Moms can still be athletes

Having a baby doesn't have to end your athletic career. But what if your dearly-held athletic career is, well, not exactly your career?

A couple weeks ago, I ran my highest mileage week in four years: 30.9 miles. And no, I didn’t get myself balloons to celebrate while I chilled on the dock at Green Lake, that part is GenAI, but WHAT IF I HAD… 🎈Extra? No?

I have been doing my best to “Moms can still be athletes” my way through life since I got pregnant with my first child in 2020, had her, then had my second child in 2022. And it’s kind of, uh, not working.

For background, I was an NCAA track/cross-country competitor at Baylor, and competed post-collegiately in the marathon. I ran in the 2020 Olympic Trials, qualifying in 2018 with a personal best of 2:43 in the marathon. I’ve been a runner since I was eight years old.

Almost two years since my last baby, there’s nothing officially wrong with my body. I just can’t run as much as I used to, and I’m a lot slower. I obviously can’t race close to my old times. I ran a very well-executed half marathon race this year, and it was 35 minutes slower than my PR. I was not delusional that my fitness or performances would all come back right away, but I thought I would at least be on the way back, or have a clear path ahead. But with the pace of my recovery and return-to-run lack of progress, the dream of competing is still on hold, maybe indefinitely.

I thought there was no way that kids would be the death knell for my competitive running career. But so far, it seems like they are.

In the past I was always able to figure out new challenges and make things work for training. That looked like running a little less, training smarter, and fitting in training around a 9-5 job. But I genuinely can’t figure out any more cards to play now—or, any more cards I want to play. And that’s probably the rub.

Example: after hearing me complain about this problem, a good friend and fellow runner who I admire deeply, suggested I could get a treadmill. She reasoned that I could run when the kids were asleep, or that our nanny could come early so I could workout before work. I easily found excuses for why that wouldn’t work. I don’t want a treadmill, and if I were running inside, my kids would bother me; if they were asleep, I should be sleeping too. And I already have so many hours of childcare, I don’t want less time with my littles. And while valid reasons for me, they represented the truth perhaps more starkly than I was willing to admit. I was at capacity for what I wanted to and was able to give to being an athlete. Those are logistical solutions to a problem. But the problem is deeper than that: I am a mom and I have a job that’s somewhat stressful; I’m juggling a lot between that, my marriage, my friendships, and taking care of my overall health.

In flight at Green Lake’s trail in Seattle, where I’ve run almost every day this month

A single 30-mile week obviously doesn’t mean I’m “back,” in fact, I’d probably say the tightly-coordinated effort that went into it is a sign of how far away I am from doing more training … but it does represent something I haven’t been able to do for a long time, also known as, PROGRESS.

And that’s interesting, because it actually approaches answering the questions that have been stumping me for four years.

What happened to my running career?

Can I really blame my kids? I’m not exactly “postpartum” anymore.

Why can some women come back so easily? What’s wrong with me?

What if I did put “life” on hold to pursue this goal? Wait, what’s the goal anyway now? What would I have to give up?

Would it be worth it?

The single, shining 31-mile week: How I Did It

A 30-mile week looks simple on paper, but like I said, for me, it hasn’t happened for four years.

For reference, I used to run routine 50-60 mile weeks, and many competitive marathoners will run 80-mile weeks as amateurs. Pros will run up to 120 mile weeks. I’ve always been a lower mileage runner, and I could probably do pretty well off of 40 miles a week (I averaged just 35 miles on my first marathon build, sweet Jesus 😅) but for most of the last few years I've only run between 10 and 15 miles per week.

Here was the week’s break down:

• Monday: 3 mile run solo with kid in stroller

• Tuesday: lift weights at work gym before work

• Wednesday: 6.5 miles with a friend

• Thursday: 6 miles at Flight Club group run, lift weights at work gym during lunch

• Friday: off

• Saturday: Long run 12 miles with group

• Sunday: 3.4 miles solo with stroller

Thursday night miles at Oiselle’s Flight Club

I get that I’m not going to be performing close to my best when I’m running as little as 10-15 miles a week, but running a lot has been out of the question. I’ve gotten injured, haven’t had time, and have had long layoffs with pregnancies, etc, all of which hampered my mileage. I don’t really know what my mileage goal is these days, I only know it’s been low and I’m not sure I’m capable of getting it up. So this week was a bit of an experiment.

