Since it’s still the month during when people want to fulfill their new years resolutions and go to the gym, I feel inspired to write about my goals concerning health.

My 2017 began with kind of challenge for my body: to give birth to a 4,2 kg little girl. I had no idea how it would go and it went well. It took me almost 3 months to feel about normal in my body but before that, I began with walks. At this stage, my goal was, if everything went back to normal as planned, to run 10km under 50 min for her first birthday. Z will turn 1 year in 2 days and somehow, I’m not there. But don’t let you be spoiled, I’ll told you more.

To make the goal achievable, I decided to have some kind of activity at least 3 times a week. No need to say that I also had to train my stomach, core and perineum back. It was sometimes hard to find the motivation to train and some weeks were totally without training. But some weeks had more training than that. At the end of the year, I trained 32,3% of the days of this year, which is almost 43% (= the goal), so not too bad!

In the beginning, to get back on track with running, I took walks with the stroller and tried to blend walk and run. It was tough (the stroller is not running friendly really) but the times I made the same thing alone (M being at home taking care of Z), I felt like I was flying! After three months, I was able to run 3 km, but my condition was all gone. I was surprised by this because I went to the gym until one month before Z came and I was cycling. But somehow, the amount of blood I had during the pregnancy, plus the little space for my lungs gave me the wrong feelings.

The first week of may (4 months post partum), I ran 5 km at the speed of 6,5 min/km. This was not quick, but somehow a victory for me! It was difficult to find time (or let me reformulate this: I did not prioritize it) after april since I began to work half time again. The days with Z, I had to take the stroller (=not very motivated) or to wait for M to come back from work, which is often too late for me to train. The days I was working, I was tired in the mornings (I have been a morning runner earlier in my life) or too willing to spend time with M and Z when I came back home after work.

July the 2nd, I ran my first 10km. It took me 1h08, which was pretty ok for me!

I ran, swam and walked during the summer. After that, I jumped onto an offer from our local gym and registered for a year. Since it’s quite of expansive, I found some motivation to make more intervals and strength exercises. E, a mum from our mammagroup, gave me a challenge and in september, we ran together the Kung Björns loppet in Uppsala. Well, we started together and she arrived much earlier than I did, but I managed the 6,4 km in 38 min or something. This was a big confidence kick for me and the day right after, I ran 10 km in 1h06. And this was it this year for the “long” distances.

During the fall, I have been sick on and of, I haven’t prioritized sport and worked a bit tooo much, so it was not so good for the training.

Now that we invested in an expansive running/bicycling stroller, I have to goals for 2018:

• make the stroller cheap (= every time it’s used, it becomes cheaper)
• make my gym registration cheap.

Wish me luck!

I even spent a little fortune on a bike today. This is not a racer or anything, it has to fulfill its funtion to drive Z to the kindergarten, but who knows, maybe it will help me to make the stroller cheaper!