18 months ago was the last time I hit publish on this blog.

In the meantime I’ve had a baby and wrote no less than 9 draft blog posts – all brain dumps but none felt quite right to post. I’m already getting the feeling of binning this post too, but just like getting back into running I know I just have to get through this awkward starting again phase.

My first run back after pregnancy. Did a few laps of running and walking on New Years Day 2018.

I went for my first postpartum run a year ago. Like almost everything postpartum it was very stop start. I started running a bit but then met with the excellent Maternity Physio and was diagnosed with mild prolapse, so back to pelvic floor strength training it was. And to be honest fitting running around the demands of mixed feeding (breast and formula) felt really difficult on my body, it just wasn’t working so I didn’t do it. It wasn’t until I went back to work and we started weaning down the breastfeeding that I finally felt a bit of momentum and enjoyment in running. Of course that’s the same time my immune system took a pounding thanks to new nursery germs, no sleep consistency and lots of travel. What I’m trying to say is I saved you a year of emotional roller coaster blogposts about running.

That’s not to say I didn’t run last year, I did a few 5k races (including winning one), a Santa Dash, and a few cross country races with my running club, but training wasn’t a priority and I was totally OK with that. I don’t like the terms ‘bouncing back’ or ‘back to normal’ but I do think life has a way of levelling out and now that I’m much closer to that than the chaos of being a new parent I can see that the patience paid off and it really didn’t matter that I didn’t do more races with my pram, or check off mileage targets each week.

Late last year, in a rare moment of health I felt unstoppable and signed up for a half marathon in February with some friends. Honestly though, I’ve never been 100% confident I’ll be able to run it. There are a lot more moving parts in my life right now that need to line up for that to happen, but I wrote a training plan and it’s provided a bit of consistency and push to keep running when I can.  Then the Cancer Research UK London Winter Run got in touch and offered me a free bib for the race, it’s a week before my planned half marathon so I’ll be running it as a bit of a tune up / taper (let’s be honest, everything in my life is doing double duty right now. Efficiency!). I was planning to run it with the pram but now that my toddler can actually toddle she isn’t as keen to stay in the pram for minutes, let alone an hour. We’ve organised some childcare and I’ll be running with Alex like the good ol’ days, except this time it will feel like a 5* spa experience to have such freedom.

Anyway, I guess this is a blog just to say hi, I’m really looking forward to running consistently a bit more, finding leggings that fit an ever changing postpartum body and getting a few races in.

The Cancer Research UK London Winter Run gave Alex and I bibs to run the race (value £45 each)