Building Myself Up for a 50K at 7 Months Postpartum
Seven months postpartum is a weird, amazing window. You’re far enough out that your body may start feeling like “yours” again… but you’re also still recovering in ways that don’t always show up on the outside. So when the idea of training for a 50K pops into your head, it can feel equal parts exciting and intimidating. For me, the goal wasn’t just finishing a long run. It was rebuilding trust in my body—step by step—without turning motherhood into a constant pain-management project.
The first thing I had to accept was that postpartum training isn’t just regular training with less sleep. Your core and pelvic floor have been through a major event. Hormones can still affect tissue tolerance. Feeding schedules, night wake-ups, and stress change how you recover. That doesn’t mean you can’t train for a 50K. It just means the smartest plan is the one that respects the season you’re in instead of pretending you’re in your pre-baby body with pre-baby bandwidth.
Before I worried about mileage, I focused on “green flags.” Could I walk for an hour without heaviness or dragging in my pelvis? Could I do basic strength work without leaking, coning/doming through the midline, or feeling like my low back was doing all the work? Could I run easy and feel okay during the run and the next morning? Postpartum progress is less about one workout and more about the 24-hour check. If things felt fine while running but I paid for it later with pelvic pressure, leaking, hip pain, or a low-back flare, that was my body telling me the dose was too high.
I also made peace with a reality that endurance athletes don’t love: at this stage, strength work isn’t “extra.” It’s part of the training. If you’re rebuilding for a 50K, strength is what keeps the easy miles easy. My weekly baseline included simple, repeatable moves that built capacity without crushing my recovery—hinges and split squats for hips, carries and anti-rotation for the trunk, and glute work that supported my pelvis instead of asking my low back to stabilize everything. Think “feel solid” rather than “feel smoked.” Two short sessions a week can be enough if they’re consistent.
When it came to running, I treated my return like layering bricks, not flipping a switch. Easy effort was the rule. I kept intensity low and earned it later, because speedwork postpartum tends to expose weak links fast—especially if your core and pelvic floor haven’t caught up to your cardiovascular fitness. Instead, I built frequency first (more days of short, comfortable runs), then gradually built duration, and only then started stretching out long-run distance. It’s tempting to chase the long run for a 50K, but postpartum bodies usually do better when the week is stable rather than when one day becomes a heroic effort.
For the long run specifically, I followed a simple principle: increase only when the current distance feels boring. If I finished a long run and felt depleted for two days, that was information—not a badge of honor. Postpartum training is already happening on a background level of fatigue, and a 50K build only works if you can stack weeks. Sometimes the best move was repeating the same long-run distance for two or three weekends until my body stopped reacting to it. The goal wasn’t to “survive” the run. The goal was to recover like an athlete afterward.
Fueling mattered more than I expected, too. Between postpartum demands and training, it’s easy to under-eat and wonder why everything feels hard. I aimed to fuel like it “counted,” because it did: carbs before and during longer runs, protein at meals, and enough total calories to support recovery (especially if breastfeeding). When you’re under-fueled, your body doesn’t adapt well, your tissues get cranky, and little aches start turning into patterns.
The biggest mindset shift for me was letting “success” mean consistency, not perfection. Some weeks were strong. Some weeks were survival. If the baby didn’t sleep, I didn’t punish myself with intensity—I adjusted the plan. If symptoms popped up, I didn’t push through; I problem-solved. Postpartum training is a conversation with your body, not a lecture you deliver at it.
And because this matters: there are a few signs that mean it’s worth getting help sooner rather than later. Leaking that persists, pelvic heaviness or pressure, bulging/coning along the midline, pain that’s increasing week to week, numbness/tingling down the leg, or a feeling that your back or hips are constantly “catching” are all good reasons to get assessed. You don’t need to wait until you’re completely sidelined. A postpartum-aware clinician (often a pelvic floor PT plus a sports-focused provider) can help you build the missing pieces so training feels sustainable again.
If you’re a postpartum mama and dreaming about running a race that is totally out of your comfort zone - you’re not “crazy.” You’re motivated. The win is doing it in a way that builds you up instead of breaking you down—so you cross the finish line feeling proud, strong, and still able to enjoy the life you’re running back home to.
