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.

There was a pinned post for a while about getting back to running after pregnancy.. I can't see it now but it must be there somewhere I guess. The gist was that (if birth went smoothly) you could go back to light exercise after the 6 week check, but should really wait till 12 weeks for anything high impact including running, or it could have a negative effect on your pelvic floor etc. Also you should mix in core work etc. So, if you give birth in Oct, you'd be back to running in Jan and have maybe 3 months to train. It doesn't seem a lot really, especially as you'll probably be knackered and sleep deprived, but I guess it depends on the level of fitness you had before.

Fwiw I also cannot wait to get back to running.. I'm planning to start leaving the baby with DP and going for brisk walks at 6 weeks (which will be mid September for me), then start up running at 12 weeks and maybe try for a half in the spring 🤞 I've never been super fit though and have basically done nothing all pregnancy..

I don’t think you’re leaving yourself enough time to train properly And you’ll be making it really hard on yourself. Can you imagine getting up at 7am on a Sunday morning after 3 hours sleep and trudging through cold, rainy February for 15 miles?

Course you could walk all the way round, but is that the experience you want? Another year won’t hurt.

Thanks for all the replies. Sadly because I’ve already deferred my 2020 entry they won’t let me defer again.

Also, this is my second child. The delivery will be ELCS.

I’m just desperate to do it as obviously it’s almost impossible to get into.

It’s looking like the general answer is not to do it. Which I think is sensible. I’m gutted.

Oh well, I might get another spot in twelve years time!

According to their website they're letting people who deferred this year choose which year they'd like to defer to? Worth emailing to see if they can be flexible.

Oh great, thanks @mylittlesandwich

I wouldn't discount it. I kept up exercise (weight training mainly) during my second pregnancy and was back at the gym 2 weeks after giving birth. Within 6 months I would say I had my strength back to lifting pre-pregnancy weights. I tried a run 10 days post partum but that was admittedly not a good idea as I hadn't appreciated the impact on the pelvic floor

If you were a runner beforehand I think there's a good chance you would manage.

It’s worth an email to see if you can defer again.

It seems likely that this years won’t go ahead so they might be keen to spread the deferrals over two years.

The announcement on whether 2020 will be happening at all is due next week.

That's going to have a pretty big impact on the 2021 event, if they honour the usual,position of allowing (unlimited?) deferrals. They might (as a one off) be glad if people want to kick it along to 2022

Wait and see what next week brings

I think it might be different for your second as I certainly found juggling two much harder and you’ve said you’ve not been particularly active. With child no.1 I started a boot camp at 8 weeks, with two, it just didn’t happen for me. I also had a prolapse after no.2 despite a much easier birth. Basically I think no.2 trashed my body in a way that the first one didn’t.