Fast Women: More pro runners are having babies, but it’s not easy
A look at balancing motherhood and competing at a high level.
Issue 404
Don’t worry, it’s not Monday. I’m sending an extra newsletter so I can share the final part of my two-part series on pregnancy and professional running in a timely manner. You can read part one, which focuses on the business side of pregnancy and professional running, here.
Next week will likely be another two-newsletter week because of the Boston Marathon, but after that, Fast Women will return to its usual Monday-only schedule.
Thanks to SOAR for supporting Fast Women this month
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Pro runners talk pregnancy, motherhood, and the reality of making it work
Not long ago, many professional runners in the U.S. waited until the end of their careers to have children, if they had them at all. That has begun to change. In the past several years, an increasing number of high-level runners have announced pregnancies while still competing. Among the reasons for the shift? Stronger sponsor support, a better understanding of what training during pregnancy can look like, and a growing list of athletes showing what’s possible.
That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Raising young children is difficult to balance with any career. For professional runners, part of the challenge is that elite sport and pregnancy require the body to adapt in different, sometimes competing, ways. And every athlete’s path back to high-level running comes with its own set of obstacles.
And while this story focuses on athletes’ experiences with pregnancy and returning to professional running, it’s only part of a broader picture. In recent years, professional runners have also become parents through adoption and surrogacy, and more athletes have begun sharing their experiences with fertility preservation as they try to extend their careers. Fertility struggles and pregnancy loss are also a reality for many athletes.
Deciding when the time is right
The timing of a pregnancy is often beyond an athlete’s control. But when there is choice, professional runners don’t make those decisions lightly. The competition calendar, contract status, financial stability, health insurance, child care, and other variables factor in.
For Aliphine Tuliamuk, the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials champion, the timing came down to circumstance and practicality. She had just signed with Brooks at the start of 2025 when she got pregnant with her second child. Although she was eager to race for her new sponsor, she realized that having a child as soon as possible might ultimately get her back to the starting line faster.
She had just undergone hamstring surgery and knew she wouldn’t be able to run for at least six to nine months. And at 37, she didn’t want to delay having a second child. Waiting until she was healthy, only to step away again, didn’t make sense, so she decided to do both at once. She now has a five-year-old and a five-month-old.
“It was still a hard decision to make,” she told Fast Women. “But I’m glad that things worked out the way they did. I cannot imagine a life without my kids right now.”
Emily Infeld, 36, faced a different calculation. After winning the U.S. 10,000m title last year, she had great momentum, but she was concerned that if she waited too long to have a child, she might face fertility struggles. She also didn’t know how long it would take to get pregnant, and the longer she waited, the more likely it was to affect her chances of making the 2028 Olympic team.
Infeld, who is due in August, had undergone fertility testing and was looking into freezing her eggs when she found out she was pregnant in December. At the time, she was in the middle of negotiating a sponsorship contract with Nike. Initially, she kept the news private due to concerns about miscarriage, but as soon as she was ready to share her news, she informed Nike, before her contract was finalized.
“In my head, I was like, ‘I’m sure that’s not the call they want to get,’” she said. “But they were really, really gracious and my sports marketing rep was thrilled for us.”
Whittni Morgan, 28, was running as well as ever when she found out she was pregnant. She was coming off a fourth-place finish in the 3,000m at the 2025 World Indoor Championships, but when her body felt off racing the 3,000m and 5,000m at Grand Slam Track’s inaugural event in Jamaica in April, she took a pregnancy test. It explained everything.
Morgan realized she was ready to become a mom during the Paris Olympic Games, and had been trying ever since. “I was literally on the starting line for the Olympic final, and I was like, ‘This is not everything,’” she said. “I wasn’t wishing I was anywhere else. I was so grateful to be at the Olympics, but it was just really cool to see what felt most important. Even in that moment, I knew there was more to life.”
For reigning USATF 20K champion Aubrey Frentheway, 26, things unfolded in a very different way. She knew she wanted to become a mother eventually, but didn’t expect it to happen any time soon. A couple weeks after racing the Chicago Marathon, she began experiencing severe cramping that was interfering with all aspects of her life. A nurse advised her to take a pregnancy test and told her that if it was positive, she should go to the ER, because odds were it was ectopic.