My biggest takeaway from looking at this week was how many lifestyle factors had to align to make it possible. Running is never just the time on our feet, it’s all the other things we do during the week to allow us to feel good when we lace up our shoes. And as a mom, of course, your time to run and recover is constrained. Clearly plenty of moms still find time to fit in their runs, but carving out 60 minutes to run is not the same as it was before kids.

In total I counted NINE factors that impacted this week, about half of which are either complicated or out of my control to implement back home in my normal life in Austin! Enjoy!

• I’m not injured: currently healthy, but I’ve dealt with a few postpartum injuries since kids. I’ve had a mix of achilles pain from overuse (so humbling to be overusing when you’re doing 12 miles a week!), cramping due to dehydration (breastfeeding strikes again!) and pelvic organ prolapse (I had a 5-month layoff from running after my second child was born).

• Weather: I live in Austin, but my husband, kids and I are in Seattle for a few weeks on our annual summer sojourn. This is our third year coming. We work remote, take some time off, and spend a lot of time together as a family. It’s a blessedly cool 60°s in the morning, and 70 or 80°s in the afternoon. If I stick to the shade I can run any time of the day. Not the case at home! I have to run early or I literally can’t go. Also I feel a lot better and lot less depleted when I’m done. I’m not getting cramps or getting dehydrated or as depleted from daily life as I do in Austin—where something as simple as meeting friends at an outdoor restaurant can require recovery.

• Childcare: Jake or I have been off work since we got here. Having a partner who is home and able to watch kids with flexibility is huge. We have 40 hours weekly of childcare in Austin but it’s all focused on our work time. With Jake on vacation, I also have more control of my schedule and don’t have to plan around when he’s leaving for the office. We’re still taking turns watching kids outside of work like normal, but he’s generally more available than he is at home.

• Work / Stress: Speaking of work, mine has been unusually slow. This is the lightest two weeks of work I’ve had since December last year. I have been able to finish my run without rushing and start the day a little later, or lift weights during lunch. I’m also less stressed and depleted mentally when the day’s over.

• Running routes/ Location: We’re staying steps away from beautiful Green Lake Park, which has a 3-mile paved running trail. The vibe is like Town Lake, with lots of happy people exercising all day long. While I can and do run from my front door in Austin, it’s easier to do it here thanks to the novelty and scenery. Bonus: people-watching that keeps the toddler happy in the stroller.

• Running groups that work for my routine: I have been trying to get better at doing more groups in Austin, because there are loads of good ones, but for a long time it was difficult to get to any groups due to unpredictable kid schedules. I’ve found a couple in Seattle I can attend: the Green Lake Running Club (long runs at a leisurely 7 am) and the Oiselle Flight Night store run. Building these into my routines makes the decision-making and planning part of running much easier. Plus I have people to run with.

• Sleep!!!! I go to bed with my 3-year-old. Every night. I just now have zero adult time after the kids go down! What could go wrong! I started doing this in April. Honestly the idea depressed me at first, which is why I never tried it before, but I can honestly say I’m happier and my mental health has improved. She goes to bed around 9 so it’s not actually that early. I have been a hardcore “revenge bedtime procrastinator” for fifteen years and this is a way I just … opt out of that daily struggle. I know that many parents prize this post-bedtime time with their spouses but for us it just wasn’t worth it. In the past few years, I was too tired to do anything meaningful, so I’d watch a show I didn’t care about and wonder why I felt so unsatisfied, then I’d stay up later trying to find something else to do. I did read a shit ton of books last year, which I’m proud of, but I was still low on sleep... Sleep has been really stressful for me for months at a time in the past few years, so having it be smooth and easy is still new for me.

