Good Days – Page 3 – Not a Jogger

My New 3 “R”s: Running, ‘riting and Remembering to do both…

“Your domain is about to expire!”, my emails have been warning me for a month. “You are giving up on notajogger.com!”, they accuse on a daily basis. “You have nothing left to say about running!”, they cry. “Your creative impulses have been sucked out of you like breastmilk!” (sorry). “You are running in a silent void! Run all you like, no-one cares any more!”.

On Friday (payday), I will silence these voices. For $25 I will be furnished with both the means and the reason not to run unheard and alone for another year. Even when I’m not writing the blog, which I realise is almost all of the time, it is still there in the back of my mind like a little motivational push every time I hesitate between my bus pass and my trainers. When I am writing the blog, it brings me pleasure, sometimes even joy, when I’ve managed to put my running into the right words.

So. A new start.

Hello again! How are you?

I’ve been busy. I am well, but tired: working full-time and running four times a week. On Monday 5 May I’ll run the Milton Keynes Marathon. I have no idea how fast I’ll run it, but would settle for 4 hours, be happy with 3 hours 45 minutes, and delighted with anything faster. On four runs a week, I suspect this is ambitious.

My training will be so different from my last marathon. Gone is the dream of 50 mile weeks, 8 hours sleep a night, running every day, at any time of day, napping on the sofa to recover. This year I will run when I can, no matter how I feel or how tired I am.

It will be hard. Will it be worth it? I think we are about to find out.

I am still running, honest

Every week!

Three times a week! Really, I am.

On Sunday I’ll be running my first post-baby race – the Great Eastern Run. I’m running it with my sister, to give her some moral support in getting around her first half marathon, and I’m really looking forward to that. I’m also dreading it. The furthest I’ve run in the past five months has been 9.5 miles, which was supposed to be 10 miles, but I just couldn’t do that last 0.5.

Oh dear.

The last time I ran the Great Eastern Run I’m pretty sure it was just called the Peterborough Half Marathon, but I was the Great Notajogger, busting out a personal best time of 1 hour 34 minutes. On Sunday we are aiming for 2 hours 30 minutes.

I’m taking flapjacks.

When I last wrote I said that “naps have finally arrived”. Can you hear the sound of hollow laughter? The one thing I have learned since having a baby is that you SHOULD NEVER SAY ANYTHING GOOD OUT LOUD because that thing will then immediately go wrong, forever. So, naps are out of the window, along with me, walking with the buggy. This means I am getting a lot more exercise, but also drinking a lot more coffee, and not writing any blogs.

The good news is that running has finally got easier. About three weeks ago I noticed that my joints were feeling stronger – when I turn back to look for oncoming traffic at a crossroads I no longer feel like my hips were going to slip out of place. As soon as this happened I knew: it was time to see if I could run fast again.

I am not a slow runner. I realise that these things are relative and that I am no Usain Bolt, but what I mean is that I do not enjoy running slowly. I do not believe in jogging. It has therefore been somewhat challenging to my self esteem to get back to running after pregnancy.

From 8 weeks to 4 months there was no change in my pace. It varied between 9 minute miles to 11 minute miles during a run but it never, never got faster from run to run. There is a good, if slightly depressing article here which talks about why it’s probably not a good idea to try to run quickly post-partum, but this was not a choice on my part, I just wasn’t able to run at any other speed.

Three weeks ago (so at about 4.5 months post-baby) I ran fast for the first time. It was just a very short pyramid interval session, but I loved it. It felt amazing to be running at (relative) speed again and my painful ankle tendons were miraculously fine throughout the whole thing because I was concentrating on pushing with my thighs. A couple of these sessions and two tempo runs have improved my normal pace to about 8 minute 40 second miles. At this rate of improvement, I’ll be challenging Usain come Rio.

