Heidi and Ben this summer: She's now juggling training for St. George Marathon with breastfeeding her adorable chunk-a-monk.

Heidi and Ben this summer: She’s now juggling training for St. George Marathon with breastfeeding her adorable chunk-a-monk.

Reading about Michele Gonzalez (a.k.a. NYC Running Mama) pumping breastmilk for her 10-month-old son during both transitions of her recent Ironman triathlonreminded us of Heidi Garner. Back in February, that mother of four wrote of a breastfeeding dilemma on our Facebook page, and we realized it would make an intriguing episode of What Would Another Mother Runner, our semi-regular dilemma-solving feature. Heidi was three weeks away from running what she hoped would be a sub-4:00 marathon, and her five-month-old son, Ben, was refusing to take a bottle. Given the race set-up, she would have to leave Ben about two hours prior to the start of the race, meaning momma and baby would be apart at least six hours. “The longest he has ever been without his beloved boobs, I mean, mother,” Heidi told us.
Heidi was scouring the race website to find out how to defer her entry to 2014 when she noticed that Mile 18 was right near her parents’ house. “Where my little man would probably be screaming,” she wrote. “While this solution would make it so I can run the marathon I’ve trained 18 weeks for, I can kiss my sub-4:00 finish good-bye. But I assume I’m not the only mother runner who has stopped to nurse mid-race!”
What would you do?
Sarah answers: First off, I’m wow-ed Heidi had been able to juggle marathon training with the sleep deprivation and caloric/hydration demands that comes from exclusively breastfeeding a young baby, let alone running a household with three other children in it. I breastfed my oldest child until the week before my third marathon, but she was 14 months old by race day. Given that Heidi still had three weeks before the race, I would have put forth the same effort she had in training for the 26.2 to getting Ben to take a bottle. Sounds rough, but he wasn’t a newborn baby. If baby-training didn’t go as well as marathon training, I would shift to Plan B, and breastfeed him en route if he was a hungry dude when Heidi hits Mile 18.

Heidi running kids' race the day before the marathon with her older son, Nate, age 6

Heidi running kids’ race the day before the marathon with her older son, Nate, age 6

Dimity answers: Nurse him. I say that for two reasons (and please note that one of them is not that his name is Ben, which is my son’s name; I’m not playing favorites here.) Reason one: As much as we eschew mother guilt around these AMR pages, my guess is your weighted-down boobs will remind you of how long it’s been, make you wonder if little Ben is inconsolable and just too darn tootin’ hungry. You’ve got more pressing concerns when you hit Mile 23 in a marathon. Reason two: If you’re close to nailing a sub-4 ‘thon with a 5-month-old tot, imagine what you’ll be able to do with a little more training time and a little less cleavage? Ben will be so proud when he sees his fast mama cross the line.
What Heidi did: She studied the race course like a law school graduate preps for the bar exam, coming up with a list of spots along the race course and her anticipated times of hitting those marks. The plan was, “if Ben was super-crazy with hunger, my parents would bring him to me so I could nurse him. And if he needed me more, I’d drop out of the race. My kids come first.” She also enlisted her family to pray that Ben would fare well during this, Heidi’s seventh, marathon.

Heidi at the end of her marathon. "Blurry because of camera work, not speed," sandbags Heidi.

Heidi at the end of her marathon. “Blurry because of camera work, not speed,” sandbags Heidi.

What happened: She missed her sub-4:00 marathon by 15 minutes—but not because of Ben needing his mom (and her breasts). She says it was, “a gift of some divine intervention” that Ben was asleep or content the entire time mom and babe were apart. Heidi’s mom gave him some rice cereal, and he was right as rain. Around Mile 17, Heidi’s dad and two of her kids waved at her and told her Ben was doing fine. Heidi, however, wasn’t feeling as good: She, “bonked at the halfway point and never fully recovered.” She chalks up  her slower-than-she-hoped-for finish to three things: going out too fast with the 3:55 pacer; not training as well as she should have because of wintery weather and a weakened pelvic floor (“because of it, I did zero speedwork”);  and her body using some race energy to make milk. “I was exhausted but not sore at the end.” Still, Heidi feels, “super-lucky to be able to train hard and still nurse,” she says. “Post-workout nursing are called ‘margaritas’ in our house–because there is a little salt around the rim!”
What would you, another mother runner, do?
 And if you’ve got a running-related moment you’d like some clarity on, via WWAMRD, feel free to email us at runmother [at] gmail [dot] com. Thanks!