My wife ran the 5K of the Heartbeat Run this morning and I am super proud of her. Running has been a part of K's life since well before I met her but it has proved difficult to maintain during pregnancy.
During our fertility journey, we have heard conflicting theories about how running might affect the various procedures K was going through. The best one (in my opinion) is from our fertility doc who insists that running while trying to conceive or while preggers is not an evolutionarily viable strategy, as the body will recognise the physiological effects of running as equivalent to those of being chased. That is, if you happen to be an early hominid and a Smilodon is running you down, this might not be the best time for the sperm and egg to party, nor for a wee embryo to thrive! Watch the opening of the awesome video below and you might feel your gonads shrivel a little bit!
Although the above is an interesting theory (especially for the evolutionary biologist in all of us!), there are many proponents of being as active as possible while pregnant. See the book Exercising Through Your Pregnancy for one such opinion. Although we are not going to test the first theory by running the Zombie Evasion any time soon, the latter theory seems like a winner. However, the changes in K's body (heart rate elevated by 20 beats, blood volume increase by 30%) mean she is expending more energy at rest than I am while running my legs off and that can certainly make for a tired gal!! So, trying to maintain 3-4 runs per week has definitely been a struggle. Thus, my pride in my wonderful wife today. She is awesome!
For, let her
run, she will soon run after;
~Drapple-thorned Aphrodite
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