I laced up my running shoes early Saturday morning with eager anticipation and not a little trepidation. I wasn’t setting off to do a spectacular race or marathon, or even a parkrun. A PB wasn’t in sight. Instead, this was my first run since having a baby. In March my daughter had been born by emergency c-section after some complications and I’d been told not start running again, or do any other vigorous exercise, for six months. Saturday was her six-month birthday and I was raring to get out of the door.
I’d done a bit of reading on various forums about getting back into runninga fter having a baby. Take it slowly and gently seemed to be the most important advice. If you’re breastfeeding, make sure you’ve fed or expressed before you go running (otherwise, ouch). Rehydrating afterwards is even more important than usual.
I’d kept my expectations for this run low – if I could manage to walk-run a mile it’d be a good start. To my surprise, I ended up running about 5k, slowly but steadily. It was only when I faced a slight, ever so slight, incline right at theend and my legs dissolved into jelly that I realised that while the lung capacity was still there, the muscle clearly wasn’t. I’m hoping that getting out as often as I can, taking my baby along with me for the ride in a running buggy, will start sorting that out.
Last spring I’d run my first marathon. As I retraced some of that route along Brighton seafront on Saturday morning, I felt something of the same senseof achievement and sheer joy at being back out there, even if I was covering only a fraction of the distance. As I plodded along in my running clothes I started to feel like “me” again. The journey back to running fitness has begun.
So how was your weekend running?
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