So, it’s been nearly a year…. Is there anyone still out there?
I didn’t mean to ghost this blog, but if you follow me on instagram you probably know that I didn’t do much running this year, as I was busy growing a tiny human! At the beginning of this pregnancy I had high hopes of staying active, but running while pregnant didn’t work out for me.
Early in my pregnancy I was still logging miles, but right as I entered the second trimester I wound up catching both covid and the flu at the same time, which really knocked me on my butt. I was out of commission for existing beyond sleeping for a week, and my asthma wound up so inflamed that I could hardly walk around without getting lightheaded for nearly a month. It turned into an existence of daily nebulizer use, and I focused on getting better, trying not to stress out about my dwindling fitness.
While I was sick Brooks had sent me new running shoes, and I was itching to get out for a run to try them. The other exciting news of 2023 was being selected to join the Brooks Run Happy team, their ambassador program. I’ve been a brooks runner since 2017, when I got a fitting my local running store and tried on my first pair of ghosts… I believe they were a ghost 9, and I’ve worn each subsequent iteration since - the current model is the Ghost 15! I’ll save more about the Run Happy team for its own post, but being a part of their amazing team has helped me feel connected to running and other runners even when I couldn’t log my own miles this year.
Three weeks after first getting sick I laced up and headed out for a would be easy run, that turned out to be difficult no matter the pace. I was happy to be outside though, and committed to continuing to run.
I got in a few more runs before eventually hanging up my running shoes for the remainder of my pregnancy. My last run for 7 months wound up happening at the end of march, where I wound up with a surprise nosebleed that would not quit mid-run. I went to touch my face, thinking I was just particularly sweaty, and was surprised when I realized my hand was covered in blood. I was so freaked out by the experience that it wound up being the end of my pregnancy running. Without going into too much detail, the road to this pregnancy wasn’t an easy one, and I have a difficult history with being pregnant. I love running, but the fear of somehow negatively impacting my pregnancy was seriously hurting me mental health, which lead to the decision to hang up my running shoes - as my good friend Katie reminded me, running will always be waiting for you to make a comeback.
Once my son was born in august, my husband and I were in survival mode, like most new parents tend to be. I day dreamed about getting to run again, and about a week postpartum our little family started heading out for daily walks. At first we kept them short and local, but as I recovered the walks got longer, and we headed to as many local parks as we could while we were on leave from work. It became something Dennis and I looked forward to doing together every day.
Five weeks postpartum my doctor gave me the “all clear” to start running again. In my excitement, I wanted to make sure I didn’t dive in too quickly. So I went into my garmin app and set up a “running coach.” This is a feature on garmin devices, where you tell the app your goal, and it builds a running plan to get there. If you miss runs it will adjust, and if you have a specific time goal, it will update your paces based off of the runs you complete. My current goal? To run our local “Jingle all the way 5k” in December. The stretch goal? To do it in under 30 minutes. Something that used to be an easy task for me, but that feels daunting today.
The biggest decision of the day? Which pair of running shoes to wear! While I was taking a break from running I had acquired a few new pairs (what can I say, I’m a sucker for a cool looking limited edition shoe, and figured I would use them eventually!). Ultimately I decided on the Brooks Hyperion, which Brooks had sent me as a part of the Run Happy team virtual Hypefest. The shoes are light and felt good on my feet, and since we weren’t going to be running for too long, it seemed like a good opportunity to try out a new shoe model.
For our first run, we headed to the Jones beach boardwalk. I have logged many miles there, and was excited to return after a long hiatus. I checked the run garmin had for us that day - a benchmark run. We would warmup by walking for 2 minutes, then run as hard as we could for 5 minutes, then cool down for 2. It may sound short, but like I said, I really wanted to ease into things.
We got moving, and when my watch beeped at me to run, we upped the pace. We swapped the stroller every 60 seconds, and while it was a hard effort, it brought me so much joy to be running again. At the end of the 5 minutes, I was smiling from ear to ear.
Once we finished our little benchmark run, we walked a few miles on the boardwalk, enjoying the beautiful weather.
In the subsequent week, Dennis and I went on three more runs. They all shared a similar structure - a 5 minute warmup, 10-15 minutes of running, and a 5 minute cooldown. At this point, Dennis and I are both back at work remotely, so we kept each of these runs local, so that we could get outside after work while the sun was still up.
I was so happy each time we hit the “run” portions of our workouts, and had a sense of pride when I was able to run for the whole requested duration.10-15 minutes of running may not sound like much, but it made my runner heart happy to be moving like that again. I had to play a mental game on these runs, and opted to completely ignore the pace. I’m moving considerably slower than I did in previous years, and quickly fell into the comparison trap - so it was better to just look at the elapsed time on my watch. I’ll worry about paces later, when I have a more established running routine. For now, I’m just happy to be lacing up and hitting the road again - I hope you’ll join me on this comeback journey!