This week, I accidentally ran my first post-baby race. By “accidentally,” I mean that I registered for it thinking that it was at the end of the month until I got an email about packet pickup on Thursday. Apparently it was this weekend, and the date I thought it was on (April 27) was absolutely nowhere to be found on the web site. Oops. While I wasn’t quite as ready as I was hoping to be, I decided to just go for it. While I haven’t been running as frequently as I’d like, I have been covering 2+ miles consistently. Plus, it’s only a 5k. If everything went downhill and I wound up walking most of it, I’d still be done in an hour or so. Sure, we had to get up at 6:30 to leave the house on time, but since the baby’s been getting up at that hour anyways…

So, how did it go? It certainly wasn’t my best race, but it was far from my worst. The whole thing just felt long and slow, but I paced myself well. It started feeling hard just a few minutes in, but it stayed that same level of hard throughout the whole thing. I decided to try and just take walk breaks every mile and that worked out pretty well for me. I even managed to dig in and find a finishing kick for the final stretch, by which I mean I ran the last several hundred feet slightly faster than the rest of the race. There is zero speed in these legs right now, but that was completely unsurprising. Time-wise, I managed to beat both my first 5k ever and the two that I ran while pregnant last year (at 3 and 4 months along). I’ll take it.

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 2.1 mile run/walk (1 min run/1 min walk)
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Stroller Strides
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: 5k in 37:14

Total for the week: 5.2 miles

This week was one step forward, one step back. The good news? My revised schedule worked out much better, and the first half of the week got off to a great start. The bad news? The second half of the week totally tanked when I came down with bronchitis, of all things. I haven’t had bronchitis in almost 20 years… until this weekend. The one positive was that while my chest felt horrible and I was coughing like crazy, I didn’t have that zapped feeling that usually comes with a cold. Since the small fry is still making me get up several times a night, that was a blessing. However, since my symptoms were definitely below the neck and I didn’t want to risk getting any sicker than I had to, running and exercise got put on hold for a few days.

I’m still rocking the 1 minute run, 1 minute walk interval. I was hoping to progress that after this week, but since my cough threw a wrinkle into it, I’ll have to wait another week. I can still tell that my fitness is improving, though: I’m not feeling as tired at the end of runs as I used to (although that could just be because I’m getting better at pacing myself again) and I’m slowly but surely getting used to running with the stroller. While things might not be moving as fast as I’d like them to, they’re at least moving in the right direction.

Monday: Stroller Strides
Tuesday: 2.2 mile run/walk
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Stroller Strides
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Rest

Total for the week: 2.2 miles

Yup, we’re back to just regular old training logs. At this point, I feel like I’m down to just rebuilding fitness, much like I would be after any layoff. What am I training for? So far the only thing on my calendar is Ragnar Northwest Passage in July. I think that my legs only total about 12-15 miles, so it should be manageable despite the fact that I’m well behind where I thought I would be. (Which is the ultimate post-baby-running lesson to be learned: do not make ANY plans until that baby is out of your body and you are actually back to running, because you never know what’ll happen.)

That said, this week my training (or lack thereof) was completely dependent on the baby. She’s either hitting her 3-month growth spurt a bit late or her 4-month sleep regression a bit early (or, with my luck, both of those at the same time), which means she’s back to waking up ever 2-3 hours all. night. long. If we’re lucky she’ll sleep for a 4-hour chunk right after she goes down, and occasionally she wakes up every 90 minutes just to keep me on my toes. That combined with all-day plans on Wednesday and Friday (which meant I had to be up, out, and done with my run by 7 or 8 am on those days) meant that running just didn’t happen. I just couldn’t do it. It should have been easy enough – just head out once she went back down after her feeding around 5 or 6 am – but all I could do was crawl back into bed and pass out until my alarm went off an hour later. Because sleeping in 2-3 hour chunks is not very restful.

Luckily, I was still able to make it to my Stroller Strides classes so I got some good activity in. And when I did get out to run, I successfully progressed my run/walk intervals to 1 min run/1 min walk. Here’s hoping that next week is a bit better.

Monday: 2.2 mile run/walk
Tuesday: Stroller strides
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Stroller strides
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Rest

Total: 2.2 miles

Ellie hit her three-month “birthday” this week and I am finally, actually, on the road to resuming running again. If you had told me before I gave birth that it would take this long? I would have told you that you were crazy. Surely I’d be back to running by three months! Why wouldn’t I be? Having lived through it, though, has been incredibly educational. Am I a bit frustrated that it’s taken so long? A little. But there was simply no way to rush it. My body needed that time to recover, so I took it.

In related news, I was officially discharged from PT this week. My therapist said she’d like to see my pelvic floor a bit stronger, but I have good muscular control down there and she’s essentially taught me all of the exercises she knows. All that’s left now is for me to keep doing them. Since doing them is going to be instrumental in getting back to “full-time” running, she feels pretty confident that I’ll actually keep up with it. If I had to pick one thing that was the biggest surprise in all of this, it was just how wrecked my pelvic floor was after giving birth. While I didn’t make any sort of efforts to strengthen it during my pregnancy, I felt like I had pretty good strength and control all the way through (which is why I didn’t put any effort into it). Yes, doing Kegels got a lot harder once there was an 8-pound baby sitting in there, but I could still do them. Apparently, that was no match for the process of the 8-pound baby actually exiting my body. Lesson learned.