• I am more active during the day and I’m taking more work breaks. I am bike commuting to Adobe’s Seattle office daily. At home I work remote full time, which is an amazing perk, but I’m just sedentary a lot of days. I can’t come out of my room during the day if Phoebe is home with her nanny, unless I want to hear her lose it. And often I’m in back-to-back meetings for hours. So I get stuck at my desk and I hate it. Even if I did have time it’s like… what am I going to do, walk around the block? I mean, I do that sometimes. But we have a pretty campus here, so I cruise the hallways or take a lap on the walking path behind the office. And with having my lighter schedule these last couple weeks (not anything I can control, sadly), I have ample time for breaks.

• Less stress/ activities: Although we take turns working while we’re here, I’d say it’s closer to vacation than normal life. We have a few friends we’ll catch up with and get coffees or do playdates with, but we don’t have any appointments, errands, or chores outside of grocery shopping and cooking. We do the bare minimum of chores and of course aren’t doing any weekend projects. We focus on family time…  and my little fitness project.

Lifestyle + problem-solving:

I think I blamed myself more for why I couldn’t make running happen more effectively these last couple years. I have been running after all. Why can’t it just look and feel like it used to? What’s standing in my way? Well, a few things. Looking at all of these factors, I think my lifestyle is contributing more significantly to my progress or lack of it than I have acknowledged previously.

Let’s level set on baseline challenges though: I have been problem-solving so I could stay sane since my first kid was born. The world and possibly even your own body will tell you that you’re a shit parent if you don’t spend every waking hour with your child. So that’s your starting point, just know that… I get enough time away to work and do a little for myself—I get more than most moms I know—but somehow it doesn’t always add up to be enough to get time to relax, see friends, and ALSO do a time-intensive sport.

I have been working on improving in a lot of these areas, but things are never isolated. For example, I took a new job in 2021. It was probably a poor time for me to make a move, personally. I had a 9-month-old and I was definitely not sleeping well yet. It’s been stressful since then to feel like I’m performing well at work and it’s led to a lot of anxiety. But it was a great job market for seekers then; I don’t think I could have gotten hired here if I waited another year. And that job is still paying the bills, letting me save, offering opportunities for advancement, not to mention funding all my wellness spending like acupuncture, therapy, gym fees, and good food.

For myself, I find that taking care of my kids, sleep, work, and stress play off each other quite a bit. The summer heat is also a big threat to feeling good in training. I’m not complaining about Austin, I trained years in this heat and had great NCAA cross country seasons afterward, but I have so much less capacity now.

Being here in Seattle has been like a trip to Neverland; a place where at least some of the daily stresses are eased, and I can find out what life looks like while putting a few more miles on the legs.

Small shifts vs. big shift:

I would call all of these differences in weather, location, time, etc small factors. They’re pieces of the puzzle. Tweaking one or two could allow you to improve or feel better on runs, or inversely, ignoring all of them is going to tank you. The problem is, I don’t know if I am going to make the performance improvements I want without something big shifting—or at least shifting five or six of these factors.

Before coming out to Seattle, I have been making small improvements where I can. I was finally getting more sleep this spring. I’ve gone to a couple training groups in the last year. I’ve figured out how to manage my work calendar a lot better, which decreases stress.

And I foresee more small shifts in the future: the kids will both be in preschool in the fall, so I can move around more during the day and have an easier time making lunch for myself. I think we’ll hit another busy season of work, but it’s supposed to be calm around November/December again. I envision slightly older, more independent children, able to put on their own shoes and jackets, able to play for 15 minutes while I clean up dinner… maybe the little changes would be enough to add up to bigger ones for Mom. Maybe. If it took another four years to get to my next “highest mileage in a week milestone,” I’d be pissed…

A Big Shift:

So what if I did make a big shift? The main one I can think about are structuring my life to allow more time for running. I’ve explored scaling back my role at work to 30 hours a week (with commensurate reduction in pay). It may be possible, but honestly not sure if it would get approved and I’m concerned about the impact it would have on my career growth or even keeping my job. Not working at all is a tantalizing option, especially on bad days. But making no money sounds extremely risky to me, and I make close to two-thirds of our household income. While we’d be able to survive, I don’t think we’d be saving anything. We certainly wouldn’t be here in Seattle paying for an Airbnb while also paying our mortgage in Austin.

