Reflections + Data: Activity During Pregnancy
Baby Ruth Alice was born on 10/26/2022. She is so happy and healthy. She weighed 8lb 6oz and was 21” long. I am reflecting on staying active throughout pregnancy wanted to put together some graphs illustrating how my activity level and composition changed throughout the different stages of pregnancy. Upon reflection, I am quite pleased with the level of activity that I have been able to maintain. I am excited to get back to real training and adventures on the bike, but the main goal of the last 39 weeks and 6 days was to have a healthy pregnancy and I feel that I accomplished this! I am lucky to have had a smooth pregnancy and delivery with no health scares or complications for me or the baby.
During the first trimester (starting around week 5-6 and until week 12) I felt SO SICK. When I made these graphs, I expected to see a complete drop-off in activity during this time. I was surprised to see that I still had an average of 7h of activity during this period. I am realizing now that my expectations and the difference of a normal training block to a week of pregnancy “training” made this hard for me mentally, so my perception was a bit skewed. What the graph doesn’t show – and I wish I had data for (!) – is the amount of sleep I needed during this time. From what I remember, I was sleeping around 12 hours at night and had to nap before and after most activities, even though these activities were at a recovery pace. I also was nauseous most of the time and had a hard time eating enough to fuel for normal life, not to mention a “workout”.
During the second trimester I felt so much better and was able to get out and do a lot more activity which felt great! I did notice that I was not able to recover as well as I typically do when I am not pregnant. I would need long naps on days after longer activities like 3h rides and long hikes in the mountains. I did a bigger mix of activities during this trimester, biking still felt comfortable and I was able to run until week 23, I also hiked more during this trimester.
The biggest difference from the first and second trimester to the third was the consistency I was able to maintain. There is a dip in activity from week 27-30 that corresponds to when I was anemic, but with increased iron supplementation I got back into range and felt better in just a couple of weeks. Aside from that, I aimed to have 7-10 hours of activity/week. The increased weight put a lot of pressure on my hips, knees and ankle when walking/hiking so during this trimester I had to shorten these activities to 2h max, typically keeping them around 1h long. On the bike I found that my knees splayed outward because of the bump and I’d have knee and hip pain if I rode for more than an hour. To prevent injury I decided to keep rides shorter and not ride as often. I was so please to be able to continue mountain bike coaching until the Duluth Devo season ended! I primarily coached the 7 year old groups and would join the race team for their recovery rides.
As much as I have missed racing, training, being fast and feeling capable of anything, I also appreciate how hard my body has worked over the past 39 weeks and 6 days to grow a healthy baby. I also realize that it forced me to slow down, and that was a really refreshing change of pace. As I begin to ramp up my training I aim to be more intentional with including some of the things I loved about this slower pace – especially more sunrise walks with friends and more dips in Lake Superior.