As an avid runner, Paula Radcliffe has always been one of my running heroines. I've written about her and running during pregnancy a number of times in the last few years. Well, she's pregnant for the second time around and the Daily Mail recently did a feature on her as she prepares for London 2012.
My girl Paula is still running 14 miles per day in her 5th month of pregnancy:
"I've been running around seven miles in about 45 minutes twice a day, combined with altitude and gravity training on a specially designed treadmill."
American marathoner Kara Goucher is also pregnant and she has been getting tips from Paula on how to proceed with training.
It is generally accepted that running in pregnancy is safe as long as you don't start running when you become pregnant or get too overheated. If you are a seasoned runner, there is no problem with keeping up your normal routines.
What worries me, however, is that in publishing her training regimen (even though Radcliffe is an elite athlete) there are still surely some women out there (who are not elite athletes) that will think that they aren't exercising enough or that they need to keep up with one of the greatest female marathoners in recent history.
What do you think? Are you proud of Paula for being a running queen? Or is it unethical to tell the world about her pregnancy training regimen?
2 comments:
I love that Paula Radcliffe is being open about her running regimen while she's pregnant. I really don't believe that most pregnant women will think they're not doing enough exercise simply by reading about her running endeavors. We all know that she's an elite athlete and runs for a living. Being almost 7 months pregnant, I'm still maintaining a similar number of running miles that I was pre-pregnancy. The main difference is that I'm much slower. Although I've received nothing but positive feedback from my doctor, I've noticed that not everyone is so supportive. Having runners like Paula Radcliffe share their pregnancy running experiences is a great support to those of us who want to maintain our own running during pregnancy.
I knew of one waitress that waited tables until 8 1/2 months. Another two I know tried to wait tables EVEN THOUGH they were having cramping and other symptoms. One lost the fetus and the other had a very expensive preemie that sat in ICU for a month. Their reasoning? If waitress number one could do it, why can't I?
The truth is, people's bodies are different, and if someone decides to ignore their body symptoms based on a magazine, then Darwin will take care of that. It's not the runner's fault.
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