The 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon women’s field looks different than it did four years ago in a lot of ways. For one thing, it’s arguably one of the deepest fields ever assembled, with more than just a few key players vying for the podium. For another, it’s as diverse as ever. And another key difference? There are more mothers competing this time around, with at least 22 between the professional and sub-elite fields combined, which is made up of approximately 160 women. (Note: these numbers reflect data reported at the time this article was written.)

This is significant, particularly for elite athletes, who have, in recent years, begun to speak more openly about the barriers professional runners face when it comes to remaining in the sport while also growing their families, from Kara Goucher sharing how Nike suspended her pay when she was pregnant with her son, Colt, in 2010, and Molly Huddle fighting for Saucony to include maternity clauses in athlete contracts.

Professional runner Stephanie Bruce, 40, who will be running the Olympic Trials Marathon at four months postpartum after giving birth to daughter, Sophia, last September, looked back as far as 2012, when she first began thinking about her future as a hopeful mother and what that would mean for her athletic career.

“I remember with each Olympic cycle, I’d be looking around and you weren’t seeing many pro women [runners] having babies, and in 2012, I’d [think], ‘OK, now all the women who were the favorites are going to get pregnant and have kids,’” says Bruce, an original member of the Hoka-backed Northern Arizona Elite (NAZ) team. “Even in 2016, [after I’d had my two boys] I still was like, ‘OK, no one’s done it yet.’ Eventually, I had to just tell myself ‘Stephanie, just have your kids and get back on your own timeline.’”

Bruce, now a mother of three (her older children, sons Riley and Hudson, are 8 and 9 years old, respectively) had a situation unique in that she, along with her NAZ teammates, Aliphine Tuliamuk and Kellyn Taylor, have always felt supported by their brand sponsor, Hoka, in their personal decisions surrounding when to start or expand their families. (Tuliamuk gave birth to her daughter Zoe, now three, just eight months before competing in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, and Taylor has four children total, including biological children Kylyn, 13, and Keagan, who turned one in December, and adopted children Koen, five, and Kaisley, two.) Bruce, who became pregnant with Hudson shortly after their team, Northern Arizona Elite, was signed by Hoka, credits the brand with leading the charge in terms of seeing an athlete’s value beyond records and medals, but also in their relatability and story-telling ability.

“Honestly, I would not have been able to do that had Hoka not said, ‘Yep, we don’t see pregnancy as something of a detriment; we see it as we’re adding to the Hoka family,” Bruce says. “They realized, as an athlete, I didn’t suddenly become not valuable as a runner, because people don’t necessarily care that you can run 5:38 pace for a marathon and they run 8:30 pace for a marathon. It was huge for me to have them also not ever rush my timeline–it was never Hoka saying I need to run the [2024] marathon trials; that’s been my own personal goal.”

Tuliamuk, 34, however, had a very specific timeline in mind even before she won the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials in Atlanta. Regardless of how her Olympic dreams panned out that year, she and her now-husband, Tim Gannon, were hoping to have a child as soon as possible after the Olympic season. What they were not expecting was the COVID-19 pandemic to throw a wrench into those plans, as the Tokyo Olympic Games were postponed a year and held in August 2021.

“If I’m being 100 percent honest, at the time I wasn’t even thinking about my support from my sponsors–I just wanted to have a baby so bad that waiting another year until I came back from the Olympics was just not an option,” Tuliamuk says. “I didn’t really think, ‘What happens if I don’t get my sponsorship?,’ I was just like, ‘I’m just going to have my family and the rest will take care of itself.’ When I told Hoka, they were very receptive to it and very excited for me, so I was very happy.”

Professional runner and 2016 Olympian Betsy Saina, 35, echoed that sentiment about her own sponsor, Asics, who she signed with after becoming an American citizen in late 2020, and when she was already pregnant with her son, Kalya, now two.

“I’ll be honest, I was worried in the beginning about [potentially losing sponsorship and my contract] because as an athlete, [the possibility of not being paid] worries you more than the pregnancy,” Saina says. “But I was so fortunate in that [Asics’ Director of Sports Marketing] Ben Cesar said ‘Betsy, I want you to enjoy this pregnancy and we wish you well, take your time, and we will see you when you get back.’ Hearing that and knowing they would pay me my full contract, gave me such relief and a lot of motivation.”

Being Patient With Postpartum Recovery

After Bruce gave birth to Hudson in September 2015, she had high hopes of making it to the starting line of the 2016 Olympic Marathon Trials in Los Angeles. However, since she was essentially recovering from back-to-back pregnancies after Hudson and Riley were born 15 months apart, she quickly realized she was going to need to give her body more time to heal.

