She couldn’t miss this. Her first Olympic Marathon Trials. After all, when Stefanie Slekis, 32, qualified at Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, in June she was already about a month pregnant—she just didn’t realize it yet. There she ran 2:42:24 to earn her trip to Atlanta.
But it didn’t initially look promising. Slekis’s due date was February 18, or 11 days before the Trials.
As first reported by Houmatoday.com, Slekis continued to train, running comfortably throughout her pregnancy. On January 19, only a month until her due date, she finished fifth at the Louisiana Marathon, running 3:07:15. Every time she passed a water station, she’d get two cheers. First, a general cheer, for running fast. And then when volunteers caught a glimpse of her from the side, as she ran, by, it would sink in: Slekis was very pregnant. And a second cheer would go up.
Sarah Lorge Butler
Her baby girl, Sandy, arrived three weeks early, on January 30, weighing in at just under 6 pounds. Slekis began to wonder if maybe she might be able to run part—or all—of the Trials after all. And on Wednesday before the race, four weeks after giving birth, her midwife gave her the all-clear to try. “I have to listen to my body,” she said. “If I have discomfort, I will stop. She said she’s fine with me finishing the race based on how well my running went during my pregnancy.”
A coach at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana, Slekis’s running helps her athletes think differently about their limits. But she knows everyone is different.
“It’s not to inspire other women to live my same life journey,” she said. “It’s not saying, ‘You should be able to run four weeks postpartum.’ Each of us are on this unique path. You can do what you want to do. I just do what works for my life.”
There were 511 women who hit the qualifying standard for the Trials. They range in age from 16-year-old Tierney Wolfgram to 48-year-old Perry Shoemaker. They come from a variety of professions and motivations. Only three will make the Olympic team. But the others see the value in being at the start line, adding to the masses, showing what women are capable of at different stages of life.
Add to those Lauren Philbrook and Rachel Hyland, who trained together for the 2016 Trials. But now they live in different places and they’re both expecting their first babies. Philbrook is 33 weeks pregnant, and she’s having a daughter. Hyland is 27 weeks, and her son is due June 1.
The running has continued, even as it’s become less comfortable. Philbrook, a professor in psychology at Colgate University in New York, is still logging about 40 miles per week. She plans to run about six to eight miles of the course and then call it a day.
“I was excited about the idea of telling my daughter some day, ‘You were in the Trials race,’” Philbrook said. “I do feel a little bit like, yeah, there’s no reason we can’t run. I’m choosing to do less because that’s what personally feels right to me.”
Hyland, a high school Spanish teacher who is between jobs after relocating from San Francisco to Boston, has still been running about 50 to 60 miles each week. As recently as her 21st week of pregnancy, she put in a 21-miler. But lately, she’s been feeling more aches and pains, twinges in her back and legs after she runs. She’ll stick with her friend Philbrook at the back of the pack for the first loop, and then see how she’s feeling after that.
The distance isn’t the point.
Sarah Lorge Butler
“As women, you’re balancing so many things, like careers and families and passion for athletics or elite running” she said. “ You can’t always time these things perfectly. I think Lauren and I two years ago were planning on running the trials. That was our goal. And priorities shift and change and you can’t always control when this stuff happens. Being here, being pregnant, is just as cool as doing it in 2016 when I was fit and competitive.”
She knows she’s had an easy pregnancy. For others, it’s a struggle, and she doesn’t want to minimize that.
“It’s such a privilege to be able to get pregnant and still be able to run,” Hyland said. “I have no idea in this field of women how many people have struggled with infertility or wish they could have run when pregnant or all these things.”
Pointing to Philbrook’s bump and then to her own, she said, “Yeah, this is a very happy, visible manifestation of a balance of priorities. There’s a lot that’s not visible that other women are balancing.”
Sarah Lorge Butler is a writer and editor living in Eugene, Oregon, and her stories about the sport, its trends, and fascinating individuals have appeared in Runner’s World since 2005.