Alysia running with her pregnant belly

By NATALIA HAWK

Last month, Alysia Montano – a 28-year-old professional runner in the USA – took part in the 800m race at the national running championships.

She was also 34 weeks pregnant at the time. Which is quite far along in a pregnancy – as evidenced by the big bump that you could see through her bright pink singlet.

The reactions have been mixed. Some thought that she was doing the right thing – after all, Alysia ran in the 2012 Olympics and has competed in many championships on both national and international levels.

Others were shocked by her actions; it’s one thing to see a heavily pregnant woman – it’s quite another to see her competing in a professional athletic race. In fact, this is the first time that an athlete has competed at national championships while so heavily pregnant.

It’s important to note that Alysia, who is due in August, consulted her doctors before the race. They confirmed that it was fine for her to compete. She also had medical staff check the baby’s wellbeing directly after the race was done, and all was well.

The other important thing to note? Alysia took a very relaxed pace during the race (which is still ridiculously fast for us normal non-runners, but slow for her). She came in last place. And the crowd gave her a standing ovation as she crossed the finish line, clapping and cheering for both her and the baby.

So the question remains: is it really okay to run at such a level when you’re pregnant? And why did Alysia even choose to run in the national championships in the first place?

Sports journalist Paul Cochrane did an interview with Alysia to find out the answers to both of the above questions. Here is some of that interview below, originally published at Athlete’s Talk and republished here with full permission:

According to Australian guidelines, Alysia is pretty much spot-on with her thinking around pregnancy and fitness. This is from the Sports Medicine Australia fact-sheet:

General consensus is to consult with your doctor as to what kind of exercise is best for you throughout your pregnancy – of course, every mother is different and may experience different symptoms (such as pain or bleeding) that render exercise during pregnancy a bad idea.

And you know what? If you don’t want to exercise during pregnancy, that’s okay too. If you’re too busy just trying to get through the day without feeling incredibly unwell in some way – well done, you.

It’s great for Alysia to be bringing some awareness to fitness and pregnancy – just don’t feel like a bad mother if you’re not running laps around a running track on a regular basis.

And in other sports news from the week…

The Commonwealth Games have officially kicked off in Glasgow, Scotland this week. Our first few days of competition saw:

– Cyclist Anna Meares win gold in the 500m sprint time trial (she is officially Australia’s most successful track cyclist);

– Cyclist Stephanie Morton win silver in the same event;

– Our Australian Diamond netballers beat Wales, 63-36;

– Swimmer Emma McKeon win gold in the 200m freestyle;

– Bronte Barratt win bronze in the same event; and

– Our female freestyle swimmers set a new world record for the 4x100m relay.

Oh, and let’s not forget that the QUEEN photobombed a photo of our very own Hockeyroos. Click here to see the pic.

Have you seen anything in the sporting world that you’d like to talk about?