Baby Forest will be six months old on March 6th, and four days after that, I will run my first postpartum half marathon. Getting back into long run shape has been nothing less than a humbling roller coaster ride full of warm-heart bursting personal triumphs and boo-hoo sludge-covered, uphill trudging.
I never quit running entirely while I was pregnant. Of course, I wasn’t Amber Miller the woman who ran the Chicago Marathon at 39 weeks pregnant, then gave birth to her second child several hours later, but I exercised with great regularity. I ran the morning Forest was born. On a treadmill. For thirty minutes. And calling it running may be a stretch. Trotting is a more accurate description, and I don’t know that I actually made it a mile in that thirty minutes. My point is (before I start to feel ridiculously sorry for myself) I exercised my entire pregnancy and that helped tremendously when it came to hitting the road after the baby was born. But let’s face it, there’s a distinct period of transition that occurs from trotting with an 8 pounder in your belly to not having that baby in your belly anymore.
Two weeks after Forest was born, I was managing a two mile run at an almost non-wincing, lumbering twenty minute mile pace, quite certain I was never going to be able to run again without peeing all over myself. At four weeks I was able to push a baby and one preschooler in a jogging stroller with minimal need to borrow one of Forest’s diapers, but mid-hill I would question whether or not I needed to go back and pick up my uterus. I was reminded at my 6 week OB visit to do those Kegels, Lady! (I’m doing some right now as I type.) At eight weeks I was clipping along at my original twelve minute mile zone and breezily taking care of 4 miles. Twelve weeks rushed by and I found myself in the ten-minute mile pace territory I had rarely dared to cross. And at 16 weeks I realized that running a half marathon in March didn’t seem too terribly lofty.
But many days the fatigue of parenting three small children, breastfeeding a baby, laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, taking kids to preschool/dance/flag football/playdates, volunteering at their school, writing, checking in with friends and family, brushing my teeth, blah, blah, blah, blah…well, my running can feel like I’m pushing all three kids in a rickshaw-sized triple jogger, legs spinning furiously in place, getting nowhere, slowly, and I think I must be out of my mind for even considering a half marathon.
After I dropped Heath off at preschool today, I headed home with Stella and Forest, already semi-dressed for a run, double jogger sitting out in front of the house accepting no excuses for not being used, and feeling unenthusiastic about putting my body into motion. I quickly found some excuses. Forest fell asleep in the car and I didn’t want to wake him. Stella wanted to watch Miss Sunny’s Spider Patch Friends and I didn’t want to wake the whining beast inside her. Emails needed to be answered. Calls needed to be made. Laundry needed to be started. Guilt hovered above me. And then it was ten and despite having had breakfast and six snacks, Stella was asking for lunch. Forest was awake and in need of a scenery-change as well. So we loaded up the jogging stroller and headed out with a mild case of running depression that I hoped would be cured by a 4-miler.
Five houses deep into the run, I glanced to the left at the house of my running partner/neighbor, hoping she would be outside with her son. You know, to stop and chat and never start this run back up again and maybe try again tomorrow. But she wasn’t there, so I plodded along, handing cracker bowls to Stella and listening to Forest sing to the trees overhead.
Just before I rounded the corner out of our neighborhood, two lady runners crossed the street in front of me. I stopped the jogger to let them by, certain my slow pace and buggy pushing was not going to match their steady clip. They looked back at us and said, actually, you may be faster than we are, then their ponytails bounced off. At that very moment I found myself wrestling the jogger through an overgrown bush and was acutely aware that I was not donning cantaloupe colored tech tees and azure arm warmers. No. I was wearing a Gym Teacher Gray Sweatshirt and my husband’s running shorts. I was not a running fashion speed demon force to be reckoned with.
It’s not that I detected the slightest bit of sarcasm in their voice. I didn’t. As a matter of fact, I kind of got the impression they were being courteous and aware of the fact that we were on a major road with little to no room for passing, and the mom with a terrible case of bedhead, two kids, and a dismal running attitude might need to be up front. But when they started to pull away from me, and I was finally able to dislodge the stroller’s front wheel from an unruly shrub, I took the opportunity and drive to do a little speed work.
I’ve always heard the best way to improve your pace is to run with faster people. So that’s what I set out to do. I was going to catch those faster-than-me ladies. My legs propelled themselves as if independent from my body. Then I had to slow down for another street curb hedge, instructing Stella to keep her limbs inside the jogger, mommy doesn’t have time to stop. I tried to hold my body erect, as opposed to lying down on the stroller’s handlebars to take a running nap like I usually do. Stella’s motivational chants ranged from you gotta catch those lady runners to you’re never gonna catch those lady runners. I attempted to remove the burdensome thick cotton top layer without actually stopping. The stroller veered left, while I extracted my right arm.
Lady runners are getting away, Stella warned.
I stopped undressing, grabbed the steering wheel with both hands, and plowed forward, one arm of my sweatshirt wrapped around my neck, flapping in the breeze behind me. And then I heard the chimey ding-a-ling of my mile marker Garmin. 9:02 mile pace; a personal best.
At some point I lost sight of my lady running partners. Maybe I passed them while I was yanking my sweatshirt over my head. But I think Stella was right. I was never gonna catch those lady runners. I settled back into a luxurious 10 minute mile, then 11, then back to 10, all the while shaking off those runner’s blues.
It worked. I might even go so far as to say that I’m getting excited about my upcoming 13.1. And now I have a race plan: find a couple of ladies who run faster than I do and chase them like a maniac.
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