- I competed as a runner during high school and college.
- After having my first baby, I felt lost — I didn't recognize my own body.
I have an on-again, off-again relationship with running. After six intense years of competing in high school and college, I like to run at a slow pace. And sometimes I get sick of it and quit for years at a time.
That's precisely what happened after I ran my first and only marathon. I spent the last half-mile of the race dry heaving as I ran, crossed the finish line, collapsed, and vowed I would never run again.
But five years later, after having my first baby, I was lost. I no longer resided in the lanky body I'd taken for granted. I was covered in stretch marks, skin hung where skin should not hang, and I was leaking out of every orifice — blood, sweat, tears, snot, milk.
I was gone, replaced by a zombie with a sink full of pump parts. I spent my days shirtless, chained to the chair by breastfeeding, riddled with cabin fever. I didn't know who I'd become and wasn't sure if I was still residing within my body.
I started running again
One afternoon, hoping to find a tiny piece of my old self, I dug my running shoes out of a dark corner in my closet. I laced them up, left my husband with a bottle and sleeping baby, and shut the door quietly behind me, stepping into the crisp autumn air.
I started at shuffle pace: slow, but with the bounce and form of running. I thought back on the days of warming up for races as a nimble high-school athlete, back when shuffle pace was the easiest thing in the world. Now my boobs became rock-hard if I ran too long, my legs were thick, and my stomach jiggled up while gravity pulled the rest of my body down.
While I'd returned to running to escape my new motherly self, running was perhaps the most physical and glaring way to get to know my new self. I ran through autumn leaves, on icy roads, and in spring puddles until my brain rewired to include my postpartum jelly belly. I ran until my calves became defined. I ran in desperate search of just an inch of my old self.
And I found her. But I also found more.
Running gave me myself back
Running brought back structure to my days. It gave me a reason to escape the house and the motivation to lay off on the second row of Oreos. It gave me time to familiarize myself with my changed body and jumbled thoughts.
Things I learned from running were also things I needed for motherhood: an ability to endure, the concept of "just hang on for another half-mile," courage, and badassery. I hung on during mastitis. I endured sleepless night after sleepless night. And I mustered the courage required to use the NoseFrida.
Likewise, motherhood taught me a few things about running. I learned to be patient with my body and mind. I learned to accept where I was on my journey rather than mercilessly push myself to be something I wasn't. It taught me to slow down and take in the otherwise fleeting moment. Rather than criticizing myself, I remembered I had grown and birthed an 8-pound, 9-ounce baby. And when my lungs burned on the way up a hill, I remembered it wouldn't last forever, just as the explosive poops that escaped all diapering jobs were just a phase.
While I'd anticipated that running would be a way to escape my new self, it forced me to recalibrate to include all of who I had become. Running brought my body back to something I was a bit more familiar with: toned legs and a watch tan line. And motherhood permanently changed some of who I was — in the stretch marks, in the way my blood pressure would rise any time I heard a baby cry, in the way my heart had expanded to love in a way I hadn't known was possible.
I wasn't lost; I was more.