QuestionI am 7 weeks pregnant and 12 weeks away from my 2nd 1/2 marathon. I am concerned that I am behind schedule due to fatigue and wonder where I can find a training schedule specifically for early pregnancy, as well as what diet changes I need to make to keep baby and me healthy.
AnswerIf you are in excellent physical condition, then running a half-marathon at 20 weeks gestation might be feasible. But pregnancy is NOT a time to keep to a rigid training schedule.
Fatigue is a common complaint of the first trimester. It's important that you listen to your body and if you need to reduce the intensity and or duration of your workouts, then you should do so. Trying to push through the fatigue dramatically increases your chance of injury, which is the last thing you want to happen.
The pregnant athlete is an area of very little study, so I do not know of any specific training regimes for the first trimester. Most women aim to maintain their fitness routines during the first trimester, then gradually begin to taper down their workouts from about 20 weeks onward.
But every pregnancy is different. Some women breeze through the first trimester, others don't. Some women can continue to run safely into the third trimester, others need to stop running and switch to non-impact exercise by 26 weeks.
As to nutrition, you need to eat the highest quality diet that you can, in the proper amount. This means that you need to add an additional 100 calories per day for the first trimester, and then 300 calories for the second and third trimesters to account for the additional metabolic load of pregnancy. On days that you train, you'll also need to approximate the number of calories that your burned while exercising, and eat that amount so that you are never calorie deficient during pregnancy.
For more information on the impact of aerobic exercise during pregnancy go to:
http://www.befitmom.com/aerobic_exercise.html
