Plans are Worthless, but Planning is Essential - Family Planning as a Female Athlete
It’s hard to believe that just over 3 weeks ago I would’ve been finishing my first 50K race. I never made it across the start line to that 50K and while we enter week four of quarantining/self-isolation, life looks and feels very different. Running has been filled with anxiety until this week for me. Since the closing of our beaches and trails, its been tough to feel comfortable on new routes dodging people and feeling a bit angry at those who don’t quite understand what social distancing is and why we must do it.
A bright side to this is that despite not being able to see our families and friends or do some of the activities we love, my husband and I have really been enjoying our time together these last few weeks. We’ve loved catching up on Netflix, cooking together more, and taking daily walks around our neighborhood each evening. We both were pretty comfortable working from home prior to this all happening, so not much has changed on that front and we’ve adjusted well to the stay at home life.
What has changed is our plans. Like yours. Like everyone’s. There is no point in planning anything beyond today because there is no way to know when this will end and what life will look like when its over. My husband and I waited awhile to get married. We dated for over 6 years and I was 33 and my husband was 37 when we married in December 2018. Fast forward to now and I will be turning 35 next month. I am one of four girls (middle child) and I have 9 nieces and nephews. The question about children comes up as soon as you get married, because there seems to be no other reason to join your life with someone else’s unless you plan to procreate, right? When we got engaged, many of our family and friends assumed it was because I was pregnant. It didn’t really help that I’d lived out my running life on Instagram for the last 4-5 years because the questions about when we would be having children came in on there immediately after we got married. I’m sure many couples have experienced this pressure - it is nothing new, yet I still am so surprised at the audacity people have to ask you such a personal question not knowing whether you even want children or if you are facing struggles in getting pregnant.
Then this week, Fast Women included two articles in their newsletter about women who had been putting off children or timing their children around their running goals - one who was a professional and Olympian, the other a sub elite who considers running their hobby. Both felt pressures and selfishness around the decisions made to forgo or have a child during this time. I was struck by how much I identified with these women and how much my own dilemma with this has grown not just over the last 4 weeks of this pandemic, but over the last few years despite being nowhere near either of their levels of athletic ability.
I was hoping to run a sub 3 hour marathon at CIM in December so that my husband and I could start a family. Whether I ran a 2:56 or a 2:59, I knew I would feel confident and comfortable walking away from the distance forever if I was able to run under 3 hours. I have this fear that if I take the chance of having a child before hitting that goal and am never able to come back, I will be resentful towards my husband or even my child. Now I’m sure many of you are thinking, “oh gosh you’ll be fine, you’ll bounce back,” and while there are hundreds of stories of women who come back as even stronger athletes postpartum, there are an equal amount of stories we never hear from women who don’t come back to the sport or distance they love because carrying and birthing a child changes things for their body and their life.
When I came so close but still short of my goal in December, it was devastating for my timeline and all the plans I had. I was a little broken from the disappointment and not sure how quickly I could turn my body around for another shot at it in the Spring. When my coach and I touched base a few weeks after CIM, I knew I needed to break through a mental barrier that was hindering my ability to run a sub 3. Based on my previous performances, I should’ve run a 2:56 and I knew it was a mental block in those final miles. To get stronger, mentally and phsyically, I decided to take on an ultra but I really didn’t want to miss a season where I could potentially hit my marathon goal. So we bargained. I’d build mileage and strength on the trails removing the focus of time, recover and turn around for a quick buildup to a Spring marathon to take another crack so we could try to have a family sooner. I wasn’t going to tell anyone so I wouldn’t feel the pressure to perform for anyone but myself. I would just show up on race day and share the results after. I was planning on signing up for Eugene Marathon after my 50K, but when the 50K never happened I started looking at late May races and then just watched as race after race cancelled. Looking back at CIM, I realize I gave up for the reasons I have before - I thought there’d be another race in 5-6 months where I could take a shot. How wrong could I be? I hope that a result of this is that I never take racing for granted again and find it within me to really leave it all out there each time I get the chance.
I’ve been stuck thinking the worst the last few weeks - what if racing never comes back? Why am I so obsessed with this time goal that I am risking having a family? I’m an amateur. I am the only one who cares about this goal. But there are more layers to it. In my CIM buildup, my Inside Tracker blood work showed that my hormones were not optimal for creating a baby. The hormones could be a result of being on hormonal birth control for over 12 years, but it could also be caused by excessive exercise (I do not have symptoms of RED-S). Coming off birth control 3 years ago and never getting those hormones tested prior to coming off, its hard to tell if its a side effect of the pill or because of marathon training since I’ve only been running that distance for the last 5 years. I know I will need to take several months off running before attempting to have a child to see if the running was the cause of these hormonal imbalances.
It also crossed my mind that maybe this pandemic was the opportunity for us to try. I am in many ways being forced to take a step back from running and training hard because of the stress of life changing each day from developments with COVID-19, so we could take this time to have a family. Yet the process would take away from an already stressed medical field right now and seems selfish in a new way.
I realize the sacrifices I am making for my future family for something that might seem like a silly unimportant dream of a time on a clock to many, but is truly important and meaningful to me. I know the life I am meant to have with or without children will still be a good one. I am married to someone I love spending time with and this pandemic has only solidified that I made the right choice in creating a life with him.
If you’ve been following me on IG lately, you know I have been struggling with running during this time and I am continually advocating for us all to listen to our bodies and avoid additional stresses brought on by training. There is another part of me that feels the desire to get out of that and take advantage of this time to train hard and well so that I can be prepared to hit my goal when we have the opportunity and I can move forward with my family plans. I’ve signed up for CIM this December in the hopes that racing will come back in the Fall and I will get that chance to run a sub 3. Whatever life has in store for all of us, the planning is necessary, but the plans are futile. I am learning that truth every day in this new normal.
J
