Americano
Forgot to say that all the advice I've seen says that, if your body is used to exercise, then it's best that you keep exercising when you get pregnant. You will need to tailor what you do to how tired/sick/sore-boobed you feel, but you are much less likely to develop the annoying side-effects of early pregnancy, and you can protect against the potentially dangerous complications of later pregnancy, such as high blood pressure, diabetes etc.
Your body is going through so many changes in early pregnancy that cutting out exercise altogether if you have been used to it is actually thought to make it more of a challenge for your body to cope.
But, as with all these things, I suspect it's based on conjecture and anecdotal evidence (ie. one woman didn't run in first pregnancy and felt rough/had high blood pressure, but ran in second and felt better/didn't have high blood pressure etc), because, as you can well understand, no woman is going to allow her pregnancy to be subjected to serious medical experiments to test the affects of exercise on the baby. They've done tests on pregnant ewes, making them exercise hard for extended periods of time, and come to various conclusions - everything from 'it's very dangerous' to 'it's absolutely fine', but these days, it's generally acknowledged that exercising at an intensity which the pregnant woman feels is 'quite hard' is perfectly fine. No-one will tell you how long it's OK to run for - ie 30 mins, an hour or longer? It depends on how YOU feel.
Wow - that was a lot of waffle, wasn't it?
I'll get me coat...
All the best!
