My First Sign of Perimenopause: The Run I Couldn't Finish

I was 43 when I first experienced something that, looking back now, I realise was probably one of my first signs of perimenopause although I didn’t know it at the time.

It was 2020 and I was training for the Queenstown Half Marathon in November. I'd already completed the Queenstown Half the year before, and earlier that year I'd run the Hawke's Bay Half, so I was no stranger to running or to the training involved. I knew what it felt like to have a hard run, to be tired, to have heavy legs and to have days where you just had to dig a little deeper.

But this was different. I felt heavy. I couldn’t be bothered. 

It was July, and I headed out for a 10km training run. I live near country roads, so I had a few routes that I knew well. This was a loop I'd run before, so there was nothing unfamiliar about the distance or the route. 

I got about 4km in and started to feel tired. That in itself wasn't unusual, but there was something else going on that I couldn't really explain. I didn't just feel physically tired; I felt like I couldn't be bothered. It was a really deep feeling of I don't want to do this. My mind and my body just didn't seem to be working together.

So I turned around and headed home. I ran some of the way, but walked a large part of it.

I remember being disappointed, but I wasn't particularly worried. I assumed it was just a bad day. Everyone has those, right?

So two or three days later I tried the same run again. And exactly the same thing happened.

Again, around 4km, I hit this wall. My legs didn't feel like they had the usual strength in them, but more than that, I couldn't seem to get my head into it. I just didn't have the motivation or mental energy to keep going.

I tried again three days later. Same result.

Then I gave it a fourth attempt, thinking surely by now I'd get through it. I didn't.

I was so down on myself. I couldn't understand what was happening because I knew I could run 10km. I'd run half marathons. I'd trained for them before. This wasn't about not knowing how to train or not being prepared for a long run. Something just felt different.

But I didn't know what that something was.

Instead, I put it down to "just getting old."

At 42.

I eventually decided to change my goal and drop down to the 10km race that year. I completed it, but if I'm honest, I felt like I struggled my way through that too.

At the time, I didn't think there was anything particularly significant about what had happened. I certainly didn't think it could have anything to do with hormones or perimenopause. I didn't even really know that perimenopause could start in your early 40s, or that the first signs could be so subtle and so different from the symptoms we'd traditionally been told to look out for.

I know differently now.

Perimenopause isn't simply the period of time immediately before your periods stop. It's a transition that can last for several years, and the signs can be incredibly varied. For some women, the first indication might be a change in their menstrual cycle. For others, it could be sleep, mood, anxiety, brain fog, changes in body composition, fatigue or changes in how they feel during exercise.

For me, one of my early signs was something as simple as suddenly finding a run incredibly difficult when I'd previously been able to do it.

And because I didn't have the knowledge to understand what was happening, I made it about me. I thought I'd lost my fitness. I thought I wasn't trying hard enough. I thought perhaps this was simply what happened as you got older.

That's the part I wish I could go back and change.

I wouldn't tell my 42-year-old self to try harder. I wouldn't tell her to push through it or that she needed to get fitter. I'd tell her to get curious about what her body was telling her.

Because when something changes, it's worth paying attention.

That doesn't mean every change you experience is perimenopause, and it doesn't mean we should blame every symptom on hormones. There can be many reasons why we feel different, and unexplained or significant changes are always worth discussing with your GP or another qualified health professional.

But I do wish I'd known more about the range of symptoms that can occur during perimenopause. I wish I'd known that the experience isn't the same for every woman, and that it doesn't necessarily begin with hot flushes or your periods suddenly becoming irregular.

If you're reading this and thinking, "Hang on, some of this sounds familiar," I've put together a blog called Could It Be Perimenopause? 34 Signs Women Often Miss where I go through some of the signs and symptoms that can occur during this stage of life.

I've also created FREE ‘Is this Menopause? Symptoms Checklist & Tracker’ that you can use to take note of what you've been experiencing and whether there are patterns that you may not have connected before.

Neither is intended to diagnose perimenopause, but sometimes simply having the information in front of you can be helpful. It can give you a starting point for a conversation with your GP and, perhaps just as importantly, help you realise that you're not imagining things and you're certainly not alone.

Looking back at that 10km training run in 2018, I can see it very differently now.

I wasn't failing.

I wasn't suddenly "getting old".

My body was changing, and I didn't yet understand why.

And that's one of the reasons I created StrongHer with Meredith. I want women to have the information I wish I'd had back then, so they can better understand what's happening in their bodies and feel more confident navigating this stage of life.

Because sometimes the first sign isn't obvious at all.

Sometimes it's simply the moment you realise that something that used to feel normal suddenly doesn't anymore. 💚

If you want to understand your body, what’s happening and how to create your own menopause vision and action plan, contact me for a free 20-minute chat.