Biking at 20 weeks Pregnant

This is a series I’m doing where I document how it feels to commute by bike during my pregnancy every few weeks. You can see first one at 14 weeks here.

It’s January in Toronto and of course the weather is being up and down as per usual. This week, I’m hitting my 20th week of pregnancy and after a night of freezing rain, and above zero temperatures for the day, I decided to ride home from the office.

Figure: A look at the bike lane conditions. Mostly dry but some icy spots and little rivers of runoff.

I was going to ride into the office as well since it was not very rainy but the sidewalks were just way too slippery on my way to the Bikeshare station and I didn’t feel like risking it on the bike lanes, in case there was black ice from the night before.

Overall, the ride home was very pleasant - not a lot of wind and the paths were mainly clear. My belly is getting bigger but luckily I’m still able to zip my winter jacket over it. I love using a Bikeshare bike because the step-through frame means it’s easier to get on/off, even as my belly grows bigger.

Health Stats

Figure: Stats from my Apple Watch - a 28 minutes ride with an average speed of 12.7km/h

As you can see, I was going pretty slowly at 12.7 km/hr but it’s not out of the norm for me. My average heart rate was 102 beats per minute which is great since I’m supposed to be getting 150 min of moderate exercise a week while pregnant. As a non-pregnant cyclist on a 3-speed bike, I was maybe riding at an average speed of 15km/hr. I’ll never be the fastest person on the bike lane but that’s OK because cycle commuting is just something that I enjoy.