Frentheway was indeed pregnant, and a couple weeks later, she was shocked and thrilled to learn that the pregnancy was not ectopic. She was going to be a mom sooner than she expected.
Running through pregnancy—or not
Many devoted athletes imagine running right up until their due date, but for most, it doesn’t play out that way.
Like Tuliamuk, 2:19 marathoner and 2016 Olympian Betsy Saina, 37, intentionally had her second child while she was dealing with a running-related setback, to minimize her time away from the sport. Saina had knee surgery in December 2024 and roughly nine months later, she gave birth. Her recovery from the surgery meant that she was not able to do much running at all during her pregnancy. And even if she had been healthy, running would have been tough early on, because she dealt with severe nausea throughout her first trimester.
After she gave birth, Saina took another two months off from running. Now, nearly seven months postpartum, she’s doing well and hoping to run a fall marathon. “I was super excited to [return to running],” she said. “And my body’s very, very strong now.”
Frentheway, who is due in August, was already dealing with a hamstring injury before she became pregnant. Initially, when her cross training started feeling harder than usual, she thought it was a sign that she was out of shape. So she began pushing herself harder, which only made the cramping she was experiencing worse.
Once she realized she was pregnant, she backed off, but just as the cramping subsided, she began experiencing nausea, which lasted for months. By March, her hamstring had finally healed enough for her to try running, but now she’s dealing with pelvic pain.
“It is so powerful to see all these women running through pregnancy and doing races,” Frentheway said. “I want so badly to be one of those women who can race and show other women that they can do it while pregnant, but my body has just said, ‘Nope, that is not for you.’”
Frentheway has done some of her cross training with 2021 NCAA 1500m champion Anna Camp-Bennett, 28, whose first child is due in May. Camp-Bennett ran for the first 18 weeks of her pregnancy but admits she probably should have stopped at 16. She struggled with nausea through the first half of her pregnancy, and once that subsided, she developed pain in her pubic bone. But in her third trimester, she’s feeling better and focusing on cross training.
“This has been a good practice in not comparing myself to others and having the mental fortitude to be okay with what’s happening and know that however long it takes, I can come back,” Camp-Bennett said.
Twenty-nine-year-old Amy Davis-Green, a 2:28 marathoner for the Hansons-Brooks Original Distance Project, had her first child in December. During the first 15 weeks of her pregnancy, she ran six races and even picked up some prize money along the way. But she had to take weeks 26-33 off from running due to pain in her SI joint. She was able to do a little running after that, but in the final four weeks of her pregnancy, she stepped back again. Though she wished she was able to run more, she tried to see it as an opportunity.
“You don’t really get a natural break from competing, and I’ve been [at it] since high school,” she said. “So I tried to look at that period as a time to embrace things I wouldn’t normally have the ability to embrace.”
Tristin Colley, a 31-year-old 2:25 marathoner, gave birth to her first child two weeks ago, and her experience during pregnancy was on the opposite end of the spectrum. She was training for the Chicago Marathon when she found out she was pregnant, and she felt good enough to run 90- to 100-mile weeks and continue with workouts through her first trimester. From there, her training gradually decreased. When she spoke to Fast Women 37 weeks into her pregnancy, her runs were down to 3-5 miles and 8:45 pace felt like 7:00 pace used to.
The postpartum experience
Three days after giving birth, Colley posted in her Instagram stories, “No one warned me how hard the first nights home are 😭😭😭 JK you all did, but for real, what is this 😩😅”
It can be difficult to describe how life-altering becoming a mother is, and how overwhelming the early days and months can feel. Morgan, who is now four months postpartum, said she’s grateful for all of the professional runners who have proved that doing both is possible, otherwise she would have had her doubts.
“During the first few weeks and even occasionally now still, I’m like, ‘How are they doing it?’ Because it is a lot,” Morgan said. “I was like, ‘It is literally impossible to do what I need to do to be at the level I want to be (as a runner) and also be a mom.’ But now that I’m a few months out, I’m seeing that it’s possible.”
