Running while pregnant…

The holidays are full-on in motion and I’m over halfway through my 2nd trimester but I’m still running right through it all!

Last weekend was an amazing racing weekend in San Francisco, specifically in the Marin Headlands for the Northface Endurance Challenge.

I’ve ran this event 3 times now:

The Northface marathon in 2012

The Northface Gore-tex 50 mile in 2014

And the Northface marathon again this year.

The biggest difference this year is I ran the marathon at 22 weeks/ 5 months pregnant!

I have been blessed and lucky to feel strong, solid and energetic for most of my 2nd pregnancy, not unlike my 1st actually (which I ran Boston marathon at 23 weeks pregnant).

The Northface marathon is run on all trails, single-track and fire-road, some technical parts and over 5,000 feet of climbing!

  
So it’s quite different than a road race. But I am always up for a challenge and have the support of my OBGYN, husband, and awesome family and friends to do what I feel is right.

I ran in 4:29:10, 12th female and 4th in my age group, which is an awesome pace for this hilly, trail marathon and for carrying some extra baggage. If anything I felt under-trained in my legs, but never felt awful pregnancy-wise or cardio-wise. That all stayed fairly comfortable!

  

This pregnancy so far has brought me to the end of my biggest year in training and racing ever. It’s crazy to think the 2nd half of the year I have pretty much been pregnant and still running a lot of the volume I can normally handle, slower paces at times, but still enjoying ‘racing’ a lot too!

I’ve ran 2 (trail) marathons; the Golden Hills in October (and Northface in Dec)

2 (trail) half marathons; the Inside Trail Berkeley Half in September

The Inside China Camp Half in November

As well as a 5k road race (which I PR’d late in July)

The Mt Tam hill climb over Labor day

And my first cross-country race with my team (super fun!)

And a lot of training miles up and down Mt Tam, in the Headlands and all around.

  

I know as the year winds down and the kick off of 2016 will bring much slower paces and less mileage and I’m OK with that. But I am just enjoying all the moments of running and feeling great that I can right now because I KNOW it won’t last forever. I have 4 more months of pregnancy left to lighten up, so we will see what it brings.

I will say I was able to run up to days before my 1st was born, so I’m banking on the fact that I’m even more stronger now than I was 2 1/2 years ago to keep at it! But I’m always ready and willing to do what is best for myself and the little one I’m carrying.

Along with running, I complete a lot of strength/ weight training (3-4x a week), light yoga (2-3x a week), core work (very specific pregnancy friendly core-work), and a lot of post-run exercises with resistance bands, etc. I also ‘cross train’ with cycling and the stair-master in between run days. So I maintain a wide variety of activity, all along with running after a 2 year old toddler!

So just a little update on this past weekends great marathon and lots of kudos to all my friends, training buddies, teammates and all out there last weekend racing, cheering and volunteering! I’ll use this adrenaline and endorphin’s to get me through the end of the year!