Tour Down Under: The Pregnancy Ironman

2nd Trimester - The bike

As I mentioned previously, the second trimester for me was great. No more nausea or fatigue meant I could enjoy training again.

By this stage though I'd lost a lot of fitness through reducing the intensity of my training so I decided to train more by myself as I could no longer keep up with my teammates. I also felt safer cycling on my own or in a small group... less chance of a crash!

Chris had signed me up for the Busso 70.3 Ironman last year and now I was in 2 minds about whether I should compete. On the one hand, I had already paid for it and most of the team would be down in Busso for a fun weekend that I didn't want to miss out on. But on the other hand I knew I couldn't race hard and I was starting to get a bit nervous about being on the road with other triathletes. Triathletes are not exactly known for their amazing bike handling skills (except of course F4L athletes!)

In the end I decided to start (I literally made this decision stood on the beach about 5 mins before the buzzer went off!). I could always stop at any time.

After the start buzzer went, I very slowly walked into the sea to start the swim. I purposefully went right at the back and right at the edge to avoid any collisions with the other swimmers. I swam so far away from everyone else that I must have done at least an extra 500m! At one point even the surf life-saver checked to make sure I was going in the right direction! But I got out of the swim in one piece ready to start the bike ride.

The Busso bike course is pancake flat, but unfortunately I wasn't comfortable on my super aerodynamic TT bike anymore. My very tiny bump made it impossible to sit on the tri bars. Instead I used my roadie and settled in for a loooong 90km. I had to ride the whole thing without getting out of breath or raising my heart rate. At first it was quite infuriating watching people pass me, but I soon started to enjoy life in the slow lane as I could take the time to check out the scenery and watch the other riders. I think I counted about 4 wee stops too!

I finally started the run with the plan to just do one of the three 7km laps then withdraw. However I was actually feeling quite good after lap 1 so I set off on lap 2. About half way through lap 2 I started to feel very nauseated again and got some pain in my pelvis. This meant I had to start walking. By now I just had one lap to go so I thought I may as well finish even if I had to walk the final lap! I eventually finished in a time of around 6 hours 40mins... 1 hour and 35 mins slower than last year!! But even though everyone had finished much earlier in the day, my team mates had hung around to cheer me over the line! A gesture very much appreciated!!

Very slowly finishing the run!

Pancake Stack's first IM!

After Busso I decided to do no more racing until after the baby is born. I managed to continue cycling on the road until about 24 weeks and a few of the F4Lers took turns in keeping me company (thank you Kendall, Steve and Ash!). After that I did a few more rides on the trails with Chris to keep me company. Chris took no pity on me being 26 weeks pregnant and took us on a 40km MTB ride with 37km of climbing!! After this is decided to stick to the indoor trainer. I probably could have done a few more trail rides but the Perth weather had turned really wet which made me worry about skidding and falling off. By now I had a medium sized bump to worry about!

My running reduced massively as it became quite uncomfortable to run with a bump. One day at around 27/28 weeks I woke up feeling great and decided to join the group run. I did a fairly steady 7-8km and thoroughly enjoyed it. Unfortunately I couldn't walk for 2 days afterwards! No exaggeration.. I literally couldn't get out of bed! I thought I had broken my pelvis. I diagnosed myself with symphysis pubis dysfunction (SPD) which is where the ligaments become stretchy and the 2 wings of the pelvis widen. It actually felt like my pelvis had split open! It took about 2 weeks before I could walk normally again, so I decided to give up running for the time being!

Winter had well and truly arrived in Perth so Chris and I took a short holiday to Broome to get some Winter sunshine. A friend from uni (who now lives in NZ) met us in Broome and we spent 5 days relaxing in the sun, swimming, playing tennis and generally just chilling out and catching up. We also decided to hire some 'fat bikes' and explored the coast line.

We also took a short trip down South. Chris surprised me for our 1 year wedding anniversary and had booked a really cool cabin in Denmark which is about 5 hours drive south of Perth. The SW of WA is beautiful and we spent the Saturday exploring some of the local scenery. Chris also sampled some of the local produce... Limeburner's Whisky! We took the long route home on Sunday to visit the giant trees in the Karri forests. These trees are massive, they grow up to 75m tall! The tallest trees are used as fire lookouts and you can climb to the top on some metal pegs that stick out the side of the trunk. There are no safety measures in place and I can't believe people are actually allowed to climb! I managed to persuade Chris to climb to the top. I'm not scared of heights but even I was terrified! Chris didn't talk to me for about 3 hours after! It was a peaceful drive home! It was a great weekend, definitely a spot to visit if you come to WA!