Running During the 2nd and 3rd Trimesters

As the 1^st trimester came to a close and the 2^nd trimester began I slowly regained my energy.  Running became easier and I no longer dealt with a burning sensation in my thighs as I ran.  The exhaustion was also beginning to subside.  I was no longer consumed with worry about miscarriage and began to slowly increase my mileage.  My pace remained at 9:30-10:00 miles for most of the 2^nd trimester and then began to slow to 10:00-10:30 pace in the 3^rd trimester with a few rough days at 11:00 pace.

My new struggle was my hips.  I began to have hip pain as I ran.  Well, not necessarily pain, more like pressure.  It was a very uncomfortable pressure.  I also began having Braxton Hicks contractions during runs.  I found that if I continued to run they went away pretty quickly, so I would just run through them.  

As time went on it took longer for my body to “warm up”.  The entire first mile was an awkward struggle between me and my body.  In my head I looked like Phoebe in Friends running in a strange and crazy way flailing my arms.  My legs didn’t seem to move the way I wanted them to and my upper body could move faster than my lower body.  I felt like I was a marionette puppet and the child holding the strings, controlling my movements, had a very strange sense of humor.

When I ran past other people on the trail I always seemed to catch their eye.  Was it the bulging belly or the wild out of control form?  I felt like the way I was running initially caught their attention and then they spied the reason for the strange and out of rhythm movements.

How was running/exercising during the end of your pregnancy?