This is Hannah – you may recognise her from recent social media posts, after she was interviewed while running the London Marathon last month. What’s so special about that, you might wonder? Well, not many runners had scheduled stops to breastfeed their eight-month-old daughter along the way. We were blown away by Hannah’s achievement – here’s what she had to say when we caught up with her for a chat.
I have previously run marathons before, Manchester marathon I had ran 3 times. I had run London once before in 2017 and had gained a ‘good for age’ place for 2018. However, I fell pregnant and deferred my entry to 2019. Once my daughter Skye came 2 weeks late (and via emergency c-section), I felt it took me a very long time to feel myself again and have energy and a want to run – or move any faster than walking! Being a first time mum who decided to exclusively breastfeed, I found myself exhausted. I spent the first 16 weeks still feeling battered and bruised.
But I felt like this might be only chance to run the London marathon again, as it is so very hard to get in through the ballot.
My training was non-existent, after about 5 months I managed to walk/run 5km. I used to really enjoy running pre-baby, but did not enjoy running these very few times I went out. I was slow, it was hard. I took Skye in her pram a couple of times – it wasn’t a running specific pram but I was going sooo slowly I decided it would be okay and tried to include it whilst she was sleeping. In March I did my local park run (5km) without baby and then 2 weeks later my partner and I did a 10km run. That was the first time I ran 8km without stopping. At the beginning of April I decided I was going to do the marathon. My partner, Max, is a teacher and I said I was going to use the Easter holidays to try to run, while he was around to look after Skye. In that time I managed about 4 runs, which got me up to 10 miles the weekend before the marathon.
On the day of the marathon, I had planned for Max to come with me to the start of the race and I was going to give Skye a feed before I went in. However, I had fed her from 6am-7am and she was asleep as I continued to get ready to leave – so I made the tricky decision to leave her at home and just meet them both at our first meeting spot. We had arranged meeting points ahead of time, at around 13.1 miles, 21 miles, and finally at the end, where I fed her before starting our journey home. I had packed Skye some food for the day – cucumber, celery, green beans and baby corn. We started weaning a couple of months ago so I thought of things she may enjoy whilst waiting for feeds.
We didn’t make any special arrangements with the stewards or race organisers ahead of time. When I reached our designated feeding spots there were an awful lot of people, it was really crowded. For my first feed I came off the race course and sat behind the crowd on a little wall. Later on, a nice marshal said I could lean against the railing of the race and I sat down on the curb and fed her there. The marshal was really nice and offered me food and drinks, as well as another member of the public who passed by and gave me some blueberries.
My tip to any other mums who are thinking about embarking on big fitness challenges would be, go for it! Get yourself a good bra that is supportive. Train when you can, don’t put any pressure on yourself. If you don’t feel like going for that run or doing that class, don’t, go later or rearrange. If you do it and you don’t enjoy it, stop. Be flexible and adaptable.
I would definitely do the London marathon or a different marathon again. I will be shuffling my way through Hackney Half marathon in ten days, but I won’t need to feed Skye along the way, just before and after. And then I’ll be putting my feet up for a while!
If Hannah has inspired you to get your trainers on, why not sign up for BfN’s Mums’ Milk Run? You can set your own challenge (it needn’t be a marathon, or even a run!) and any funds you raise will be used to help support breastfeeding families. The event runs throughout May – click here for more info and to register:
https://www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/get-involved/fundraising/mums-milk-run/