April 20
My newborn is 5 weeks old now. I started running again when he was 4 weeks old. I didn’t run as long into his pregnancy as I did with his sister. This time, I hung my shoes up at 12 weeks when my body said no.
I didn’t miss running at all for the last 6 months of pregnancy nor the first month of my baby’s life. I did start going to prenatal yoga at 26 weeks pregnant with friends and mamas-to-be Gina and Jenn. In downward dog that first class, I realized that I did miss feeling like and athlete. And I had missed the quiet time to connect with my new child in utero that running had given me with his sister. Yoga became both of these outlets for me.
I’m in less of a rush to get back into shape this time. You see, this time, I know that it will happen because it happened with my first child your. Twelve months after my daughter was born, I was in the best shape of my life.
That being said, this early return to running is humbling. I completed 3 runs in my first week back. The first was a gentle 30 minute affair with the good company of friend Gina, also returning from a hiatus. It involved 5 or 6 walk breaks by my request. We logged somewhere around 4.5km.
Big sister came with me on my second run at 6pm on a week night. Managing to get supper on the table with both young kids home (Daddy doesn’t get home until 5:30 so at supper) and then getting everyone fed and then sis and I out the door felt like a huge athletic feat in itself. Perhaps that’s why the run was the opposite of athletic. My legs had felt sore from Gina and I’s run. I still had a big knot in one hammy. Sweet and inquisitive sis asked questions from her perch in the BOB running stroller for the whole run:
“Where’s that car going, mommy?”
“Where’s that one going, mommy?”
“ALL of the cars are going home. All of them.”
“But where’s that car going, Mommy?”
It was still rush hour. There were lots of cars. So I asked her to sing me a song and she began singing her questions.
I pulled the plug at 20 minutes and she asked why we were walking the rest of the way home, “where’s the running go, mommy?”
Run number three was solo and I determinedly made it 5km doing 10 and 1s and squeaked in under 30 minutes. It felt satisfying to get to 5km but it also felt like 15. And feels like I should me worried about running 10 km at the Blue Nose in an undetermined short number of weeks- I’m too scared to count the number on the calendar. Although I will have Gina with me and she shall help save the running day. Or at the very least make death march jokes.
Although I am not in a rush to get my fitness back, I am so happy to put this part of my identity back on. Like my running gear during pregnancy, it’s as if my identify as a runner had been sitting in a box for 7 months.
Chasing new PBs might be on hold for now but I feel both grateful and relieved to be a runner again. My body craves to feel like an athlete again. I want the camaraderie of my running community back. I know that running enables me to be a better version of myself with my family.
Yet, I feel humbled. During my 3rd run, I thought about how I was chasing 40 minute 10km barrier when I became pregnant. Running that fast feels confusing: how did I ever do that? I thought about my training and the nights that Cliff had me do km repeats with Clint and Kenny. When he instructed me to run them at 3:40, I said, “excuse me, come again?” But then I went out ad did that. Now I’ve just finished 5km at 5:40/km and I’ve seriously got no idea how this body used to perform like that. I know exactly how this body gave birth twice. But I know not how it ran sub 4 minute kms after giving birth once.
But the evidence says I will get there if I want to and this time, I get to enjoy two kids along the journey.