Elle St. Pierre is one runner many American women point to as proof of what’s possible. In 2024, one year after having her first child, she became the first U.S. woman to win the World Indoor 3,000m title. And nine months after having her second child, she won the 3,000m at the 2026 New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in 8:26.54. After having her first child, St. Pierre told Fast Women that she was surprised by how isolating the first month of motherhood was, even with a lot of support.
“Elle is someone we can all look to for hope that we can do it and be successful, while also trying to remember that it’s probably going to be a little bit different for everyone,” Morgan said.
Avoiding comparison is a recurring theme in conversations about the postpartum period. There’s a shared understanding that it’s hard. Beyond that, no two journeys look the same. Childbirth experiences and recovery vary widely, every newborn has its own set of needs, and every mother’s support system is different. And because social media often highlights only the best moments, most of what’s visible doesn’t reflect the daily reality.
Returning to running
When athletes are ready to return to running postpartum, even the pros don’t always know where to start. “It’s like a total rebuilding of your body,” said two-time Olympian and two-time mom, Molly Huddle, 41. “And then there’s also this uncertainty about how you come back to elite running and what the timeline is. So you’re kind of like, ‘I’m in a hurry, but I don’t even know what I’m doing.’”
Paris Olympian Marisa Howard, 33, has a three-year-old and an 8-month-old. She had a relatively smooth experience training during her first pregnancy. When running no longer felt like a good idea, she switched to uphill hikes—which mimicked the running position and got her heart rate up—and swimming. Her second pregnancy was tougher. A vaginal infection interfered with her training during her second trimester. But she was still able to return to running a little sooner the second time around, about five weeks postpartum.
Howard and many other pros emphasize the importance of working with a good pelvic floor physical therapist, and she had a small team of them. She worked remotely with one who understood the athletic component of what she was trying to accomplish, and she also worked with a local therapist who helped with aspects that needed to be addressed in person.
When Howard returned to running after her first pregnancy, she dealt with incontinence. “I think it’s very normal,” she said. “But I don’t think a lot of people talk about it.” But being more diligent with her pelvic floor PT exercises took care of the problem.
Davis-Green has had a tougher return. After 28 hours of labor, her baby’s heart rate was dropping with each contraction, so she ended up having a c-section. At first, she felt a little disappointed, but when she learned that the umbilical cord had been wrapped around her son’s neck three times, she only felt relief that her doctor made that call.
The c-section meant that she needed a longer recovery. “I think that as athletes, we’re like, ‘We can do anything,’ and we have this belief that this is like coming back from an injury and you’re just going to bounce back,” she said. “And that was difficult for me, how long it took to feel like myself.”
When Davis-Green was ready to return, she started by alternating running and walking, and gradually worked her way up to running six miles. But then she developed osteitis condensans ilii, hardening of the iliac bone that is more common among pregnant women. Four months postpartum, she was still unable to run, which was difficult because she had expected to be back to training with her teammates by then.
Tuliamuk hoped that by overlapping her pregnancy and her recovery from surgery, her hamstring would be pain-free by the time she gave birth. But nearly 16 months after her surgery and five months postpartum, her hamstring is still limiting her at times, and she still has some pregnancy-related lower abdominal discomfort when she does longer runs. When she spoke to Fast Women, she was in Boulder, Colorado, getting shockwave therapy to help break up the scar tissue in her hamstring, and she’s hopeful that it will make a significant difference.
She has been building her mileage as much as she can without setting herself back, because she knows she’s not going to get anywhere until her hamstring has fully healed.
“It’s very, very hard to be patient, especially because my contract is for two years and time is ticking,” she said. “If my hamstring doesn’t allow me to train at a high level, there’s really nothing I can do. When you go through the stages of grief, eventually you get to a place where you accept the way it is. If my body allows me, I would really love to race a marathon by the end of the year. If it doesn’t, I don’t have a choice, right? You can go crazy and it’s not going to help you. It helps knowing that I did not put my family life on hold. I literally have everything I ever hoped for, except for the fact that I’m not training for a marathon right now.”
