On Mothering and Marathons

One of our news producers is a runner and a new mother and she’s signed up for the Aramco Houston Half Marathon.  She summed up the juggling act in a recent Facebook status:  Andrea is slowly getting back into the groove... training for the half after baby is going to be harder than I thought it would be!

It does get easier, but I don’t know if it ever gets completely easy. I hold out hope that after babyhood and toddlerhood, when they go to school – then maybe finding time to run gets even easier.

Finding the time to run after the birth of my daughter was a long and frustrating process – I had to feed her every two to three hours (from beginning of feeding to beginning of feeding, not end of feeding to beginning of feeding), she’d nap and I’d get my running clothes on, but then she would wake up and need to be changed, and then she would cry (oh, colic) and I would still have my running clothes on – but be too tired.  This is why new moms don’t manage to get their teeth brushed and out of pajamas, much less out the door for a nice fast five miler. Then there’s recovery from pregnancy and childbirth too.

And then there were the days when I ran, and would pull up short and go home as fast as I possibly could, my arms aching to hold my newborn.

Eventually though, I managed to get into shape. Five months after her birth, I ran my first 5k race. She was seventeen months old when I ran the Houston Marathon in January of this year.

It’s still a challenge to find the time, but with a good child care provider and a husband who adores his daughter, I have managed to make it somehow work. The time management/social support nexus is key from the very beginning of motherhood, according to Jim Pivarnik, Ph.D., the president of the American College of Sports Medicine. “Certainly, those who have been athletic their entire lives, or certainly very fit just prior to pregnancy seem to bounce back sooner, which should not be a surprise,” he wrote in an email, “But it depends on how the pregnancy went, whether there were complications during delivery, and possibly most importantly, the social support that the woman has postpartum, so she can get back to training.  Our research has shown that women feel time and social support (or lack thereof) to be the most important perceived barriers to returning to full activity.  Interestingly, the same perceived barriers appear to exist with all women, but the athletes do a better job of overcoming them.”

Yeah. Motherhood doesn’t stand in the way of marathons. Or half marathons. And I dare say the marathoning may have made me a better, more patient mother.

You can do it, Andrea.

Comments

[Tammy]

Yes she can. We moms are TOUGH! And can multi-task with the best of 'em! Tell her about my crazy schedule----I bet it won't seem so bad compared to no sleep. Great Blog by the way.

[Charles]

A great new website offering simple and free reminders (text or email) for kid's vaccines - rememberyourshots.com

[Charles]

A great new website offering simple and free reminders (text or email) for kid's vaccines - rememberyourshots.com