Pregnancy & Post Delivery Excercise

Ok, I have received a few questions about how/when I started back on the training path after having Samantha. Let me give you the brief blow by blow:

I was very active throughout my entire pregnancy with the 100% blessing of my doctor and all of those in his group. He said to continue doing what I was doing but not to push it. Now was not the time to try to improve performance. Listen to your body he siad. If it says "go run" then go run. If it says "do nothing" then listen to it do not ignore it. I did a pretty good job following that advice. Here is the low down per trimester:

First Trimester:

I gave up biking outside immediately. I'm horribly clumsy and crashing my bike terrified me so I took that risk off the table. At 5 weeks I gave up biking for several months. I woke up one morning during the 5th week and had pretty substaintal bleeding. Bright red blood. I thought this pregnancy was all over. I cried. We went to the doctor and had an ultrasound and saw a heartbeat. We were so relieved. That night I racked my brain to see what could have caused the bleeding. The doctor said it just happens sometimes. I remembered that the previous evening I had ridden my bike on the indoor trainer for 45 minutes. Needless to say, I quit biking for

months. I have an elliptical machine so I started spending more time on it. I was scared at that point and would do 10 minutes ont he ellpitical then a 1/2 mile on the treadmill. This continued with no ill effects and eventually I built up to where I was running 3 miles straight. I continued to run and felt great. No high intensity stuff though. I also continued to swim but only about once or twice a month.

Weight gain was approximately 2 lbs.

Second Trimester:

I "ran" the Disney World 1/2 Marathon. I had never done a 1/2 Marathon before and didn't intend to run the whole thing until we were 3 miles into the race. I can't explain how good I felt that day. It was amazing. We jogged really slowly and walked a few times but we finished and I never felt out of breath or fatigued. It is an awesome race!

The elliptical machine continued to be my best friend. I continued to do workouts where I was on the elliptical then the treadmill, then the elliptical, treadmill, etc. etc. I still stayed off of the bike.

Weight gain was approximately 8lbs for a total of 10

Third Trimester:

I continued the elliptical/treadmill workouts but towards the middle of the third trimester I decided to give the bike a try again. I started really slowly with a 20 minute ride and things went great. My running distance gradually decreased the 2nd half of this trimester. At about 36 weeks I started experiencing significant swelling in my ankles and legs. It gradually got worse. I went to the doctor every week so they could monitor me but I never developed pre eclampsia. I wore compression socks for the last half of the 36th week up until delivery at 38 weeks.

Weight gain: just shy of 15 lbs. 12 of them added during the last 2 weeks mostly due to all of the water retention. Total weight gain, just shy of 25 lbs.

Post Delivery:

While still in the hospital Travis & I started walking. We walked around the floor with Sam in the morning, around noon and again at night. It felt wierd at first - my belly was all jiggly and felt oddly like it wasn't really attached to me. Oh and I got winded fast and I'm not sure why.

On the morning we were discharged I talked to my doctor about exercising. He knows my workout habits because we discussed them at every single visit throughout my pregnancy. He gave me the same guidelines as he gave me during pregnancy. I can do whatever I want as long as I listen to my body. That meant starting out walking and making sure everything went ok there. I could jog/run whenever I felt comfortable. No swimming duing the bleeding period.

I took it easy. We walked a ton the first week. I started jogging 1 week after delivery and gradually worked up from there. I think it helps that I train in 3 different areas (swim, bike run). If I had been trying to run 30+ miles per week one week after having Sam I think I would have been in trouble. Here is a pic of my first post delivery jog:

I felt good so I jumped into the middle of a 12 week sprint tri training plan. It was hard but I kept my effort level within reason. The most difficult thing was finding the time to workout for an extended period of time. I wasn't able to do any long brick workouts and I paid for that on race day. I had no idea how much effort to put in on each leg. As she has gotten older it has gotten easier. She now takes decent naps. Prior to 7 weeks she would nap for a half hour or 45 minutes then be crying. That got a lot better over the last week or so. I imagine that training is going to be difficult until she is bigger but I will work it in. Travis & I want to do a 70.3 next fall so we will have to find the time to train. I wouldn't trade the hassle it for anything in the world! She is so amazing!