For the last few years running has been "my thing." It helped me through infertility and was my outlet for stress. I have come to love it so much more than I ever thought I could love any form of working out. Even with my doctors restrictions in early pregnancy (with this being an IVF baby), I knew that I wanted to continue running as soon as I could get my doctors to release me.
Now that I'm 21.5 weeks pregnant and still running 2.5-3 miles per outing, I am starting to see how difficult this is going to be going forward. Heck, it's already pretty hard. I have noticed with each passing week a little more discomfort both during and after my runs. It also becoming more difficult to get myself motivated to run as frequently as I would like. The general aches and pains that I feel during my runs have increased marginally but the real discomfort comes after a run. It seems to take my body (mostly my pelvis) a couple of days to fully recover now. Running 2 days in row has pretty much ceased at this point.
Nothing at this point is unbearable and I still generally enjoy going for a run, but knowing that my running time is most likely coming to end is really bothering me. I love that I can still workout at the pace I've been keeping and knowing that it's allowing me to stay healthy (especially on those days when I have indulged in classic pregnancy cravings of any type of cake, chocolate, candy, pizza, fast food.....the list goes on). And I know that staying active will also most likely help ( I hope this is the truth) to ease labor when she's ready to come out. I guess I'm just sad to know that the therapy I find in running will be ending at some point in the near future. I'll just have to be okay with walking and only walking....after all it's not the worst thing in the world.
At this point, I'll just have to continue to listen to my body and make my decisions based on what "feels" right. As long as this baby girl is healthy, that's all I care about. And since everything at each doctor's visit has been right on track, I feel very confident that my running has been for the best so far.
In my head I have an imaginary goal of being able to run until I'm at least 6 months pregnant....that's about 4 more weeks and I think it's very doable. In the meantime, I just keep telling myself that even if I have to stop running tomorrow, I will be happy with running to the 5 month mark. :)
For all of those women that run through the entire 9 months of pregnancy, I can honestly say that I have an extreme appreciation and respect for your dedication!
good for you for keeping up with your runs! It definitely gets harder but hopefully you'll still be able to get in a short run here and there. I will say that with my last pregnancy, I had to take a week off here and there as things moved around and then my body adjusted. I know everyone's so different and your body will let you know when it's had enough :)
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