“Hudson and Sophia’s birthdays are actually only two days apart, so I’ve been doing a lot of comparing since those Trials were also held in February,” she says. “I think when I look back, I didn’t know as much as I do now about building strength through postpartum exercises and rebuilding my core. All these other parts that I learned over my last probably eight years of being healthy, are the things that have made me a stronger athlete who can handle more this time around. I thankfully never had any injuries between the babies, so I’ve been very smart and calculated, knowing I just need to run enough where I feel like I’m doing the marathon work, but I’m healthy and not breaking down. I think I’ve landed on that happy balance.”

One of the reasons Bruce has drawn so many fans in recreational mother athletes is that she has been open to sharing that journey from the beginning, being one of the first athletes in the space to open up a dialogue about pelvic floor rehabilitation, and the diastasis recti, or abdominal muscle separation, that she experienced with each pregnancy.

“Some of it is genetic, but it’s crazy that women leave hospitals after giving birth and then realize ‘Oh, wow, I have pelvic pain, I’m going to the bathroom on myself,’ and that no one checks on your full body head-to-toe after childbirth, and it’s a shame,” Bruce says. “I’m lucky in that one of my best friends, Sara Tanza, is a pelvic floor specialist, and she has said, ‘If only we all could have someone like that in our corner,’ with it being just a normal appointment you go to after you have a baby.’”

Tuliamuk also struggled to be patient with her recovery, as she had a rushed timeline to prepare for the Tokyo Olympics after giving birth to Zoe in January 2021. She ultimately ended up dropping out of the marathon at the 20K mark with a hip injury.

“I think at any given time when you have an injury, sometimes you think you’re going to be a superhero and heal really fast,” she says. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been more patient with my recovery. The challenges have been different with more recent injuries like my stress fracture and hamstring injury [that led me to miss the Chicago Marathon], but I’ve definitely taken it easier because I want to make sure that everything heals correctly.”

Finding Support Where You Can

Any American woman who has children or is thinking of starting a family is likely well aware of the dismal state of paid maternity leave laws (the U.S. is still the only developed country in the world without paid maternity leave) and exorbitant costs of childcare in this country, regardless of whether they’re runners or not. Having access to additional family and childcare support as she recovered from pregnancy and childcare led Saina to move back to her native Kenya after giving birth to Kalya in Clarksville, Tennessee, in December 2021.

“Here in Kenya, I have a full-time nanny staying with us who has been taking care of Kalya since the beginning, and she’s like a mom to him,” she says. “It makes it really easy because I don’t have to worry about dropping him off somewhere when I’m going to go running or when I need to take a nap, and it’s been a game-changer in helping me recover and come back to training [relatively] quickly.”

“Childcare is really challenging, and it’s something that I never knew about until I had a baby,” Tuliamuk says. “I would really like a scenario where we could have childcare available during races. [For example], if we had childcare available at the Olympic Trials, that would be really cool because then I would know that my kid is having fun with other kids while my partner is able to support me the way he wants to support me in terms of making sure that I’m ready to race.”

Jane Bareikis, 29, a Kenyan-born runner who lives in Chicago with her husband, Arturs, a former professional athlete for Latvia, echoed that sentiment. While their son, Arimin, is 8eight years old and more self-sufficient than an infant or toddler, Bareikis and her husband also lean on support both from her family in Iten while she’s in heavy training to avoid the harsh Chicago winters, and then from Arturs’ mother, who also lives in Chicago, when they’re back at home base. For Bareikis, this set-up has been key at this point in her career, as she continues to develop as an elite-level athlete after running 2:29:00 at the 2023 Berlin Marathon, and hopefully bettering that time and placing as high as possible at the Orlando Trials, Arturs says.

“It’s been great to have [Arimin’s] grandmother in Chicago, who wants to take him to Disney World while we are at the Trials,” Bareikis says. “It’s a little challenging that the school schedule is different between America and Kenya, so right now, he is attending an American online school, but when we return after the Trials, we will put him through international school if we plan to stay longer.”

A Need for More Resources

For the athletes in the Trials field who are sub-elites, training at a high level while navigating motherhood brings about different challenges, such as also balancing a full-time job outside of running, and having access to fewer resources. While the running scene has made strides in some areas, such as by providing lactation stations before, during, and after some races (thanks largely in part to Alysia Montaño’s nonprofit, &Mother), or by providing pregnancy deferrals, there is still room for improvement when it comes to supporting new moms.

“It would really be nice to have [more races] with places where you can go and breastfeed or pump before the race because you cannot go for more than three hours without pumping and without breastfeeding,” Tuliamuk says. “I actually had that issue at [the Tokyo Olympic Marathon]. At the start line, everybody else was thinking about their warmups and stretching and all that stuff, and I was thinking ‘When am I going to pump?’ And I actually ran out of time to pump there, and that was pretty bad.”

For Natalie Callister, 34, a first-time U.S. Olympic Trials qualifier and a mother of four home-schooled children ages nine, seven, five, and two, who currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, time constraints have been the biggest challenge when it comes to fitting her training in, as she has to make sure to get her training in the early morning hours before her husband, a physician, leaves for long work days.

