running while pregnant

You should check out Julia Webb on instagram, @runteamwebb, she ran through her pregnancy and detailed a ton of it. Would help you a lot.

Good questions wrote:

You should check out Julia Webb on instagram, @runteamwebb, she ran through her pregnancy and detailed a ton of it. Would help you a lot.

Thanks. I'll check that out.

From observing my wife, I think running while pregnant would be fine until swelling of the feet start to make it uncomfortable, and I would think once the baby starts to lower, that running would become really uncomfortable.

As for switching to trails, I think most would not recommend it because of the falling issue, you will already be a little out of balance with the child.

I'm not saying don't be active throughout the pregnancy, but certainly at the end back off and treat your body well, its going through a lot changes.

I've watched a number of my former teammates as they've had their first children. Most of them continued to run at least occasionally through their pregnancies. Some of them tried to stay "fit" through their pregnancies so they could come back afterwards and be competitive as soon as possible. One of these friends had already qualified for the upcoming marathon OTs, so she wanted to stay as fit as possible to be able to get back into her competitive fitness asap post partem.

What I would say observing these friends of mine is: don't try to stay fit during pregnancy. Rather, just run what feels comfortable as part of remaining healthy. Trying to stay race fit is an awful idea. My friend is now struggling 4 or 5 months after giving birth. I'm convinced she would have been better off scaling back her running a lot more, especially in the third trimester. She would have come through the pregnancy much healthier overall and less physically stressed, so that would have allowed her to get back into runnning hard sooner.

When you're pregnant, your body is prioritizing creating this new life. If you're taxing yourself by trying to work out too hard, its your body that is going to suffer, more so than the developing baby. Those injuries you develop while pregnant (which you might not even notice until after you've given birth and started training hard again) will stick with you and could end your running career.

My advice would be to taper your running down both in volume and intensity over the pregnancy until by the third trimester or so, you are doing only a few days a week of some easy shorter runs, as feels comfortable, with some non impact exercise such as swimming or elliptical to augment a little if you want. In that third trimester, further taper over to only non-impact exercise.

Lastly, don't feel like what others have been able to do in their pregnancy in any way means that you should also be able to do that. My friend was running 7 or 8 mile runs in her third trimester. If you have a friend like that, it will be easy for you to feel like you "should" be able to do that too. Don't feel this way. Not only is everybody different, but just because your friend advertised on facebook all the running she was doing while pregnant doesn't mean it won't have a long term negative impact on her (as was the case with my friend). Chances are, she won't be advertising that aspect on facebook.

Good luck and congrats

Wow - thank you for the honest feedback advice.

I guess I will need to mentally work on accepting that it is ok to not be as active as I'd like (in terms of # workouts per week). I'm currently very happy to have the energy back again to want to run (1st trimester sucked the energy right out of me) but I'm content with the mileage and pace being much lower/slower than what it was earlier this year. It looks like it will continue to be that way in the upcoming months.

Thanks again for the honest feedback

Hey, more power to you if you can make it through a mile run without barfing or wetting your shorts.

I ran through most of my pregnancy. I had to quit running at 36 weeks because it hurt so much. I should have quit running at 34 weeks. That said I was still able to hike, ski and ski mountaineer up until the end. I did my last ski tour 4 days before baby came. I didn't have the 1st trimester exhaustion that a lot of women have. I did many 15+ mile hikes in the second half of pregnancy. That said I still gained a lot of weight. I had a lot of amniotic fluid. That is some heavy stuff! Didn't gain any weight first 20 weeks and my OB was not happy. Gained 50 lbs in the second 20 weeks and my OB was mad. Even though I was still super active. It was all in my belly. No swollen feet, no flub. The weight was not hard to lose at all. And yes, my baby was a bit larger than average, though today he smaller/skinnier than average.

I didn't really know it at the time but that was really hard on my body. I have a hernia and diastasis recti from it among other issues. I skied one week after having baby but I didn't run until 7 months out.

Don't stop being active but just take it cautiously. Remember that you don't exactly have complete control over your body during pregnancy.

My case was probably more extreme. I do have a runner friend who had it even harder than me. I feel really bad for her. But most of my other active friends only gained 20-25lbs and remained active with no issues.

kaleetan wrote:

I didn't really know it at the time but that was really hard on my body. I have a hernia and diastasis recti from it among other issues. I skied one week after having baby but I didn't run until 7 months out.

Interesting - before this thread, I never heard of being being injured after they gave birth because of them staying active while being pregnant. I will keep that in mind. Thanks.

I live in the Mid-Atlantic, so I have a feeling that with the upcoming winter season that the weather will end up being the #2 deciding factor on working out (with #1 being how I feel).

But kaleetan, do you think that the injuries were a result of the impact-heavy activity or just activity in general?

I think a spin bike would be better while you are pregnant. I used it a lot and had never any problems while I was pregnant. You can read some articles about that topic like https://spinbikeexpert.net/can-you-spin-bike-while-pregnant/

Wear Altras:

https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a30794369/new-sponsorships-support-pregnant-women/

btw, the OP's kid may be getting too big for a stroller at this point.