On your own timeline

Whether you’re postpartum, returning from an injury, recovering from disordered eating, or just coming back to running after time away, your timeline is yours.

On this week’s podcast episode, Carly Gill Larios chats with Heather about her postpartum return to running. She speaks about the physical challenges, as well as the feelings of discouragement she felt when comparing her postpartum running timelines to other moms in her orbit. She’s candid about the fears she had about whether or not she’d ever feel like herself on the run again, and she shares how she’s managed to return to running at a high-level and PR in the half marathon this past spring! Carly is currently training for the Chicago marathon and sharing the process on Instagram!

Whether you’re postpartum, returning from an injury, recovering from disordered eating, or just coming back to running after time away, you know the comeback is never easy. Nobody’s timeline is the same and very, very few people’s journeys are linear.

While I’m not a mom, I deeply related to many of the feelings Carly described. If you’ve ever taken time off for any reason, I bet you can, too

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When I had surgery on my heel and ankle in November of 2021, I never expected it would take me 2 years and 1 month to return to running the marathon. Or 17 months to line up for a half marathon. Or 4 months to simply run/walk for 15 minutes. But that was my timeline.

At the start of 2020, I was in the shape of my life. I was marathon training coming off of fall half-marathon and 5k personal bests. I was running workouts faster than ever before, getting ready for a big day at Boston in April. And then the world shut down.

In the early covid days, I kept training with the delusional hope we all had during that time that things would be better in 2 weeks. But I was battling aches and pains, niggles here and there that I couldn’t shake. When Boston was finally cancelled, it was my sign to shut down my running, too. Over the next year and a half, I trained on and off in spurts between injuries. I rested, I went to PT, but try as I might, I couldn’t shake it. Eventually I got an MRI.

When the doctor called with my results, he told me that if I wanted to continue running, surgery was my best option. It was a relief to have an answers, but I was nervous. Surgery, with a relatively slow return to running timeline, in my running prime, was not a part of the plan.

I got the surgery in November of 2021 and things went well, but the return to running was tough. I was cleared to begin a return to running protocol about 12 weeks post-op, but neither my body nor mind was ready. I was still in pain and I was terrified of hurting myself. It took me another 12 weeks after being cleared before I could actually run/walk and when I did, it hurt.

My return to running was so much harder than I anticipated. I ran/walked a few times a week for close to 6 months before I could finally run nonstop. It was frustrating, demoralizing, and frankly, not fun.

I started to give up on the idea that I’d ever run fast again.

But because running has been there with me for decades, I stuck with it. I stayed patient. I kept going to PT¹, I kept cross-training, I started real strength training, and slowly but surely, it got easier. I finally started nonstop runs 9 months post-op and in October 2022, just shy of 1 year post-op, I ran double digits for the first time. After that, I was able to continue slowly progressing and approximately a year after my first 15 minute run/walk, I was able to begin workouts again. Hope returned.

That spring, I ran the Eugene half marathon. It was nowhere near a PR, but the carrot was dangled in front of me. I finally felt healthy, I was gaining fitness, and I was ready to marathon train again. In the fall of 2023 I went “all in” (which included PT, strength, and fueling!!), and I ran a marathon PR in Houston in January 2023. Tears of joy were shed. I had proven all of my self-doubt wrong and dang, it felt good.

But if I’m being honest, despite that PR, I still don’t quite feel like the runner I was in 2019. Most days, it feels harder. Workouts haven’t clicked the way they used to. That can be discouraging. But I’ve learned something important:

It doesn’t have to be linear.
It doesn’t have to be perfect.
It doesn’t have to be a personal best to be worthwhile.

Running might never feel the way it did six years ago and that’s OK. I was really fit then, but I was also kind of broken. Choosing to be patient, to get healthy, and to rebuild the right way was absolutely worth it.

Wherever you are in your comeback, your timeline is yours and yours alone. You’re exactly where you need to be.

1. Shoutout to my PT, Ryan Wooderson! If you’d like to work with Ryan, you can find him (and other great providers) in the Lane 9 Directory!