I have never been particularly satisfied with my body – as many women, especially in their teens, can attest to. But it wasn’t until I gained a lot of weight when pregnant with my first baby that I became completely self-conscious: of the way I fit into clothes, the way I carried myself, and the way others viewed “me” – who I was – because of my weight. To put it bluntly, I had never had a need or a real reason to have to lose weight. That’s how it started….that’s why I began running in the first place. But it didn’t take long until running became something much more than just “losing the baby weight” – especially during those post-partum months when I was trying to reconcile myself as a new mother and still being true to who I am. I wrote about what running did for me then – and continues to do for me now – on the new blog dedicated to The Lady Athlete.

Here’s an excerpt:

“By the time three months rolled by, I struggled to know who I was anymore. I felt weighed down – describing it to a friend as, ‘swimming in the murky waters of a swamp. I didn’t know which way was up or down, nothing came clear or easy to me, everything was muddled, and I couldn’t even express myself. I’ve never had writer’s block the way I have with trying to write about my postpartum experience. I felt like I was just barely keeping my nostrils above the mud, just barely breathing, just barely surviving.’

I reflected on my pregnancy, labor, and delivery far too often – how much weight I had gained, how things hadn’t gone as quickly or as easily as I had pictured they would in labor, how vulnerable and weak I had felt when I pushed and pushed and he still wasn’t budging during delivery. How I didn’t have control over the way things had gone then and I certainly didn’t have much control now that he was out. I didn’t have any control over how often my baby needed to nurse or how many times in a night he woke up, or how sore my breasts and body felt. I didn’t have control over the tiny apartment we lived in, how far away from family and friends we were, and the loneliness that permeated my life as my baby and I did the same routine over and over again, day in and day out.

But then one day, I got so sick of not feeling like myself, and not really looking or acting like myself either, that I made a bit of a dramatic decision.

I was going to run a Half Marathon.

It had always been a goal of mine, but just one of those ‘I’ll do it someday’ goals. I’d never ran in any race before – not even a 5k. I knew nothing about training or shoes or diet. But I did know how to run.”

I ran that Half Marathon almost 3 years ago now, and I’ve since ran in two other half marathons. I have 3 more months until I run in my fourth half-marathon – the same one that started me on this running journey. I’m using the Train Like a Mother program, and I recommend it to any other Mama Runners out there! Will I be seeing any of you at the Zooma Women’s Annapolis Race?

You can read the full post here, and be sure to check out the rest of the site. I can’t wait to see where it goes!