Sleeping through the night

I am at week 28 of my pregnancy.

For several weeks, I had horrible calf, shin and foot cramps which woke me up throughout the night, in addition to nerve pain in my heel. All of this seemed due to circulation issues related to the dramatic increase in blood volume one has at this stage of pregnancy.

I experimented with all sorts of things, from regular midnight trips to the foam roller, to compression socks, to calcium/magnesium pills, to Mike's fabulous foot and calve massages, to sleeping with my feel elevated. Each helped in its own unique way, but no combination of these treatments seemed to completely alleviate the problem.

Having biked all 7 days of the past week (130 miles this week!) and not once waking up in the middle of the night, I am now convinced that biking is the miracle cure.

Ok, you doubt me. You're thinking placebo effect. But I swear, it's the cure. This weekend was the minty team camp at the Kloverdale KOA. In addition to karaoke, Jay's super-pro photo shoot, and lots of laughs, I hung in on a 50 mile ride today, which included a whole lot more time in zones 3-4 than I had done in many moons. By "a whole lot more" I mean only that my 10min. max power was in zone 3/4, not that any significant among of time was there. But the little guy and I did hit 670 watts at some point hanging on to a city-line sprint which, at +30pounds and +6.5 months if of pregnancy felt pretty damn good.

Once constant question which comes up again and again is whether it's safe to have my HR rise above 140 beats per minute which seems to be the internet's conventional wisdom. This article is the most comprehensive one I've found yet which responds to this issue and encourages women to use the Borg rating for perceived exertion over a flat HR number.

My HR did hit 189 for a brief moment today (I swear I sat up after that!), and the little guy is kicking like crazy at the moment, so I'm assuming that all is well and both he and mom just need a good night's sleep! Luckily, the sleeping seems to be going well this week.