It was time to give it a try. My baby would be six months shortly and I was determined (and simply couldn’t wait any longer now!) to finally do this. It was a Sunday and E came with me for the initial walk which lasted for about 20 minutes. My plan was to by walking reach the running trail I had always used in the past and loved so much. It would also be good to come away from the street and run on a softer surface, in order to protect my body as much as possible. I was excited and nervous and happy and scared…… E looked at me and gave me an encouraging smile and a kiss before I set off for my challenge. The challenge was basically to develop my fast-paced walk to a 1 minute jog. Yep, 1 minute, that’s it.

But I was silently wondering, how different could it really be to jog extremely slowly, in comparison to walk very fast?

It turned out, very different.

I will never forget that first minute. My body panicked. As soon as I changed my stride from walking to jogging it felt as if my insides were going to fall out from me. I squeezed the pelvic floor harder than I had ever done before in my life, to make sure everything would stay in place as I plodded along. For one minute. Like a complete beginner. After one minute of jogging very slowly I walked for a minute and then I jogged for a minute again. I did six repetitions in total.

My body went through a shock – that was clear – but also my mind went through a series of emotions. It was somewhat freeing about being there in the nature on my own letting my legs move along in a pace more similar to what I had missed for such a long time, but it was also extremely frustrating and disheartening to realise that I was still very, very far away from where I wanted to be.

When I came back to meet E (and the buggy) I saw how eager he was to know how it went. I wasn’t quite sure what words to use to describe my feelings, and I guess it was partly because I didn’t quite know what I felt. In that moment I had no idea what to expect from my running future, but yes I just did it, I reached my target of trying this out before 6 months post-birth. I could now tick that box. And I think that is what I said to him, that ‘I did it!’

And it was in a way an exciting step.

But I had also gained a very upsetting knowledge from this step – that even if my mind very much liked the idea of that I had just tried to go ‘running’ again, the sad truth was that my body didn’t like it.