The “session”

Warm-up
1 minute fast 1 minute slow
2 minutes fast 2 minutes slow
3 minutes fast 3 minutes slow
2 minutes fast 2 minutes slow
1 minute fast 1 minute slow
Cool down

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.

Returning to running: week one

Things I have learned in my first week of running after having a baby:

1. Running will not make you more tired. You are already so tired that would not be possible.

2. The first run will be the best. The second and third runs will hurt a lot more so if the first run is agony it’s probably a good idea to wait a few days before attempting a second, or go for fast/hilly walk instead to get your muscles working.

3. The week that you are (sadly) stopping breastfeeding is not a good week to go running. At least not without a sports bra several sizes larger than your usual one, and a whole lot of painkillers.

4. Walking is great preparation for (or replacement for) running in the first weeks after birth, and in late pregnancy. My muscles still feel strong despite not having run for 6 months thanks to lots of walks.

5. Your running gear will be tight and your belly will wobble. You will feel like people are staring but, if they do, you can shout “I just birth to a human being, what’s your excuse?”

6. It is great that you don’t wet yourself mid-run but that doesn’t mean your pelvic floor is back to normal. Try doing some star jumps and you’ll see what I mean.

7. Don’t work too hard to fit your run in to your day. Something will probably have to be sacrificed but it shouldn’t be your sleep, your dinner or your sanity. You could eat a ready meal though, and does the baby really need a bath? She smells lovely to me.

8. Don’t try and write a blog about your running at 4am. Even if you manage not to publish a blank or half written version (sorry about that) what you do manage to write will not make sense to anyone, including you when you read it the next day.

‘I am the Resurrection and I am the Light’, or, I Had the Baby and Went for a Run

Today I went for one of the most important runs of my life.

The day was nothing special: overcast, still, and cool for June. My running was poor: slow and careful, 35 minutes with a little break to catch my breath after 20. The route was an old one, to Finsbury Park, though the grass was newly littered with bottles and cans from last night’s Stone Roses concert.

Nothing was special, but everything was different. On 30th April 2013 I had a lovely baby girl and I have a feeling that running, like many things, will never be the same again.

For the last six weeks (well, for the last six months), I’ve thought about this run everyday. In labour, in hospital stuck inside for the fourth day, in the shower at home contemplating my strange deflated tummy, in bed awake at 3am, in exhaustion, in happiness and in stress. I have waited for this moment, placed so much importance on it, that when it came, when I decided it was time, I realised I was shaking. Lacing up my trainers, feeling their unfamiliar stiffness from months of neglect, I shook with nerves. What if it wasn’t how I remembered? What if I couldn’t do it? What if I didn’t enjoy it?

I don’t know why I worried. I mean, it’s me. It’s running. I left the house and within twenty steps it was just the same. It didn’t matter how many steps I took, or how fast I took them. Every step I took was one closer to feeling like myself again. My muscles were tired and my lungs were sore but I wasn’t pregnant! When I asked my body to do something, it responded. I could see my feet, move my hips and run up hills (slowly, but I could do it).

I have a long way to go until I’m fit again. Finding the time and energy to run will be hard, but I will find it. Running makes me happy. It’s part of who I am. It makes me me.

In 35 minutes I didn’t think about my daughter once. Should that make me feel guilty? I was just a body moving through space. My brain was free.

Being a parent is a massive responsibility and a huge privilege. Running is freedom. I hope the two will get along nicely together.

Counting the weeks…

12 weeks since I last ran.
34 weeks pregnant.
6 weeks (ish) til I give birth.
12 weeks til I can run again (hopefully).

It feels like my life is all about statistics at the moment, but like all statistics they’re mostly meaningless. You could easily spend 9 months obsessing over percentage chances and due dates and centimetres long and pounds gained and be none the wiser or better for it. The only sure thing is that at some point within the next 8 weeks a baby is going to arrive and I will no longer be pregnant. I am very excited about this for a number of reasons:

1. I will no longer feel like a weeble when standing up. At the moment I have to force myself into Tadasana pose at all times when upright, or the muscles in my bum tense into agonising pain. This is harder than it sounds, particularly when leaning forward to do basically anything you need to do standing up (washing up, making dinner, selecting chocolate bars in tesco).

