June 29, 2025, 3:21 pm | Read time: 6 minutes
Running used to be a natural part of our editor’s life, but pregnancy changed that and forced her to take a long break. It was only after several attempts as a mom that she found her way back to running—and now the sport feels different to her.
When I became a mom, I knew that not only my daily life, my mindset, and my body would change. It took me three years after my son’s birth to return to running, which had always been my comfort zone and helped me stay balanced.
Why I Couldn’t Run During Pregnancy
Early in my pregnancy, running was over for me. While other expectant mothers jog easily until the last trimester–in competitive sports, you can even see training continue almost until the due date–I had to stop in the third month. I would have liked it differently, but my body unmistakably signaled that it wouldn’t provide the necessary energy for running. My last attempt to squeeze in a few laps at the track failed miserably. The strain on my circulation was too high, and I was gasping for air. I hadn’t expected this, as I was quite fit before my pregnancy. Frustrated with sports but full of anticipation for my child, I prepared for a break.
Running After Birth–What My Body Told Me Then
Five months after giving birth, I thought the day for my running comeback had arrived. I jogged a kilometer–I couldn’t go much further because I quickly developed hip pain. Hip band? Pelvic floor band? During pregnancy and childbirth, the bands become soft due to the hormone relaxin, the pelvis becomes unstable, and the body remains susceptible to pain for some time. A possible explanation for the pain. Another: soft connective tissue. After all, just five months earlier, a child had pushed through my pelvis.
The pain was intense and unfamiliar. After a brief consultation with my former running coach, who advised me to wait a bit longer before trying again, I looked for alternative sports. The professional’s suggestion was Nordic walking: Done with power, it would be good preparation. No, I really couldn’t see myself walking through Berlin-Mitte with a functional jacket, headband, and poles.
I decided to seriously start with postpartum exercises, which I had unfortunately neglected a bit. When I felt like it, I did 50 to 100 squats with short breaks in between. Judging by the muscle soreness, it turned out to be good training for me and worked quite well initially.
Subsequent running attempts felt like a laborious push forward. I was often exhausted, both physically and mentally. A constant state that, as a young mother, you almost start to consider “normal.” I had to realize that I (still) had no energy reserves. Closeness, nourishment, energy–everything flowed to the child.
Enough Energy Again After Weaning
I’ve read that many women experience a noticeable return of physical performance about three to six months after giving birth–sometimes only after weaning. For me, this moment came with weaning. And it was quite sudden: Literally from one day to the next, the energy was back. There was something left for me again: Some space and some strength that weren’t immediately demanded. In my daily life, which often felt like constant service–to the child, to work–there was now room for running again. My space, where I don’t have to do anything and yet am fully engaged.
This time, however, I didn’t want to overdo it and ran consciously slowly. I started with two short runs of up to four kilometers per week at a leisurely pace, so I wouldn’t get out of breath. If I felt pain during the exertion, I stopped and walked the rest. Some studies say that women can not only return to previous performance levels after giving birth but even surpass them.1 Often within three to nine months after returning to training.
How I Found a New Connection to Running
Then we moved, winter came, and running took a back seat for many months. I used to run mainly on the streets of Berlin. Asphalt, traffic lights, city noise–I don’t know why, but this mix gave me a sense of pace. Our new home is near the forest. In the first spring out there, I started running again–initially slowly, weakly, and irregularly–also, unlike in the city, unobserved. Just trees, roots, nature sounds.
There, I was unobserved, which did me good. My life as a mom was sometimes disrupted by expectations of my body. I mean these expectations of what a beautiful body should look like, which are constantly presented to us as we scroll through social networks and see how “other” women seemingly effortlessly return to top form after giving birth–firm, slim, capable–and where, honestly, it’s a long journey.
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Running in the Forest as a Contrast to Inner Restlessness
Running in the forest was like a contrast space where it was easy for me to set aside these thoughts. Here, there were hardly any other runners and thus no performance comparisons, no public scrutiny. Instead, a protected space where I only encountered myself.
This was also aided by another measure: Since I found that the sounds in the forest contrasted with my inner restlessness, I introduced a new ritual of running without music and podcasts. It was as if these sounds in the forest somehow brought me into a very pleasant contact with myself.
And so, I ultimately found my way back to running as a mom.
Letting Go of Speed and Self-Imposed Pressure
Now I see it this way: In the forest, I’ve built a new connection to running. Not through running strength and pace, but through the perception of nature and my movement.
With forest running came the abandonment of speed, which the sandy ground doesn’t allow anyway. Currently, I run without target times and speed sessions–often longer distances than before in the city.
Looking back on the time since the beginning of pregnancy and the time after, I remember well the feeling that sports seemed like something that only belonged to a previous life. Because after the false starts, the pain, and the long exhaustion after birth, it didn’t seem like I would find joy and energy for running again. Today, it’s important to me that I run at all and that it does me good. It’s part of my self-care: When I feel good, I’m also better for others.