Breastfeeding and child care challenges
Morgan ran up until she was 36 weeks pregnant, and then eased back into running when she felt ready, but she had to take a small step back due to some Achilles issues. Catching it quickly helped her avoid a bigger setback, and now she’s back in training. One of her biggest challenges has been maintaining her milk supply as she increases her volume and intensity.
“It’s something that I feel like people don’t talk about very much,” she said. “But breastfeeding is like a grind, and if your baby doesn’t latch perfectly right away, it’s kind of like a mental roller coaster.”
Huddle was surprised by the challenges of breastfeeding, too. “Breastfeeding has impacted me probably as much as pregnancy, which I wasn’t expecting,” she said. “You just have to be so nutritionally prepared and robust, and the incidence of stress fractures with elite athletes is so high. It’s work to run 100 miles a week and be on top of your fueling. You can’t just eat when you’re hungry, you have to eat [more often]. And as a new mom, it’s hard to keep up with that because you’re juggling all of these other needs.”
Another challenge is simply making training possible. Some athletes have spouses, family, or friends available to watch their children while they train, others need to hire help. Saina has taken a different approach and moved back to Kenya, where she grew up. There, she has multiple nannies, as well help with cooking and cleaning, which allows her to focus on running and bonding with her children. She plans to spend time in the U.S. periodically, but as long as she’s running professionally, she’ll remain in Kenya, where she has significantly more support.
It’s perhaps not a coincidence that Kenyan women lead the way when it comes to having babies and returning to racing at a world class level. Many of the world’s best runners are moms, and Tuliamuk pointed out on the Fast People podcast that many of them take a different approach during pregnancy, stepping away from training as soon as they start showing, and taking up to six months off after they give birth. “When they come back, they are super strong and they don’t have to worry about injuries,” she said.
Returning to racing
Getting back to racing as a parent presents a new set of logistical challenges. After having both of her children, Howard found that her endurance came back faster than her speed. She likes to ease into racing by trying something she doesn’t normally do, so she’s less likely to compare it to what she’s done in the past. In February, she planned to make her half marathon debut at the Mesa Half, but then her three-year-old got sick, and she had to pivot to running the Ventura Half a week later instead.
When she travels to races without her children, she has to think through the logistics of where and when she’s going to pump. At track meets, she tries to find a quiet spot to slip her portable pump under her shirt. “They’re pretty small, so I can still walk around and do whatever,” she said. And when she knows she’ll be away from a refrigerator or freezer for a long stretch, she’ll bring along ice to keep the milk cool.
There are more logistics to think about in nearly every stage of her life now, but she also feels that having kids has taken some of the pressure off her running. “I don’t have as much time to stress or be nervous, because my mind is preoccupied with my children,” she said. “That’s been a huge blessing, and I get to just go have fun with these races.”
Olympian Rachel Smith, 34, has a one-year-old and an almost three-year-old, and it has taken a village to support her racing over the past couple of years. Her parents have traveled to many of her races to provide child care, and sometimes she chooses races based on which ones will be easiest for them to get to.
When she raced the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile last weekend, event organizers helped by giving her two hotel rooms—one for her husband and their kids, and the other for her, so she could get a good night’s sleep.
The night before the 2024 USATF 15K Championships was nowhere near as restful. Her child care plans had fallen through, so her mother-in-law was flying in to help at the last minute. Smith barely slept as she spent much of the night nursing and tending to her then-10-month-old daughter. Before becoming a parent, she didn’t operate well on little sleep. But motherhood has given her a deeper sense of gratitude for the opportunity to race, and it has taught her that she always has more to give, even when she doesn’t think she does.
The next morning, she drew on that strength, overcame a sizable mid-race deficit, and kicked to win the national title.
“Some of it, too, is that your body just did the hardest thing possible by giving birth, so hitting pain in a race isn’t nearly as tough,” she said. “I told a friend, ‘This body got me to the Olympics, but the thing my body’s done that I’m most in awe of is that I grew a human. It’s a very common experience, but it’s also like the most extraordinary thing in the world.”
(Part one in this series is available here.)
You are such a gift to the sport. Enjoyed reading this!
First piece on athlete pregnancy/postparum I've read that doesn't shy away from the realities. Thanks for this!