Running While Pregnant: Part 2
If you haven’t read part 1 of my running while pregnant journey, you can check it out here!
When I found out I was pregnant, a huge priority of mine was to continue to exercise for as long as I could do so safely. I didn’t know going into it whether that would mean I would stop running at 2 months or my due date. Once we hit late July (month 7 of pregnancy), I could tell that my body was starting to slow things down a bit and I was happy to oblige. It was a huge blessing to be able to continue running and doing strength training throughout my pregnancy but I knew that this was not the time to “push”…not yet at least.
Week 27-31
At this point I had pretty much every crack in the sidewalk memorized on my 2 mile route around the neighborhood. I had settled nicely into this distance and was happy with my run/walk intervals as a way to continue running without discomfort. I attribute a lot of that to my strength training routine as well. I was lifting weights (nothing too heavy, just some dumbbells) 2-3x per week still and I highly recommend any pregnant runner do strength training.
Week 32
I went for a run in mid-August and it is so insane to think about how I started that run not knowing it would be my last for months. I remember doing my typical route and as I started one of my run intervals after a walk break, I remember feeling this sharp pain in my right abdominal muscles. Similar to what I imagine pulling a muscle would feel like. I was never too concerned as the pain went away almost instantaneously the second I slowed back down to a walk but I knew that was my sign to call it quits. Based on talking with my doctor and my at home self assessment, I deduced that I most likely strained my right oblique muscles. With so much pressure/stretching from my pregnant belly plus a history of oblique weakness on that side, it was really just a matter of time before those muscles decided to tap out.
I spent the next week or so working on core strength to prevent the muscle weakness from irritating my low back. Thank goodness I was successful and avoided third trimester back pain with a quickly growing belly!
Weeks 33-37
No running but I was a walking machine! I crushed so many audiobooks and podcast on my walks and I honestly really started to enjoy just walking. I used to look at walking as such an inconvenient form of exercise because I could just run and get there quicker but I was wrong. There’s much to be said for going for a nice long walk.
Weeks 38-41
I refer to these weeks as my waddling weeks. To call what I was doing running would be a gross overstatement. I had false labor start about 2 weeks before my due date (so fun…) and because the contractions would ramp up when I’d walk, I started to experiment with doing short bouts of jogging too. It would always get things going but then a few hours after the run, everything would stall. Even so, I really was just so happy to be “running” again and without pain still!
Final Thoughts
I didn’t know what my journey would look like running while pregnant with my son but I am so grateful to have truly had a best case scenario situation. I felt so strong the entire time and listened to my body. My background clearly put me at an advantage but that’s why I have loved helping other women successfully navigate running through pregnancy. Now I am going through my return to running postpartum and it is a lot different than I anticipated but you can read about it more here.
Written By: Dr. Morgan Kamau
