Running London Marathon six months after giving birth...ridiculous?

[Pregnantandredundant]

After about twelve years of applying through the ballot I managed to get a London Marathon spot for April 2020. I was (am still!) pregnant so deferred for a year.

The baby is due in October 2020. Is it ridiculous to think I could run the marathon in April 2021?

For context I was very fit pre pregnancy, have run several marathons before. However the pregnancy and lock down have both been extremely tough, and I haven’t done any form of exercise for six months, with the exception of some very slow jobs earlier on in the pregnancy.

*jogs not jobs!

I’ve no idea how it works but can you train for it and then if you’re not up for it give up your place nearer the time?

Yikes- I read this as six hours and was ready to call you a troll!

If you've done marathons before, then possibly...but is this your first child? I honestly think it will be too much. Are you planning to bf for example? What if you have a child that doesn't sleep? Let alone the complications of birth and post-natal healing.

If you’d had the baby already, and were planning this with eyes wide open about what sort of birth recovery you were going to have, I’d have said yes.

But if you have to have a csection or any sort of bad tear, I’d say it’s a bit ambitious

You sound a lot fitter than me! I did a half just before finding out I was pregnant, no way I would have been up to it 6 months after birth! But you sound like you’ve done much more training over more years! Friend of mine pg at same time and fitter than me did a half 3 months after giving birth. The biggest surprise for me when starting running again is that my bladder control was not what it was! Had lots of tearing and stitches though. Something to bear in mind other than fitness! Also, just getting time to train with a newborn will depend how much support you have from partner/family. Good luck, I’m sure it’s possible!

It's a tough one op , I was going to say that if you were marathon fit pre-pregnancy then go for it , but there are other factors too. If your baby is a good sleeper and easy to care for you have every chance but if they're tricky then it'll be more difficult to train.

I'm not saying you can't do it... But my cautionary tale.
7months PP I entered a sports competition, and fell. I dislocated my knee. Sent to physiotherapy as part of recovery... The Physiotherapist told me it can take up to year for things like ligaments to lose the extra elasticity they get in pregnancy. So the damage to my knee was worse because of that.
Over 8years on I still get trouble with that knee.

I think you could, but I would have thought it depends how placid your baby is going to be I reckon as to whether you can sleep enough or get time free for training. Though if Sophie Power can complete UTMB with a 5 month old child then I guess it's possible!

Though I have to say I would seriously consider deferring. I run, but have no children myself.

oh, I think it may be tough. You would need to start training when baby was about 8 weeks old really, which will be difficult both due to recovery from birth and how tired you will be with a newborn. Is it your first baby?

For context I was doing my normal running training up to 4 months pg, then swapped to swimming and spin for the rest, so active throughout but not running fit when DS born.

Will your pelvic muscles have recovered enough? Speaking as one who knows, you don’t want to risk a prolapse.

Hmm, hard to say. It can be done, but I found after my second baby I had a really unstable pelvis and needed about 8 months of regular pilates classes to pull everything back together before I could run again. I felt I would have done some damage (specifically to my lower back) if I'd kept running before strengthening my core back up. I think you'd need to be very careful and listen to your body.

I did a half marathon just shy of 5 months after having my first baby, and I definitely was not any kind of marathon runner beforehand! It’s not impossible, it all depends on how your body responds to pregnancy, childbirth and how you recover afterwards. You’ll just have to wait and see how you feel I think.

See how it goes, but it's a tough ask

You can always defer to 2022, which gives you oodles of time to prepare properly and run with style and lean, rather than pushing yourself just to get round

That was meant to be 'style and élan'

Maybe my keyboard is a monoglot?

I was in the same boat as you but with longer between birth and the marathon. By christmas I pulled out. My daughter never slept except on me, woke 5-8 times a night and even though I went to the gym or a run when I could, I didn’t have the mental or physical energy for it. So I agree with the plan for it, see how it goes, fingers crossed its all good but don’t be disappointed if you can’t ... all the work you put towards the marathon will help your post partum strength and fitness

If you have an easy vaginal delivery with little to no tearing then maybe you’ll manage ok providing your baby is easy, takes a bottle and you have a supportive partner. That’s lot of what ifs though, I think you’re probably being a bit too ambitious to aim for that soon afterwards.

Another point to consider - I know many people are happy to leave a six month baby and do so successfully with formula/expressed milk but I wouldn't have been able to leave my bottle-refusing baby for the time it would have taken to do a marathon plus getting to the start and meeting up at the end, nor would I have wanted to. I wouldn't have expected that at all before I had her.

I’m pretty sure you can only defer once with a ballot place (though obviously things may change with current situation!) so I would go for it! Are you running throughout pregnancy? I suppose it depends how fussed you are about time / pbs too?

I ran a half less than six months after a c-section. I was pretty unfit before but did a lot of running and exercise on Mat leave with DS in the buggy. I was able to get out for an additional long run every weekend. So if you’re a runner anyway I wouldn’t entirely discount it.

I'd say it's unwise tbh. Soft ligaments and prolapse risk is not a great combo!

I think the problem is mostly going to be that you won't have done any exercise in pregnancy, so would need a solid 6 months of training to get to marathon. But that is no way possible, and even with an easy birth you aren't going to want to start c25k until 8 weeks at least. But realistically I'd say starting to run at 12 weeks would be the target - and that takes you to January. Runners world do have a 16 week beginners plan, but you'd need to be running 5 days a week, and able to be out for 2 hours quite quickly.

I've never done a marathon, but after my 3 (separate) normal deliveries I was back to my normal fitness within 6 months. I was exercising throughout pregnancy too. Impossible to say if you will too....

I suppose it also depends on if you'd be happy with finishing a marathon or if you want to achieve a certain time. My husband and I sometimes talk about training for a marathon together, but I would just want to finish and wouldn't want to commit to pure marathon/ running training beforehand, and he would want to follow a running programme instead of our normal exercise and post a good time.

I would say u will have to see how u are. Everyone is different. I got a prolapse after giving birth. I couldn’t stand up without my bladder falling at six months.

Hi OP - I had grand plans to do something similar, albeit with seven months to train instead of six. The event didn't happen in the end, due to lockdown, but there's absolutely no way on earth I would have been able to do it. I recovered well from an emergency c-section due to pre-eclampsia, but then I had post-partum pre-eclampsia (which I didn't even know existed), I was on blood pressure meds and iron etc., and I basically had to fight with my own body for weeks to be able to breastfeed, which was exhausting and took all my time. There's no way I was mentally or physically capable of marathon training.

However - that's my experience. Yours could be entirely different. I think it could go either way and completely depends on the birth and aftermath, which can't be predicted. I take it you can't defer again . . . ? If you can, I'd wait until you see how you feel post-birth.