I wanted to recap my mileage and workouts from the past 4 weeks of running during my pregnancy because I’ve had people tell me they referenced the blogs posts I wrote when I was pregnant with Cullen. They accessed these blog posts during their own pregnancies to get ideas for workouts and know what might be possible during pregnancy.
What I have done is by no means what you should strive to do, but instead, you can use this to give you an idea of workouts you might do if you’re not quite sure what to expect when running during the beginning of the second trimester.
As always, listen to your body and don’t push beyond what feels comfortable to you. You’ll see I had good workouts and no-so-great workouts all within the same week. That’s the thing with pregnancy: it changes so much during this time–week to week and even day to day.
I’ve continued to try and do one harder workout a week, whether that has been a shorter interval workout, mile repeats, or a tempo workout. I have also tried to keep up my long runs as best I could.
Week #14 of pregnancy
Monday – 5 miles | 8:50 average pace
Easy run with a friend. . .still in the snow. Sigh.
Tuesday – off
Wednesday – 7 miles with 3 x 1 mile
I pushed Cullen in the stroller to the track to do this workout. He played while I ran laps around the track.
Splits – 6:42, 6:41, 6:39
I was happy with these splits. I did a similar workout during Cullen’s pregnancy around the same time, and my splits were faster this time around.
Thursday – 4 miles | 8:39 average pace
Ran to and from training group practice.
Friday – 0 miles
Came down with a cold.
Saturday – 1 mile
I tried to run, but my throat was on fire, I still have labored breathing from the pregnancy, and now an even harder time breathing with this cold. I wasn’t having fun, so I called it quits.
Sunday – 2 miles | 8:59 average pace
Two miles is better than nothing, but the cold still slowed me down and made breathing even more difficult.
Total: 19 miles
Week #15 of pregnancy
Monday – 3 miles | 8:59 average pace
Easy run but my cold still makes things difficult.
Tuesday – 5 miles | 8:37 average pace
Finally starting to feel a little bit warmer. Another easy run because my body is still not fully recovered from the cold.
Wednesday – off
Thursday – 7 miles | 8:48 average pace
Easy run in Minnesota with my coworker around the lakes in Minneapolis.
Friday – 3 miles
Tread and Shred class at Fly Feet in Minneapolis
This was a hard interval workout that had me running 1 minute hard on the treadmill with a 1 minute rest. I did about 12 of these intervals. We also lifted weights during the class, and my hamstring paid for it for several days afterwards.
Saturday – 6 miles | 8:06 average pace
Easy run around another lake in Minnesota! I actually felt quite good after yesterday’s hard workout.
Sunday – 6 miles | 8:16 average pace
Holy moly are my hamstrings toast after the workout on Friday. I could barely get them to move at the beginning of this run.
Total: 30 miles
Week #16 of pregnancy
Monday – 4 miles
Stride class at Fly Feet in Wayzata, MN
This was a more running-focused class with 4 x 400 meters and 8 x 200 meters.
Tuesday – 0 miles
Wednesday – 9 miles | 8:17 average pace
I was only planning on running 7 or 8 miles, but I was feeling good and had the time, so I ran a total of 9 miles! I was really happy with this run and happy to be feeling better (i.e. less out of breath) and more like my normal pre-pregnancy self.
Thursday – 4 miles | 8:47 average pace + 30 minutes of weight lifting
Early morning run before training group because it was the only chance I would have before flying all night to Portland.
Friday – 3 miles | 9:34 average pace
Very slow run in Portland with Craig after flying all night. My legs were pretty heavy from travel and lack of sleep.
Saturday – 7 miles | 8:44 average pace
Easy run with my sister in Portland!
Sunday – off
Total: 27 miles
Week #17 of pregnancy
Monday – 11 miles | 8:53 average pace
I did not think a long run was going to happen. My sister and I set out to run 6-7 miles, but then we got lost, so we ended up running 8 miles. When we got back to our Airbnb, we convinced our husbands to run 3 miles more with us, which brought me to 11 miles for the day!
Tuesday – 4 miles | trail run
Trail run in Forest Park (Portland). I loved the rolling hills despite the cool and rainy weather.
Wednesday – 5 miles | 8:50 average pace
Last run in Portland by myself. Felt so-so. . . nothing great, nothing terrible.
Thursday – off
Friday – 5 miles | 9:05 average pace + 30 minutes of weights
I pushed Cullen in the stroller to and from the grocery store to pick up a few items. This should count as triple the miles. Ha!
Saturday – 4 miles | 8:34 average pace
Easy, early morning run before work. So quiet and peaceful!
Sunday – 12 miles | 8:29 average pace
A successful long run! I did have some lower abdominal cramping for the first few miles, but then I stopped at Target to go to the bathroom and felt much better. Overall, a really great run!
Total: 41 miles
Some of my runs have stayed close to my pre-pregnancy easy pace of 8:00-8:30, but other days I’m about 30-45 seconds per mile slower. Overall, I am feeling much better now, but it took until week 16. (It was closer to 12/13 weeks when things took a turn for the better side with Cullen.)
As you can see, I’ve had good weeks and not-so-great weeks. Weeks where I was forced to take some additional time off and listen to my body, but also weeks that surprised me, and I felt better than I had been feeling.
I hope this is helpful, and I’m planning on continuing to post my workouts throughout this pregnancy–as I did my first. I remember my running started to take a turn for the worse during the second half of the second trimester, so I probably don’t have too many weeks of feeling this good, but I’ll take them now while I can!
