in 2:55 and regularly busts out badass mountain runs on a weekly basis. Chris' aunt Mimi is literal body goals (I catch myself just....staring at her biceps) and could probably throw me across the room without a second thought, and she also has two kids.
Little things like that give me hope that just because I want a family (someday. Emphasis on the someday. I swear to God if I start getting calls and texts asking if I'm pregnant I will SHUT THIS BLOG DOWN *Takes gulp of wine for emphasis on the not pregnant*), doesn't mean that I have to give up everything I love and it doesn't mean my athletic goals are trashed. I'm just now starting to hash out the idea it won't be impossible, just different.
Triathlon is such a part of my life that I can't imagine my day without it. Many people give up working out when they have kids because time runs out in the day and they're just exhausted, but to me training isn't something that is a checkmark on my to-do list or something I do because I have to, or I should, it's what makes me, me. I don't feel like myself if I'm not active. My husband REALLY doesn't like me when I'm not active. It's literally how I met Chris and the entire basis of my marriage.
And Chris is the MOST supportive. Everytime we start talking about it and I get flustered, he reminds me that most women who don't work out during pregnancies or after having kids, probably weren't that into it in the first place and didn't prioritize it prior, which I think is somewhat true - obviously ruling out medical necessity because I'm 100% aware stuff happens and baby is priority. He lovingly reminds me that I'm a real weirdo for loving training so much. And also he promised me if I grow the baby for 9 months while he races, he'll give me a year of holding the baby while I race...and we can switch off and rope grandparents into coming to races after that. Again, to us, triathlon isn't something we do, it's our lifestyle. Thank God for incredible husbands.
I'm so inspired that there are women who are running, biking, swimming, climbing, hiking and staying active through their pregnancies and after they have kids. Things like that make me feel so much better because I know if they can do it, I can do it too. And when the time comes that Chris and I decide to take that next step, I'm comforted knowing that I can continue to be myself.
But, until then, I'm literally the world's best aunt. Self proclaimed.
Here are some good articles and blogs I've read, for those interested in the athletically inclined mama:
http://www.gwenjorgensen.com/blog/
http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-ironman-events/ci_31055417/ironman-boulder-joyce-relishes-first-win-since-2013
http://www.ironman.com/triathlon/news/articles/2017/05/advice-from-athlete-moms.aspx#axzz4qgRyt7lO
http://www.ironman.com/triathlon/news/articles/2015/02/pregnancy-and-athletes.aspx#axzz4qgRyt7lO
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/tennis/2017/08/03/pregnant-serena-williams-maintains-training-regimen/535699001/
http://www.active.com/women/articles/fitness-training-for-pregnant-athletes-876109
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