When the Paris Olympics nursery was announced (the first in the history of the Games) Alysia Montaño, former pro runner, Olympian, and founder of the advocacy organization &mother said “[this] is going to be really huge.” Montaño would know. She drew worldwide attention in 2014 when she ran the Outdoor USA Championships at 34 weeks pregnant, then made headlines again in 2019 when she publicly shared that Nike stopped paying her when she decided to have a baby (and how pregnant athletes could lose health insurance from the U.S. Olympic Committee if they were unable to race).
Experts in This Article
founder of the advocacy organization &mother, former pro runner, and Olympian
professional long-distance runner, run coach, head of running at Guava Family, and former stroller mile world record holder
professional trail runner
Other mother runners like Kara Goucher and Allyson Felix joined her in breaking their non-disclosure agreements to share just how hard it was for sponsored athletes to start a family, prompting major contract changes and new maternity policies throughout the industry.
But five years later, the running world looks very different.
“Now, every race I go to, there’s a ton of fast mother runners there.”—Neely Spence Gracey
“Now, every race I go to, there’s a ton of fast mother runners there,” says former pro Neely Spence Gracey, who is now head of running at Guava Family. One of the most notable today is Elle Purrier St. Pierre. After New Balance stood behind her throughout pregnancy and recovery, earlier this year she broke American records in both the indoor mile and the 3,000 meters right around her son’s first birthday, then went on to make the Olympic team in the 1500 and 5,000 meters. She was joined in Paris by fellow new mom Marisa Howard, who competed in the steeplechase.
Then there’s Sara Vaughn, who was offered her first substantial pro contract in 2022 at age 35, as a mom of four. When she had her first child 17 years ago, she says sponsors “saw it as a liability,” and she firmly believes motherhood held her career back. But today, Puma has fully embraced her identity as a mom in the two years since they signed her, shooting commercials showing off family life and underwriting travel costs for all four kids to attend Vaughn’s races.
Meanwhile, with support from &mother, USA Track & Field (USATF) national championships have started to offer free onsite childcare for athletes.
“I remember we weren’t allowed to bring our kids to the warm-up area, just as a blanket rule—now they have childcare in the warm-up area!” Vaughn says. Additionally, USATF recently expanded healthcare coverage for postpartum athletes.
This shift in the industry is trickling down to everyday runners, too. Last year, the Boston Marathon started allowing pregnancy and postpartum deferrals (the only deferrals that the prestigious race allows). Thanks to the work of &mother, several big events like the New York City Marathon have added lactation tents on the course in the past two years so that nursing moms can participate without harming their milk supply. One of them is this November’s Every Woman’s Marathon (the first American marathon designed for women), which also put out a whole postpartum training plan with advice specifically for new moms, and is partnering with NAPS to offer workshops for runners on how to balance parenting and training. And on a small scale, &mother set an example this year by offering childcare grants for all runners participating in its community MomForward5K.
It’s not just races making changes. In 2019, there was an entire protocol developed by physical therapists on how to return to running safely after giving birth that’s now used by hundreds of new moms, both pro and amateur. And for moms whose shoe size changes during pregnancy, Felix’s running shoe brand Saysh has started offering maternity returns.
Giving moms this kind of support isn’t just about allowing them to get the mental and physical benefits of running (even though that’s plenty important in its own right). But it could foster healthy habits in their kids, too. A 2014 study in the journal Pediatrics showed that the activity levels of mothers is directly associated with the activity levels of their preschool-aged children. By making running more accessible for mothers, multiple generations benefit.
Why is this happening now?
After brave pros like Montaño lit a fire in 2019, many runners have been working to keep the flame burning.
“People are talking [on social media] about their experiences of what they’ve had to go through, advocating for themselves,” says Kristy Baumann, RD, a registered dietitian who specializes in running and is working with Every Woman’s Marathon. “Until you’re running while you’re pregnant or postpartum, you don’t really know [what you] have to go through.”
Others, like Gracey, are leading by example and embracing their identities as both mothers and runners. Although she quit running professionally to spend more time with her kids, Gracey set a world record in the stroller mile last year.
“The whole point of it was to create engagement and inspiration for other moms to be able to pursue their goals and to show that you can still run and pursue your passions while having kids,” she says. (Her record has since been broken, so she’s now figuring out the next distance she wants to attempt with the stroller.)
This kind of visibility is part of a positive feedback loop: Montaño points out that as athletes feel more supported in their family-planning choices, they’ve become more open about sharing their identities as moms, which has made brands see the storytelling possibilities of parent athletes. Case in point: After St. Pierre’s record-breaking mile, much of the mainstream coverage highlighted the age of her son.
There’s also simply more women running today, creating pressure to get what they need to participate.
“I don’t think suddenly the races were like, ‘We’re doing this to support women,’” says professional trail runner Stephanie Howe, PhD, who’s been involved in projects at the Pro Trail Runners Association that fight for better maternity policies. ”I think it’s been more women are into [running] and wanting to have these things at the races.”
She points out that women are the fastest-growing demographic in trail running in particular, but they still make up only a third of the field. “If we want to keep leveling up, we want to make it accessible for women,” she says. “And this is a huge, huge part of it because your competitive years are also your childbearing years.”
Where the running world still falls short for mother runners
Of course, there remains plenty of room for improvement. For starters, a lack of accessible childcare is a major hurdle.
“The number one thing that keeps me from racing right now is I don’t have anything to do with [my son unless] I can get a babysitter to travel with me,” says Howe, a single mom, who says she’d happily pay for childcare options if they were available.
Montaño points to USA Cycling, which offers a small stipend for childcare, as a potential example to follow at the pro level. “When we sign these contracts, it’s like any business, right? There’s budget for physio. There’s budget for travel. And I would love to see a budget for childcare,” she says.
Gracey and Howe both wish for better access to postpartum pelvic floor physical therapy. Instead of runners waiting until they’re dealing with prolapse, “it would be so helpful if it was just the norm that everyone got a chance to have pelvic floor therapy to get that one-on-one help to be able to fully heal and recover in those critical weeks following delivery,” Gracey says. “That would help prevent a lot of longer-term issues.”
The good news is that change is happening, and many leaders in the space are receptive to it. Baumann, who has been working with &mother to ask more race directors for lactation accommodations, says, “Overall, people are understanding and willing to listen and just have to figure out the logistics.”
Montaño hopes that changes made in the running space will have an impact beyond sports, too. “You see families fighting for paid leave, access to affordable childcare, safe and respectful lactation accommodations across all industries,” she says. “We’re using sports as our podium moment to do this across society.”
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