Anyhow, this week I continued with my 1 minute run/2 minute walk intervals during the week, and then bumped it up to 1 minute run/1:30 walk on the weekend for my “long run.” The awesome thing was that my husband was home when I headed out that run, so I got to do it without the stroller. It’s amazing just how much easier running is when you’re not pushing almost 40 pounds of stroller and baby :-)

Monday: 1.9 mile run
Tuesday: Stroller strides class
Wednesday: PT
Thursday: 2 mile run
Friday: 1.6 mile walk
Saturday: 1.9 mile run

Totals for the week: 5.8 miles running, 1.6 miles walking

A couple of things happened this week: the baby started napping independently (not only can I put her down, but I can leave the room and she’ll stay asleep) and I finally really got my rear in gear on a fitness routine. The fitness routine is largely thanks to my mom’s group, as a bunch of them have started meeting on Fridays for an hour walk followed by lunch. Exercise and socializing? I’m in!

The owner of the local Stroller Strides franchise also came in to see our group and not only offered us a free week, but a significantly reduced membership fee. I figured I’d might as well check it out, especially if I could get an entire week out of it for nothing. The short version: I loved it. The workouts are basic circuits, but they’re exactly what I need right now: full-body strengthening with some cardio mixed in. Plus, the classes are beyond baby-friendly. Need to change or nurse your baby during class? Go for it and hop back in when you can! This morning when Ellie started to get a bit fussy as we were starting the circuits, the instructor pushed her around the room until she fell asleep while I exercised (and then she moved on to the next baby that needed to be moved around). Plus: more socializing with other local moms. The classes are not only easy to get to, but it’s also totally fine if you come in a bit late. Just jump in when ever you get there!

I’d been toying around with the idea of  Y membership, since they have free child care, but I couldn’t get past the worry of what if she didn’t sleep the whole time? Or got hungry? Or super fussy? I’m sure she’d be fine for the hour or so I’d be away from her, but I just couldn’t make that jump to actually leave her with a complete stranger (who is also minding several other babies). Not only are the Stroller Strides classes cheaper than the Y membership, I’m also far more likely to go since I’m just keeping her with me. No panic on packing bottles (and then worrying about how much to pack or having to toss it out if she doesn’t drink it and I forget to get it back in the fridge) or leaving her or any of that. (In fact, when Ellie had a giant meltdown halfway through class, it was totally fine that I picked her up and held her. She just became my weight!) With that, I have the following routine in mind going forward:

• Monday: Walk
• Tuesday: Stroller Strides
• Wednesday: Walk
• Thursday: Stroller Strides
• Friday: Walk
• Saturday & Sunday: Off

Eventually I’d like to turn those walks into runs and incorporate a long run on the weekends, but we’ll take it one step at a time.

Speaking of running, my PT appointment for my super-weak pelvic floor went well this week. We used some biofeedback to help me focus on maintaining muscle activation as well as relaxing those muscles. Learning how to relax them while I’m not using them and keeping steadier activation in them when I am are both things that will lead to better functional strength (like the ability to support my stuff during running). Overall it doesn’t feel like there’s much of a difference yet, but I’m slowly working in the right direction.

It’s absolutely amazing to me that it’s been two months since Ellie was born. On one hand, it seems like she’s always been here. On the other, there’s no way it’s been two months already, because I swear it was just yesterday.

I started off the week with 30 minutes of 1 minute running, 2 minutes walking just to see how it went. The answer: OK. I’m clearly out of shape (especially when pushing a jogging stroller and 10-pound baby uphill), but the bigger issue is definitely the pelvic floor weakness. Spending last week coughing and sneezing feels like it undid a lot of the strengthening work I’ve been doing and by the end of the workout, it was definitely done.

On Wednesday morning I had my physical therapy evaluation and the therapist confirmed that my pelvic floor was, indeed, very weak. She gave me a couple extra core exercises as well and recommended I put running on hold for the time being. While I was bummed out to hear that, it was something that I already sort of knew. This means that for now, we’ll focus on walking and getting my pelvic floor and core back in shape to handle the stress of things like running. (I’ve also contemplated picking up swimming again, but that involves getting the two of us dressed, out of the house, and leaving Ellie with child care staff. That’s been a bit more than I’ve been willing to tackle just yet. Maybe next week.)

I’d revisit my goals for the week, except I can tell you this right now: not much happened. I woke up Monday morning with a drippy nose and knew instantly that I’d caught my husband’s cold. Ugh. Since my usual MO of stocking up on NyQuil and sleeping it off for a couple of days wasn’t going to work with a baby in the house, I was just sort of stuck with it. I immediately decided that there wasn’t going to be any serious exercising this week and my only goal was going to be survival.

The good news? We managed just fine and I felt much better by Thursday. Still, I decided to just take the whole week off to make sure that I was as recovered as I could be. I did, however, keep up with my pelvic floor exercises. The big bummer is that the extra strain of several days of coughing and sneezing felt like it undid a lot of the strengthening that I’d accomplished over the past few weeks. We’ll see how it goes next week, but I have a feeling that this is going to be my biggest limiter going forward.