Many women do not win the genetic lottery when it comes to morning sickness and I equally fall into this boat. During my first and second trimesters, I may as well be a half-dead carcus on its last attempts to live. Between 8-20 weeks I feel like death and exercising haults to a “can I walk for 20 minutes?” or very literally staring at the calender desperate for it to end. When I’m not fighting morning sickness I’m fighting not turning into a beached whale – I can’t stare at a carb without it converting weight on my body.
At about 5 months into the pregnancy do I regain some sense of self and I can ease myself back into my routine of running/lunch walks/cycling. Around this time, I am also able to get back into moderate to strenuous dayhikes. I do try to minimize the “danger” in sense of cliff crossings, or cable walks but I don’t mind any inclines or declines.
this last pregnancy, I faced couple of unexpected suprises on the trail that required me to adjust my hiking gear. First, I worried about managing my balance, and the impact of the extra weight on my knees.Second, after roughly 5 miles of hiking my ankles would start swelling. The swelling pressed against my hiking boots and bruised pretty badly.
Hiking Poles: Help Balance, and Knees
Being pregnant, having the extra weight and slight off-balance, I found that having hiking poles for the ascents and decents was a great advantage. On the inclines, the poles just help give me a boost up. On the descents, I found it helped my balance, I felt a lot more secure going down. Second, with all the extra weight I’m carrying around, the poles would help take pressure off my knees.
Compression Socks: Help Reduce Ankle Swelling
I was extremely skeptical because I never do this but wearing compression socks came highly recommended at the outdoor store I was shopping at. I ended up getting these Sockwell Outdoor Compressions Socks.
Because compressions socks run thin, if you typically wear thicks socks with your hiking shoes, it was recommended to wear the compression socks over a second pair of thin hiking socks. I did double up on socks to have a snug fit in the shoes.
All in all, I did find that wearing compressions socks regulated the swelling in my ankles on long hikes and even in the office. So compression socks for the win.
Low Hiking Shoes: Help Swelling and Avoid ankle bruising
Lastly, because of all the bruising I had on my ankle my normal hiking boots were extremely uncomfortable. I personally am not a fan of low top hiking shoes. All low tops feel loose and insecure to me. But I caved and got a pair. Because I was in a time-crunch/emergency I purchased the La Sportiva’s Spire GTX low tops. I’ll discuss later in detail what I think of these shoes, but in summary despite raving reviews they are really not my favorite.
Overall though, the combination of low top hiking shoes and compressions socks helped manage my ankle swelling and avoid any further bruising.
That’s all folks! Thanks for visiting and happy hiking (while pregnant)!