2. I will be able to turn over in bed without having to wake up and perform a 5 step procedure involving lifting and lowering my knees and moving 30 degrees at a time.

3. I will be able to drink a cup of tea without needing to take an ice bath afterwards to cool down.

These are not complaints- I’ve really enjoyed being pregnant and it’s forced me to slow down and appreciate life in a different way. I put so much pressure on myself to get stuff done, tick things off. When you can’t physically do things it makes you question why you need to, which is good, though does mean I may never shave my legs again (who cares?).

Of course, the main thing I’m looking forward to is running again. I don’t miss it, because the thought of doing it now is like landing on the moon- I appreciate that others have done it, but there is no way I could even if I wanted to. No, I don’t miss it now, but I do miss what it used to be like and I’m excited about what it will be in future. We’ve got many years together to look forward to, running and I.

And if the running doesn’t work out, there’ll always be the baby…

I am Not a Plastic Bag

Last night I raced a plastic bag home and lost.

I was running along Brecknock Road with the wind behind me when a white shape hove into view on my left, at knee height. It was a thin plastic bag, filled with air and ballooning in loops above the pavement. I believe it was from Sainsburys.

La Sainsbury was a formidable foe. She edged ahead of me a few times, taunting me with her speed and agility. Dancing hypnotically, she dashed back and forth in front of me like a chaotic metronome. I almost ran into a bollard. Turning a corner, the race got interesting. La Sainsbury dashed into my legs, wrapping herself around a shin. I tried to kick her off without breaking stride, like a can-can dancer who’d had enough. I failed. The old bag clung on, then dashed away, then lodged around my shoe.

We continued our tango for about half a mile, La Sainsbury and I, but in the end only one of us could triumph. Just before Tufnell Park tube she sailed upwards on a gust of wind ahead of me and out into the night.

I plodded home.

EDIT – a friend has pointed out that Sainsburys bags are orange. I like the way La Sainsbury sounds however, so I am letting it stand.

The Return of the Darkness (not the band)

It’s a beautiful thing to be running again. Sadly this does not mean that all runs will be beautiful.

On Monday morning I left the house at 6.20am and stepped straight into a dark, damp Dickensian fog. Mist hung over the roads with a quiet menace, creeping down the hills, suffocating street lamps, muffling every sound. I hunched my shoulders, even though it wasn’t cold, as the fog gradually soaked my head and ran in tepid droplets down my spine.

My running wasn’t pretty either. Being pregnant means I have a ready-made excuse to wimp out/ cut short and I was happy to use it. As soon as I’d done 10 minutes I was looking to turn back. In the end I managed 21.28 minutes’ running, with a bit of walking up the hills.

This morning’s run looked similar. It was dark. It was damp. The fog had retreated however and my mood improved accordingly. I’d been awake since 5am so by 6 I was more than ready to get up and do something. I ran for 30 minutes (not counting 3 walking breaks up hills) and made it round a regular Crouch End circuit. This is as close to a ‘normal run’ as I have managed since being up the duff and I feel absurdly proud of myself.

It’s amazing what a change of perspective will do for you. If you had told me six months ago I would be happy with running for half an hour three times a week, and walking up all the hills, you would have had to give me a pretty damn good reason.

Luckily, you would have one.

Running for Two

Hello runners, it’s been a while.

I last wrote in July, when leaves were green and the English summer rain was in full flow. Throughout the rest of July, August and September I didn’t run once, the longest time I’ve gone without running in 18 years.

I wasn’t injured. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to run. I was having my second and last round of ivf treatment.

And then, amazingly, I was pregnant.

