Running after Pregnancy

I had my first child on the 31st of August 2013. Since finding out i was pregnant, in March 2013, i stopped running & only returned in October 2013. My last run was at the Vaal marathon on March 2nd 2013. Many people who heard i was pregnant kept asking me, "don't u miss running?", and for me this was a very tricky question to answer coz all i felt like doing during pregnancy was throwing up & sleep, i had no energy for anything, this despite the fact that i was a very active person pre pregnancy. Hence my response was "i am always tired, i have no energy to even go to the gym so i can't miss running coz i have no energy". The doctor had actually said if i had been active before there is no reason y i shd stop if i still feel up to it, but yah i didn't feel up to it so i stopped completely, i couldn't even get myself to run the half marathon at the 2 oceans marathon which i had registered for let alone the friendly walk, i just decided instead to go there for holiday, since tickets & accommodation were already booked.

Anyway months passed, i watched myself get fat, i think i enjoyed having a very valid reason to not be active & having a valid reason to get fat. Of course with that came the snide comments from people who basically celebrated my weight gain, almost as if they never enjoyed seeing me reaping the benefits of being active. People would literally give comments like "finally, u'll lose your fit body", when they heard that i was pregnant. I thought these were very rude comments but i smiled for the most part, it took quite a lot of energy to do that & not respond rudely. But i think this was what fuelled my need to return to running. Comments like "now u'll experience how tough it is to train when you have kids", or "u will never be able to run again until ur child has grown", again i always smiled whenever these comments were made.

I had a normal delivery, rested for 6 weeks and in October 2013 i hit the gym for the first time in 8 months, i started slowly with the help of a trainer & some friends who made sure i didn't rush into it. Doctor cleared me for running but i delayed the return a bit. Got my heart rate up, then joined the running team but with the slower runners where i started by walking, then worked my way up from there. It wasn't easy but i had to keep focus. The support from my family was amazing. Actually, my mother at 4 weeks after childbirth, asked me "when r u going back to gym", this after seeing how much junk i was consuming while sitting at home on my maternity leave. This was also a very encouraging factor coz i had thought i wd have to hide from my mother when i returned to gym. As for my friends, i never told anyone that i was back into training coz then you have to deal with judgemental people saying "the baby is still young", or the most common comment "running burns breast milk, what will the baby feed on". None of these deterred me, i trained during my maternity leave &i breastfed successfully.

February 9th 2014, just 5 months after having a baby, i ran a marathon, the pick n pay marathon in Johannesburg. The aim here was to finish. I had to keep telling myself "just put one foot in front of the other", no matter how long it was going to take me on the road, i was going to complete this marathon, which i managed to do in 5hours 35minutes. I was sooooo proud of myself. I wonder if it ever gets easy to run a marathon, 42.2kms on the road can never be easy. Now imagine running that marathon 5 months after having a baby. I did not get a medal coz i completed it after cut off time, but i was very proud of myself for having reached the finish line.

March 1st, 2014, 6 months after having a baby, i ran my 2nd marathon, the PWC marathon in Nelspruit. The painful part about running is that' for u to gain fitness u've to go thru the pain, n boy didn't i feel the pain during this race. I've never run through such heat before, i'm sure temperatures rose to about 34degrees on this day and the course that was meant to be a flat or downhill course turned out to be quite a hilly course which challenged me even more. I completed this run with an even better time than the marathon before and i was super proud of myself.

The problem with being a runner is that u're always in competition with urself. People think if u've run the comrades marathon before, doing a 42.2 will be a piece of cake. Truth of the matter is, if u do not train, nothing comes easy, u reap what u sow. I ran a number of other long runs after the PWC marathon, then also did the loskop marathon in April 2014 which is a 50km race, then the slow mag marathon a few weeks later, then the ULTIMATE HUMAN RACE exactly 9 months after having my baby. When i returned to running after having a baby, i found that the dynamics had changed. I had to start from the bottom, work my way up, not rush myself, keep my focus on the goal, the goal was to gain fitness and just keep running, made new friends along the way. I won't say it was easy, believe me it was not,it was anything but easy, when u r always the last one in a run, when u r always the one that needs to be nursed and fetched and looked after. But i found that i'm a very strong person mentally, none of this deterred me, probably because i always had plan B, our team is made up of many sub groups, which is a great thing in that, if u're too slow for ur group u can easily just move down to another group. I rediscovered how easily i'm able to adapt to different groups as well, how easily i am able to interact with different people.

For me, the main goal is really to just keep running, It doesn't matter who i share the road with, as long as i keep running. I am not a fast runner, i will not even attempt to claim to be one, i will never be a fast runner, i am just a leisure runner who dedicates time n effort to fitness. To all those that made this possible, i thank u, to all those that encouraged me, i thank u. To all new mothers, keep in mind that anything is possible as long as u set ur mind into it.