Simply Bike ? cycling while pregnant: the second trimester

This is the second in a series of guest posts for?Girls and Bicyles?on the subject of cycling while pregnant. You can follow along with the series here or on?Girls and Bicyles, where you can also read all about Miss Sarah cycling while pregnant with her second child. If you?re a pregnant cyclist or have cycled while pregnant in the past, we would love to hear from you! Email us or leave us a comment! Have any particular questions you?d like us to address? Chime in on the discussion below!

{19 weeks pregnant, heading to work on my bike}

I?m an avid reader of Girls and Bicycles, so?when Miss Sarah asked me to contribute a series of guests posts on the subject of cycling while pregnant, I was thrilled. I biked until my 38th week of pregnancy, albeit increasingly slower and for much shorter distances towards the end. But even with those amendments to my daily routine, I still was happy to get on my bike and ride to work or to my doctor?s appointments, moving my legs and keeping my body feeling healthy and strong.

The second trimester in particular was wonderful for cycling. I was done with the dehabilitating fatigue that put a cloud over the first trimester and I wasn?t yet so unbearably huge that I needed to ajust my stance to keep my knees from hitting my belly as was the case in the third trimester. Like everyone always says, the second trimester is the honeymoon period.

And honeymoon we did, my bike and I.

During the second trimester, I was still comfortably riding both of my bikes (a more upright vintage Raleigh and a more forward-leaning Peugeot mixte). I was still easily making my daily commute (just under 2 miles each way) to work and back home. I was also still able to throw in some longer bike rides or tackle days of errands, biking to yoga, and meeting friends for lunch, as long as I was careful to stay hydrated and to give myself breaks when needed.

In preparation for writing this post, I searched my blog archives for all my ?cycling while pregnant? posts to see what I had to say about the subject back then, when I was actually going through it. I was almost dissapointed to see how little I touched on the pregnancy part during the posts on cycling. In one post, typical of so many others composed during that time, I wrote:

?That ride back home is all I need to decompress: the brisk pedaling, the sounds of the city and nature, the crisp sting of the winter air. Nothing makes me shake off office stress and switch to home mode more easily than that transition bike ride between campus and home. It?s just not the same by car.?

This tells you just how little the pregnancy was affecting my riding at the time. It was insignificant enough to my daily commute that it rarely factored into my writings; rather, the joy and everyday bliss of getting on my bike dominated those entries.

I?m well aware that the sight of a pregnant woman on a bike is somewhat of a rarity in our North American culture but there is nothing to be afraid of, if certain precautions are taken. The pregnant body is not an incapacitated body and a woman should be free to continue what was previsouly routine activity for as long as she feels good and the baby is doing well. In my case, getting on my bike and continuing to ride gave me that much needed psychological boost that was especially important while pregnant and caring for another life inside of me.

Thank you, Miss Sarah, for letting me reminisce about those days a little bit. Wishing you a continued happy and healthy pregnancy and many more bike rides until baby arrives! ? S.

You might also like:?cycling while pregnant: the first trimester,

and stories from other women cycling through their pregnancy.?

Source: http://simplybikeblog.com/?p=6612&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cycling-while-pregnant-the-second-trimester

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