“I don’t run doubles [or twice in one day], which I know a lot of athletes do; I kind of feel like my life is a double,” she says. “I do have a treadmill in case I have to cut it short some mornings, but in the evenings I’m just tired at the end of the day, so this just works with what I can handle.”

Callister also reflected upon the fact that this is the first time in 10 years that she is not pregnant or breastfeeding, which has allowed her to see in hindsight the toll those things took on her body and recovery.

“Now that I’ve hired a coach and my kids have grown up a little bit, it’s been game-changing to feel more like myself and have things finally start clicking,” she says. “It’s inspirational to see so many fellow moms training at this level, showing that you can do both.”

For Callister, having her sister-in-law, elite runner Sarah Sellers, who is also a mother of two, to call upon for training and nutrition guidance has been invaluable. Even so, she emphasized the need for more research

“I’d like to see more research on the impact running has on women’s menstrual cycles and how pregnancy and childbirth affect nutritional needs,” Callister says.

“As a sports nutritionist, I know so much, but keeping up with the right fueling and training is so challenging while breastfeeding–I had to eat 5,000-plus calories a day and it still wasn’t always enough,” says Jo Butler, 32, a 2020 and 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials qualifier who lives in Little Rock, Arkansas. “The education and resources for those who aren’t pros is limited, and most women give up even if they don’t want to.”

Both Callister and Butler also underscored the need for better guidance on how to recover and prevent postpartum injuries more efficiently.

“I could have used more guidance emphasizing the importance of strength training,” Callister says. “With each of my pregnancies, I’ve felt like my hips have gotten weaker, and [with my last pregnancy], I’ve had some hamstring issues and I think focusing more on strength training has been key, coupled with better nutrition and consistency [in training].”

“I also really want more pelvic floor resources as well, such as early stability exercises that support running,” says Butler, who is a mother of an 18-month-old. “Those who don’t have the money can’t get the support they need to recover properly.”

Butler, who is currently nine weeks pregnant with her second child, also noted that the shorter qualifying window for the 2024 Trials likely posed challenges for some women trying to factor in family planning. Female runners needed to run either a 2:37 marathon between Jan. 1, 2022 and Dec. 5, 2023, or a 1:12 half marathon between Jan. 1 and Dec. 5, 2023, compared to the slightly longer windows for the 2020 race.

“Even if the shorter window is possible for women who are pursuing motherhood, it puts us at a much higher risk for injury, burnout, or in many cases [having to wait] to pursue motherhood,” she says. “Even being pregnant now, I know I won’t compete at my highest level at the Trials, whereas men never have to think of that. [Offering] a longer window would be so advantageous and may encourage more women to pursue both dreams when they might not have had otherwise.”

Remembering That Everyone’s Journey is Different

Bruce, Taylor, and Tuliamuk have eight children between the three of them, with several of the youngest being quite close in age. While this has allowed them to compare notes on training through pregnancy and recovering properly, it’s also opened their eyes to seeing how everyone’s journey truly is different.

“I get so many people asking me ‘how do I train through pregnancy?’ and I’m hesitant because while I want to share what I’ve done, you don’t want to tell women what they can and should do,” Bruce says. “[Taylor] ran 10 days after giving birth because she had no pain and no problem, whereas I tried to run two-and-a-half weeks after giving birth [to Sophia] and could tell it was too early for me. I was also doing workouts well into my second trimester, whereas [Tuliamuk] didn’t want to do workouts and [instead] just ran. It really is all unique and I wish there was a pregnancy playbook out there because it’s really such a crapshoot of how you might feel and what your motivation level might be. It just shows you really have to listen to your body, which will tell you what instinctually feels right.”

Taylor, 37, also reflected on her smooth recovery, which allowed her to run both a marathon and half marathon qualifier in 2023 with a win in 1:11:40 at the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon last October, followed by a 2:29:48 eighth-place finish at the New York City Marathon a month later.

“I was pretty fortunate in that I didn’t have a whole lot of setbacks. I’ve been doing marathons since 2015, and I’ve had no bad marathons, so I had a lot of confidence in myself and my experience to know that, at the very least, I could click off a good half-marathon time to qualify,” she says. “I think that it was just important to just listen to my body and just key off of that. I [made sure I] wasn’t pushing too hard too soon, and if I was, then being smart enough to step back.”

Changing Times

With so many mothers lining up at this year’s Trials, Taylor and Tuliamuk celebrated the shift that the running industry is making in terms of supporting athletes as whole people.

“It’s cool to see other women chomping away, just like we are, [especially those who are] working full-time jobs on top of training for the Trials, and taking care of their children,” Taylor says. “Where they find the time to do that, I’m not really sure, so that’s really impressive and incredible.”

“I’m really grateful that we live in a time where supporting an athlete means supporting them being moms, as a complete person,” Tuliamuk says. “You cannot choose and pick what you support in an athlete. It’s the 21st century, and being a woman includes having a family if you choose to have that.”