Breastfeeding while training for a marathon…something you don’t hear about often. I just finished my journey a couple weeks ago but never found much on the topic so I decided to share my experience and tips. First off let me just start by saying it’s HARD!! But it’s also doable. Breastfeeding alone is hard so if you’re doing that, you definitely have the willpower to do both!
1.Planning is Everything
Planning seemed like it took up half of my marathon training time, especially the further into training I was getting and the longer the runs got. Basically your runs will revolve around your babies feeding schedule. Some factors to consider are:
Will you feed your baby before or after your run?
How long will your run take? Some runs can take 2 1/2- 3 hours and if you feed your baby every 2-3 hours you need to figure out how to feed them while you are away.
Will you run in the morning before baby gets up or at night when they’ve gone to bed? And if this is the case, depending on the time of year, it brings me to my next point…
2. Get a Babysitter, or Running Partner
If you have a treadmill or are training in the middle of summer this tip won’t apply to you. I live in the country and my marathon training took me into the fall months. It started getting dark earlier and staying dark longer. I like to do my runs in the morning before my husband leaves for work. Once the runs started getting longer though, I was going to have to be running in the dark to get them done in time.
The first time I ran in the dark it was pitch black out, I was running on a gravel road with trees all around, looking left and right constantly making sure nothing was going to jump out and attack/eat me, the whole time vowing to NEVER do it again, at least not by myself. I started asking family to babysit for my longer runs and only ran in the morning for my shorter runs.
3.Eat A LOT!!
My son wasn’t gaining much weight and he’d been on the small side from the start. Once the doctor started worrying more about this I decided to increase my food intake and just eat as much as I could. Some days I was burning around 2,500 calories and other days more. When you add on another 300-500 calories (the recommended amount of extra calories you should consume when breastfeeding) you’re at 3,000+ calories. So I had to be really mindful of eating large portions and ALWAYS carrying food with me. It didn’t matter if I was going grocery shopping, driving for extended periods of time, going to church, going away for the weekend, I was constantly carrying food with me and eating ALL the time!
4.Drink lots of water
The average adults needs 64 ounces of water each day. During breastfeeding the average woman needs an extra 32 ounces each day. Now add on the amount you need during your runs, 3-6 ounces every 15-20 minutes, and you end up with A LOT of water! The longer your runs the more water you will be taking in. And that isn’t even considering the amount of water you want to drink before and after your runs. You don’t necessarily need to get caught up in counting every ounce though, a very good indictor is to go by pee color. The darker your pee is the more likely that you are dehydrated and need more water, the lighter in color the better. Another good indicator is to drink by thirst. Basically just buy the biggest bag you can find and fill it with all the food and all the water! 😉
5.Eat healthy meals
You want to make sure baby and you are being properly fueled by eating a variety of fruits and veggies, healthy carbs, fats, and protein. Your baby will get the nutrients you eat through your breastmilk. So even though you will be eating a ton of food, make sure it’s healthy food, not only for your babies health, but also to help fuel your body for the intense work you are putting it though.
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