Starting Over

So you may or may not have noticed that we’ve had a break in blogging throughout 2014.  While Jackie kept on running during that time, I took a loooong break from running.  The reason being that, this fall, my husband and I welcomed our first baby girl into the world. Yay!

During my pregnancy, I had planned to keep running and I thought I’d be able to jump right back into it when my baby arrived.  I definitely underestimated how pregnancy would affect my body and how tough it can be to adjust to a new baby. One icy cold winter + morning sickness + fall-asleep-the-moment-you-sit-down tiredness + cankles to end all cankles + a new little baby + ANOTHER icy cold winter = 15 months off from running.  It wasn’t my plan, but here I am.

(I would really love to insert a picture of my pregnancy ankles here, but they were ghastly.  I’ll spare you.)

Now that spring is here and we are getting some beautiful weather, I’m ready to get back into it.  By “back into it”, I mean start over completely from the beginning.  Starting over is tough!  I’m hoping to run a 5k race in May, so I decided to try a Couch-to-5k program.  I’ve done a few training runs, and it’s been interesting.

In some ways, I feel like I did when I was first started running.  I’m out of shape and just running for a minute at a time is an accomplishment.  I feel like I’m trudging along.  When I first started running, I felt embarrassed to run where people might see me, and I felt a tinge of that again.  In other ways, I feel even worse.  It’s hard not to compare yourself to where you were before: how fast you could run, how far you could go, and how you felt doing it.  And with less time than before, it’s hard to make time for yourself to get out there.  On Wednesday, I went for my first run with my daughter in our jogging stroller.  I couldn’t even finish my last running interval.  My lungs were burning and my calves were stinging.  About half way through I was thinking, “You know, you really don’t HAVE to start running again.”

As difficult as it was, I loved it at the same time.  I didn’t love it while it was happening, but when it was over, I definitely felt accomplished.  I had that great feeling in my lungs where they feel worked and cleaned out.  It’s exciting to think that in the next few months, I’ll get to experience the joy of reaching certain milestones over again.  Probably best of all, I have a new running partner to keep me motivated.  She doesn’t have much to say, but she loves to be out in the fresh air with me and I love getting out with her.

 

-Mandy