Our Mommyhood

By Julia Magnusson, Staff Writer, It’s Not Like a Cat (@notlikeacat)

It turns out that if you’ve been “benched” for a while and then hit the gym really hard as soon as you can your body rebels. Structurally. It’s not true for everyone, but if you have a chronic injury here, a recovering injury there and an old injury over around back there, well, something is going to give once you try to hammer it again. Fortunately, I have an excellent chiropractor who was able to whack me back into place and told me to take it easy for a few days.

Even so, I’m a little gun-shy now about hard exercise. I’ve never really excelled at moderation. Mediocrity, yes; moderation, no. It’s hard enough trying to get back into shape without having to keep a chiropractor on retainer. It’s not just that I’m tired and sleep-deprived and feel guilty dropping my kids off at the gym daycare instead of spending quality time doing enriching activities with them (even though the baby’s favorite activity lately is sucking his fist, and the toddler is perfectly happy perching a small chair on his bed and pretending to drive a firetruck). It’s not that I feel like I’m spinning my wheels at the gym nursing my various old injuries, waiting to run again.

I think it’s that I’ve gotten lazy.

It will be another three and a half weeks before I can start running again. I delete the emails from my trail-running group, ignore the posts from the local marathon training team. I comment on my running partner’s Facebook status lines (and she on mine), which is not nearly as satisfying as the long, personal discussions we used to have on our runs. I wonder how long it will be before I can keep up with my running friends again.

To be honest, I don’t entirely feel as reliant on the endorphins as I used to. My days are pretty sweet lately, despite the fact that the toddler and the baby have a knack for both melting down exactly when I am trying to get all of us in the door with a load of groceries, in the rain, when I really, really have to pee.

I never thought I’d say this, but the babyhood is lovely to observe, the toddler is an interesting little dude and a lot of the time lately I am fairly content with the status quo. I’m happy with my body, even though it is not at all what it used to be, fitness-wise.

But we have a new (used) double jogger waiting for me in the basement. Even if I’ve totally lost all motivation by the time I’m allowed to start running again, I’m going to have to hit the pavement at least a few times a week to justify the expense and bulky hassle of the stroller (you second-floor-dwelling urbanites with no garage know exactly what I mean when I say “bulky hassle” in reference to a double jogging stroller).

I haven’t yet registered for the Turkey Trot, though.

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