A visit from the little assistant during work-from-home

I could also hire more childcare. I’m reticent to spend less time with my children, that’s really not my goal, but I’m sure it’s a sacrifice some parents make. But with work I already only see them a few hours a day. I’m just not interested in pursuing that.

Would it be worth it?

For a long time, I thought not being able to run was holding me back from happiness. And I will say that in the past, that’s pretty much been true. Running = happy, not running = depression. Running takes sacrifice, we all know that. But now it seems the price has inflated. If I make those big shift sacrifices—would it even work? Would they get me back running? We have all these stories in sports about devotion and going all in. And I don’t want to take the risk to find out.

I said I didn’t feel like I was successful as a Mom-athlete. I will say the “Mom” part has been very successful! I was fortunate to have two healthy pregnancies that I planned both times, two decent recoveries, and I am still (!) breastfeeding my younger kid who is almost two.

Personally, I’ve also held down a job, and got a new one with a big raise in 2021 (pour one out for the contraction of that job market, sigh). I did a lot of therapy to help with growing anxiety, overcame birth trauma, worked on my marriage, and balanced maintaining my adult friendships with making new ones, while navigating the partial loss of running community and my new identity as a mom.

I’m sure all the people I admire athletically have made sacrifices. But before I had kids, the sacrifice felt like maybe not going for a promotion, or not taking on a professional development course at night. Or it was going to bed early. It was saying home instead of partying or going out often. The sacrifices weren’t things that impacted other people, or impacted them in ways I wasn’t okay with.

Now the only things I have to cut down on are time with Jake or my friends, time with my kids, or time at work. It’s just more costly.

Success

I respect the people who have figured out how to make parenting + running really fast work, but it’s perhaps not very realistic. It’s certainly unusual, despite what our social feeds might seem like. I read that there were about two dozen women at the Olympic Trials Marathon who have children. I can only think of one or two moms who made the Trials who also have corporate jobs.  Maybe to an outsider that seems obvious. But as someone who came from this culture, who literally became an adult firmly ensconced in the running world and its messages about performance, reading stories about people who achieved in spite of all odds, the revelation that I couldn’t do all of this came as a sobering reality.

“Having a baby doesn’t have to end your athletic career,” Alysia Montaño shouts from the rooftops. And I’m like yeah! Fuck Nike! Pay me on my maternity leave!

But what if it wasn’t really my athletic “career?” I’m not a professional athlete, even though I liked to pretend I was training like one. Having a baby certainly did not end my professional career. Adobe paid me quite well on my maternity leave. Maybe work can go on, but it’s your hobbies that take the hit.

Evolving

Why did I need to write this in the first place?

In all the hours I’ve spent writing and editing, I probably could have run another 30 miles.

But these are really important questions for me to answer right now. I don’t know if I’m at a fork in the road to make a decision, or this is just another stop along the way, but I still think deeply about running. And while I’m hopeful this 30-mile week might mean more progress is in store for me, I’m also inspired by the people who are sharing about their transition away from a life dominated by athletic pursuits.

Kara Goucher shared that her life is so much richer and more fulfilling now at age 46, than it was when she was at her peak:

Marie Claire quoted Alexi Pappas recently in a story about her evolving career. Pappas represented Greece in the Olympics, running the 10,000-meter race in 2016. But after that she moved on to pursue her other passion: filmmaking. She’s dabbled in ultras, World Marathon majors, and leading blind runners in races, and clearly still runs, but it isn’t her main pursuit anymore.

On no longer being a competitive athlete, she said “If I can stand behind the life choices I’m making as a whole, how can I be upset about not running five seconds faster or…even five minutes close to my PR right now? I believe in the life I’m choosing.”

And I do believe in this life. I shared about my limited capacity, and sacrifices I was not willing to make. Those aren’t conclusions I came to lightly. I don’t know if these choices are going to take me exactly where I want to go. But I really, really want to be open to the new possibilities they create.