My Marine Corps Marathon debut: Part I
Maeve didn't cry once during the entire time it took me to run the marathon.
As did Kelly Mulder, I also ran the Marine Corps Marathon on Halloween. The race left me achy in my joints, but other than that, I felt great … considering what I just accomplished!
The night after the marathon I stayed at my sister-in-law’s house to rest before the drive back down to Jacksonville. Upon our arrival, I needed to feed Maeve. She had only eaten a few times that day and it was past six in the evening. I told Liz that Maeve needed to eat and she looked at me with a shocked look on her face. She couldn’t believe my body still produced enough milk to nurse after exerting that much physical energy.
As I nursed Maeve a few times throughout the night, I got to thinking: my body hadn’t produced as much milk as it normally does in a day’s time. Maeve only ate three times since 8 am and I wasn’t engorged at all. It was quite the contrary; as I sat down to nurse her, my breasts felt like I had just done so. It wasn’t until late the following day that I began to feel like myself again.
That has never happened to me before and I exercised intensely while nursing Michael. Liz told me that her milk supply would diminish if she simply raked leaves in the yard for an hour or two. Raking leaves might not do it to me, but 26.2 miles surely did!
Did you ever experience changes in milk levels due to exercise?
