Post-Partum Running — Road to the London Marathon

Episode 1. Getting back out there

I got in!

Dear runners,

This is a series about my journey to coming back to running following the greatest physical challenge I have ever been through — giving birth! My hope is to share the realities of what it is like to resume running post-partum. I hope you will find some useful advice or at least some comfort knowing this is not easy and you are not alone.

Oh, joy! I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl in October 2020, and she is now almost four months old.

Fast forward to this Monday 8 February 2021, something quite unexpected happened. I GOT INTO THE LONDON MARATHON! Needless to say that this is as big as it gets for a runner. As a reminder, there are only 3 ways to enter the London marathon:

1. committing to raise a huge amount of money (c. £3,000?) for a charity — and paying it out of your pocket if you don’t manage to raise the money,
2. a “good for age” entry (which means having completed a previous marathon in under 3h45m for my age/sex bracket), or
3. being lucky — me this year!

Training for one of the world’s majors (New York, Boston, Chicago, Berlin, Tokyo.. and London) is exhilarating, and the timing is perfect: a bit less than 8 months to go. Thank god this is not happening in April but on the 3rd of October instead!

But it also brings a fair amount of pressure: I don’t want to “waste” this opportunity nor have any regret. I want to make the most of it and that is.. run it as fast as I can!

Starting from scratch…

And it’s going to be hard — very hard. Why that hard? Well,

1. Training for a marathon is hard — especially if you are aiming for a new PB as one often is, and I am aiming for the next “sub” round number that sounds cool (current PB of 3h58m)
2. Getting back in shape post-partum — and preferably to a pre-pregnancy fitness level — is an unknown scary exercise for first time mothers
3. combining both is uber ambitious!!

I have done (1) above before, but I have never done (2). And let me tell you something: I started and it is no mean feat.

First, because regardless of the physical demands of recovering from giving birth, I have accumulated a long 12-month deficit of zero running as I had not actually run throughout my pregnancy (it was a choice, not a necessity though). So in effect I am 12 month rusty. As with anyone and anything that you do — and then stop doing for 12 months, resuming is hard.

Add to that just an overall weakness in all the important muscle groups that are needed for running: abs, back, legs, and pelvic floor are especially weak. The pelvic floor is the scariest of all. As a reminder, it is the very important muscle which among other things holds all your organs and prevent them from falling, and it was very much “stressed” during pregnancy, as it was supporting the weight of baby and extra fluid to support the baby. Unlike other muscles, it is still unclear to me how I regain my strength there although I will share tips on what worked for me.

So no, it is not an overstatement to say that post-partum running feels like starting from scratch. By that, I don’t mean someone who stopped running for a year. I really mean that I feel like a true beginner, and my fitness level feels that of when I started running c. 12 years ago when I was doing zero physical activity. As an example, I sprinted a week ago for 1 minute at the average pace I ran the LA marathon at c. 2 years ago (5.40km pace) and it felt like going at 11mph on a Barry’s Bootcamp class!

So what does a maniac runner do in these circumstances? PLAN of course.

There is indeed hope! While I physically start from scratch, I am mentally 13 years wiser than when I started running for the first time in 2008. And if marathon is about 2 things it’s those two: planning and mental strength.

So what’s the plan? An excel spreadsheet with a day by day plan until race day of course — and yes you read that right, 8 months of training plan day by day!

Mistakes I will not make (again)

Having learnt from the previous New York and Los Angeles marathon experiences, I vow to execute my plan better yet again:

1. I shall do some strength training. Every two days, for the next 2–3 months, strength training shall be as important as running itself. And if I am too lazy to do strength training, then my fall back is 50 burpees on that day.
2. I will respect the all-mighty rule of building up my weekly mileage and not having it increase by more than 10% week-on-week. My first “long” run will be a 7km run this very Sunday! The week after that will only be 7.5km etc.
3. Hill and Speed reps will be my best friends. I will do at least 1 session of either every week for the next 8 months.
4. When I’ll reach long runs of more than 15km, I shall bath my legs in icy water after each run, like I did for the New York and LA marathons to prevent injuries.
5. I shall not pack a stupid amount of running 6–8 weeks prior to the race like I previously did. Instead, I will do a proper training plan of 16 weeks, like all training plans usually suggest.

My goal is to run in sub 3h45m (5.18km pace average), and this is a very steep target given I basically acknowledged that I am starting from scratch. At the same time, I think the thrill of running for the first time in London will hopefully get me there.

How to start?

Initially I started with some casual runs. I found an article on Runners Need of a lady that also was resuming running post-partum. Like her, I ran for 1 minute 10 times with 1 minute rest in between. Then two days later, I ran for 2 minutes 5 times with 1 minute rest in between etc. All the way to a 20 min run to then a 4 mile run as prescribed. But guess what: it didn’t work for me. Every time, I had pain in my lower belly — probably my pelvic floor. And that rang some alarm in my head! I decided to start over entirely as it was not the time to mess this up long term!

So I decided to reset for a week and stop running. I focused on doing Kayla Itsines “sweat” program ie some specific strength exercises designed for new mums targeting abs and pelvic floor.

I now do a strength session every other day, and instead of running 5km straight and build up speed/distance in a linear manner, I decided to focus on being a stronger runner with some Zwift sessions calibrated at a 10k race time of 1h03min. It feels good even though my Strava averages look bad! I need to ignore that all together of course! So far I did a “ladder” run, a “30s/40s” session, a “loftie” and a “furtherance”. They look so much better than my last random race that had no plan whatsoever.

my first Zwift runs! (ladder, 30/40s, lofty, and furtherance)

I allow myself 1 rest day per week or so, where I try to fit in dedicated stretch sessions.

I shall keep you posted on my training!

Wish me luck!