Sunday Runday: Running in the Third Trimester

As I'm nearing the end of the pregnancy I'm not sure how much more running I'll be doing, so I thought this would be a good time to talk about how running has been these past few weeks.


The beginning of third trimester was some of my best running of the pregnancy.  I was more comfortable and I had the time to run.  My breathing was under control, no aches and pains.  Granted, I wasn't running as fast as I did before, but at least I was still getting out there!

I ran 2 races and walked another, I got in less of my weekday runs, but still managed to get out there for longer weekend runs.

The past couple of weeks have been harder.  The past two weekends I missed my long weekend runs, but yesterday I headed out again.  And I'm not sure if it's the stage of pregnancy or the fact I took off two weeks, but it was a much less comfortable run!  Luckily I was with friends who run/walk instead of just running, so we took it nice and easy.  But I definitely had a run interval I couldn't do...bladder issues!  Which is the bane of running during pregnancy.  I still managed to get in almost 5.5 miles, so perhaps I shouldn't complain too much.


In general, my recommendations for running during pregnancy remain the same - listen to your body!  Running this time has been a completely different experience from my last pregnancy, and I've definitely taken it a lot easier in several respects.  Which is fine.  And I might not make it all the way to 39+3 like I did last time, but really, running over 5 miles at 38 weeks pregnant is nothing to be ashamed of.  Neither is running any mileage at 20 weeks, or 16 weeks, or 10 weeks.  I do think it's important to stay active during pregnancy, but not at the expense of your health.  And whatever you're doing, for however long, is definitely something to be proud of!