Finding the time to run after having a baby is hard. Finding the time to write about running…

… is harder!

I miss this blog. I miss trying to put my running experiences into words. I miss having the time to think about how to put my running experiences into words.

I miss words.

Goo goo ga ga is all very well, but I’d like to try to retain the ability to express myself in whole sentences, preferably not containing the phrase “Sorry, I’m just so tired”.

I’m really not that tired. I mean, I am, empirically (empirically!) pretty tired, but not as much as I was in the first couple of months. My daughter is now 3.5 months old and has recently discovered napping and going to bed early, which is why I find myself at the laptop at 8.20pm with a glass of wine and the determination to nail this. If I could write this blog on an iphone whilst feeding a baby I would have written every day, but my brain can no longer process anything more than 140 characters. Damn you, twitter.

So, the facts:

15 weeks ago I had a baby.
9 weeks ago I started running again.
Last week I ran 7 miles without stopping to walk and it felt good.

I am running three or four times a week: on Tuesdays and Thursdays when Mr Notajogger gets back from work and one or both days at the weekend. It’s hard. You don’t get to decide whether or not you feel like it, you just have to do it right then. If the baby is having a bad day, you can decide not to run or you can just do it anyway and feel like a bad mother. Ideally you would do it anyway and not feel like a bad mother, but I have yet to achieve this.

The running itself is also hard. Much harder than I thought it would be. I had this “magic four weeks” in my mind. Whenever I’m trying to convince someone to start running I say, give it four weeks, then everything will get easier. It hasn’t worked out like that post-pregnancy. My fitness is actually fine – I’m rarely out of breath during the run – but that’s mainly because I can’t run fast enough. At 15 weeks post-partum (ew) I’m no faster than I was at 6 weeks. My legs and joints still ache during and after the run and I can’t do any kind of lateral movement while running for fear of breaking something, probably my pelvis.

BUT. I am running, and running is great. With minimal training, I’m going to run the Great Eastern Run (half marathon) in Peterborough on my birthday (13 October) and it will be slow and painful but it will be both a shot in the arm (mine), and a kick in the teeth (of anyone who thinks I’m crazy for running).

I run.

I rule!

Now here’s a picture of my daughter showing off her future running skills.