Does Being a Mom Mean I Have to Give Up Running?

When unanticipated obstacles between mom me and the old me feel insurmountable

Zoom therapy is a uniquely unpleasant byproduct of living through the pandemic era. Having my own face on a screen while I talk to a therapist who is next to my face on a screen is like crying in front of a full-length mirror for an hour a week.

I’ve adjusted to this awkwardness by turning the brightness so far down on my screen that I can barely see anything when I know I’m getting to a topic that makes me sad or, even worse, angry, due to the fact that when I’m experiencing these emotions I make ugly faces. (My psychiatrist could probably blackmail me with screenshots. I’m worse than Carrie Mathison.)

A few sessions ago, I was telling the doctor about the person I used to be. I used to travel by myself a lot. I used to write scripts. I used to watch scary movies. I used to write jokes. I used to live in New York. I used to read novels. I used to cultivate sources. I used to wear high heels. I used to get manicures. I used to run long distances. I cried an ugly cry when I told her about running.

By now, so much time has passed between the last time I ran a long distance race and now that I can barely call myself a runner anymore. Part of it I can blame on moving across the country– compared to where I lived in Manhattan, just two small blocks from Central Park and a couple long blocks to the path along the Hudson, running in most neighborhoods in Los Angeles is a drag, and getting to neighborhoods where running is pleasant is itself a pain in the ass. This city was made for cars, and many of the people who drive the cars seem to have an active desire to murder pedestrians. I’d rather dodge trash bags on the sidewalks of Morningside Heights than get mowed down by some Glendale douchebag in a luxury electric SUV who doesn’t believe that stop signs apply to them.

But most of it is my own fault. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve run in the last three and a half years. I can recall at least a handful of times I vowed that I’d pick it back up again. Yes, LA was not Central Park or even Prospect Park, but I hadn’t even given it a real chance. When I was pregnant, I made a resolution to myself that I’d start running again– actually running– when my baby was six months old.

It was ambitious goal, but I kept reminding myself that my cousin ran a full marathon when her son was under a year old. She lost so much blood during childbirth that it was an emergency, and less than a year later, I was helping her husband navigate the CTA in a way that maximized the number of times he and their baby could see her pass along the Chicago Marathon route. I figured "start running again" wasn't a crazy goal; I wasn’t even trying to run a marathon, I simply wanted to be able to log five miles again without feeling like I’d been through an ordeal.

My cousin runs ultramarathons now, and I haven’t even found the time to buy myself a pair of running shoes.

I could list the excuses I’ve made for this, some of which feel valid and others I know are bullshit. None of my old sports bras fit anymore and the idea of going to a sporting goods store and finding that they don’t even carry the size I need is humiliating even in my imagination. Who has the time and pride to give to go to several different sporting goods stores, demand to see their biggest, strongest bra?

There's also the cost returning to running has on my ego. I’ve taken time off running and gone back to it in the past, and the first couple of weeks back are always brutal and demoralizing, and maybe my post-baby self esteem is too fragile to withstand it.

I recently saw somebody I hadn't seen in months who observed that I looked like I was "back to normal." It was a nice thing to say to a new mom, but just because I'm fitting back into most of my old clothes doesn't mean anything about the body inside those clothes feels normal, or back to anything.

The thought of running brings how not-normal I feel, still, to the surface. I feel in my bones– literally– that my body is recovering from how depleting the process of pregnancy and childbirth was. I can't run right now; I'm still putting myself back together.

I wake up at least once a week with horrible muscle cramps. They’re usually in my legs or hips, but this morning I got one in my upper back while I was reaching for something. I’ve woken Josh up crying out in pain from them. Sometimes I’m lucky and the cramps stick to tiny muscles in my hands and feet rather than my calves. I’ve tried to resume very gentle exercise. The cramps always get in the way.

I had no idea this could happen, that any motion or no motion at all could trigger a migrating Charley Horse, and so I did a little light consulting with Dr. Google and found that the likely culprit is a postpartum calcium deficiency. My body built my daughter’s brain, eyeballs, skeleton, and organs, and like the world’s cutest little strip miner, she picked me clean of minerals. I am a hollowed out hillside watching mournfully as Eagle Rock’s Perkiest Runner Mom jogs past my front window behind a double running stroller. I am a gaping abandoned mine swallowing enormous supplements, hoping I'll be a mountain again one day.

I have to tell myself I’ll get back to running, maybe not as fast as before, maybe not as far as before. I have to believe I’ll get out there again, even if it’s with my mom-tits strapped down by a sports bra that is a marvel of engineering, my feet lightly blistering inside shoes I haven’t broken in yet.

Everybody who has been through this has a story about something nobody told them. Here’s what nobody told me:

Becoming a mother isn’t something that happened to me magically the second I held my daughter for the first time, or the first time I heard her cry, or the first time I felt her kick. There was never a moment where, prior to that, I was Not A Mother, and after that, I was A Mother. Instead, it’s been a process, a physical mortification followed by a partial dissolution of my old self, whoever that was, followed by a slow rebuild that’s happening much more slowly than I planned. I feel as though I put myself in storage and, just now, approaching a year later, am going through my old belongings, wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do with all this junk, wondering if the packed away pieces I truly loved still work.

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