Pregnant Runners

Taken immediately after crossing the finish line of  my first half marathon

Today I weigh about 120 pounds, I say "about" because honestly I haven't checked in a few weeks but I doubt it's changed. A year ago at this time I weighed 110 pounds and I was training for my first Half Marathon. It was called Chosen: Marathon For Adoption, run in New Braunfels. Prior to that Race I had done many 5ks and one 10k. I love running and I just wanted to take on the challenge of the half marathon!

After I finished that half marathon I decided it was time to try something entirely new. I'd always wanted to be stronger and to put on more muscle but I thought I was just someone who had a hard time gaining muscle. But then one day another personal trainer at USAA who also happened to be a body builder came up to me and said I should train for a figure competition. So to make a long story short, for three months I trained as if I was going to compete, although I never did end up competing. However I did put on about 8 pounds of muscle before getting back into running but even since then I've continued my weight lifting and obviously continued to put on weight! I love it, I never thought I'd be able to put on that much muscle, but that was only because I'd never really tried! Now I have a good balance between weight lifting and running and I'd love to continue both during my pregnancy. I've heard some runners say that running while pregnant felt weird, but I've also seen examples of runners that continued running through their pregnancy. For example Kara Goucher and Paula Radcliffe are both Olympic runners who were featured in several magazines as "Pregnant Runners." I'm sure even they slowed their pace to at least a 7 minute mile during pregnancy!

Kara Goucher and Paula Radcliffe

Paula pregnant and outrunning the men!