Hi peeps.  I got to do an interview with ultrarunnerpodcast.com last week, and I almost managed to keep my Tourette-like “ya-knows” under control.  You should picture me sitting next to my elderly neighbor’s Christmas tree during this interview (She leaves it up all year.) using her land line and trying to keep Ruby from eating the ornaments.  Right around the part where they asked me what three people I’d invite to dinner — if I could invite anyone living or dead — Ruby managed to get of one of  the bottom branches well into her mouth.   Here is the link: http://ultrarunnerpodcast.com/liza-howard-interview/

Eric and Sarah were wonderfully kind during the interview.  Strangely their kindness and praise made me feel enormously stressed afterwards.  And there was an unfortunate overlap of this stress and the delivery of a Girl Scout cookie order.  Is it possible to become an American Samoan national if you eat enough of those Samoan cookies?

  Me and Ruby?

There was also an article on outsideonline.com about postpartum running in which my name was mentioned in the same sentence as famous female marathoners.  With all due respect to these famous ladies — whose running shoes I am not worthy to scrape gum off of — this whole Performance Enhancing Baby thing is my idea (even though you had your babies and enhanced your performance first), so I have all Navy-Seal-esque training plan rights.  Just saying.

So here’s what I’ve got so far.

Want to PR like a recently pregnant lady?

The U.S. Recently-Pregnant LADY Workout: Your Endurance Will Soar to Heights Never Imagined With This 9-Month Program

Or maybe something more like this:

“Updated for Today’s Pregnant Elite”

That megaphone does resemble this part of the pump…

And I do have tan shorts…

We’ll have to have some sort of blog vote about the cover.

But here’s the guts of the training program:

PHASE  1.  Weight gain.  Gain 25-35 pounds.

PHASE  2. Weight loss. Try to lose 25-35 pounds, but hang onto at least five.

PHASE  3. Lack of sleep.  Reduce your sleep and the quality of your sleep.  Wake yourself up every 2 hours throughout the night for at least two months.  (Study after study demonstrates the performance enhancing effects of sleep deprivation.)

PHASE 4: Abdominal Trauma.  This plan works best if you are recovering from major abdominal surgery – but it can also be successful if you simply stretch and tear a sufficient amount of tissue in the pelvic floor to require suturing.

PHASE 5: Baby jogger! Train with a baby jogger as much as possible. (This is the secret to all Kenyan marathoning success — both male and female.  American too.  Meb trained exclusively with a baby jogger for Boston.)

PHASE 6: Guilt.  You must spend 23 hours of every 24 feeling guilty about the training you do.  This is the lynchpin of the plan.  It does not work without the guilt.

Obviously I’m going to have to elaborate on these phases to fill a book — or maybe I can just use lots of pictures.  Asa’s college tuition depends on capitalizing on the secret of Performance Enhancing Babies.  (Ruby’s going to have to rely on her good looks — or space exploration.)