I’m still pregnant, 13 weeks now. I never thought I would be able to write that and I want to be mindful of the feelings of those who don’t care about such things, or care too much for reasons I fully understand. I won’t go on about it, I promise, but I do want to be honest now that I feel I can be – I hope that’s ok.

One of the first things I asked my doctor, when I got the Big News, was “can I start running again”? Running during the stimulating stage of ivf is not advised, and I didn’t run during my “two week wait”, so I had already endured six weeks of rest. I had to get back out there. The doctor said yes, of course. No questions, no hesitation.

I contemplated the trainers in the hallway, 4 weeks pregnant and reeling. A conversation with my mother was ringing in my ears – “You won’t run will you? Please don’t”. I examined my motives. Why did I want to run? Was I just being selfish? What if there was the slightest risk that running could make me miscarry this, my only ever pregnancy and the last chance I never believed I’d get? I chickened out. This brave new world of pregnancy made me too scared.

Over the next two weeks, as the news started to sink in, I read a million and one articles on the internet. I tried in vain to find proper studies of running in early pregnancy. The only one I could find is the scary Danish one, but as it found risk to women who did over seven hours of strenuous exercise per week, i.e. marathon training, it was not too helpful to someone contemplating three gentle 20 minute runs per week.

At 8 weeks I had an early scan and left knowing that a jelly-baby blob with a heartbeat was growing inside of me. It really was. I knew that running was going to be ok. Everything was going to be ok. It was time.

The first run was weird: terrifying and fantastic. I was a jogger, running very slowly and walking every five minutes. I managed 18 minutes’ nervous plodding, panicking at every twinge. Ivf leaves you swollen inside for weeks and I think most of the discomfort I felt during that first run was related to that.

The next run was fine – completely great in fact. I ran for two sets of 10 minutes in the autumn sunshine, nothing hurt, and when I got back I felt like myself for the first time in months. Endorphins rock! I may be slow, I may only be running occasionally, but I am running. I am back!

A Running Holiday

Not a holiday from running. What kind of holiday would that be?

Not my kind.

I haven’t been running much lately due to some medication I’m taking. I’m fine, I’m just really really, really tired. However, last week I discovered that if I take regular naps and am relaxed and well rested, I can run!

Running on holiday is the best kind of running. You have had a lot of sleep. You have plenty of time. You can eat breakfast, loll in bed for two hours, then go for a run. None of this leaping out of bed at the crack of dawn, stubbing your toe on the doormat and waking up in the path of oncoming traffic.

I have just spent a week in Blakeney, Norfolk, one of my favourite places in the whole world in which one of the very best things to do is a little 5 mile loop run from the quayside, out around the marshes to Cley, then back through country lanes and village (complete with village green) to Blakeney. I am struggling very hard not to use the word picturesque.

During my week’s holiday, I ran the loop four times, with an extra 2 miles on Friday morning, partly so that I could take in the ford at Glandford (who doesn’t love a ford?), and partly to justify a three course pig-out at the Wiveton Bell that night.

As is so often the case, the first time was the sweetest. It was a Sunday and a bright, breezy, beautiful morning. The coast path was ‘busy’ with runners and dog-walkers, I must have passed at least 6 people. It was dry underfoot, heron flapped overhead and a reed bunting sang just for me. Back on tarmac, I saw a whole two cars in 20 minutes and was positively bursting with joy by the end of the run. The hedgerows were exploding with abundance after all the recent rain with giant daisies and towering foxgloves. Running up the tiny hill from Wiveton to Blakeney, a car had stopped on the side of the road to shield a travelling band of tiny ducklings from any possible traffic (!). Church bells rang. A kestrel hovered. My cup ran over.

On the way into Wiveton I spotted this house, nestling betwixt church and river.

It will be mine.

Here’s a map of the route, in case you’re ever in Blakeney and want to try it. If you do, beware running in the rain as the coast path is very muddy (the kind that sticks to shoes). It can also get rather windy, but that just adds to the fun.