Ahead of the 2021 U.S. Olympic Track Trials, sports writer and author Johanna Garton was in the middle of doing book research about the U.S. Army’s competitive A Part of Hearst Digital Media (WCAP), which allows top-ranked soldier-athletes to compete at the highest level, aiming for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, while also serving in the military.
A month before the Trials, Garton, who is based in Denver, found herself in a chance trackside meeting in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with former WCAP athlete Shadrack Kipchirchir, who was watching his wife, Elvin Kibet, complete a workout as she prepared to compete for an Olympic spot in the 10,000 meters. Kipchirchir made the U.S. Olympic team in the same event in 2016 but was injured for the 2021 cycle, and he talked with Garton about his and Kibet’s life stories, from growing up in Kenya to becoming U.S. citizens and becoming some of the top runners in the country.
Garton then realized she wanted to focus on the two athletes’ journeys in her book.
Fast-forward three years, and the couple—who both grew up in rural Kenya but met while competing as college athletes at Oklahoma State University (Kipchirchir) and the University of Arizona (Kibet)—found themselves at the start line of the 2024 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando, Florida. This time, their son, Mylo, who will turn 2 on April 19, was there with them.
The race was warm, and like many athletes, both Kipchirchir, 35, and Kibet, 34, had difficult days in Orlando. The Puma-sponsored Kipchirchir placed 55th in 2:20:01, while Kibet, in her first ever marathon, placed 64th in 2:40:02.
However, the last couple of years have helped them keep things in perspective as they shared their stories with Garton, whose book, “All in Stride: A Journey in Running, Courage and the Search for the American Dream,” Major Changes Hit Northern Arizona Elite.
Here, Kipchirchir and Kibet share some key lessons and takeaways from their journeys as soldiers and athletes.
Setting the record straight
According to Garton, many fans of the sport are misinformed about how the Colorado Springs-based WCAP works and share the misconception that foreign-born athletes who graduate from American universities use it as a quick workaround to gain U.S. citizenship, which Kipchirchir obtained in 2015 and Kibet in 2021.
In the book, Kibet and Kipchirchir reflected on the 2016 Olympic Track and Field Trials, in which four WCAP distance athletes (Kipchirchir, Leonard Korir, Paul Chelimo, and Hillary Bor) made the U.S. Olympic Team. After the meet, Kipchirchir and Kibet found themselves reading online message boards where fans discounted their accomplishments, accusing the athletes of stealing spots from “real Americans.”
“This totally negates all of the effort and work that they put in and the sacrifices they’re making as new Americans,” Garton tells Runner’s World.
Kipchirchir and Kibet emphasize that WCAP is open to all U.S. athletes and requires them to meet very difficult standards. Distance athletes must run 13:09 in the 5,000 meters, 27:45:00 in the 10,000 meters, or 2:09:55 in the marathon for men, and 15:12, 32:00, or 2:27:00 in the same respective events for women. But above these tough athletic benchmarks, Kipchirchir and Kibet highlight that through the program, and their commitment to the U.S. military, participants are soldiers first and athletes second. Kibet notes that it still took her four years to obtain her green card to establish permanent residency in the United States.
“We came here to serve, to give back to America, which helped us get free education by running through college,” Kipchirchir tells Runner’s World. “It’s not to gain an advantage for the sport, and I think people should know that.”
New parents need grace
Kibet’s individual journey with WCAP came with unique challenges, exacerbated by a tough postpartum recovery after giving birth to Mylo in 2022. WCAP athletes have yearly performance benchmarks, which means athletes who have given birth must meet their respective standards again within a year of delivery. Kibet was unable to compete in the 2022 track season, so she was kicked out of the program.
“This made for a lot of stress, pressure, and tears because I was not ready to be done training and competing,” Kibet tells Runner’s World. “If I lost my spot, I would no longer have time to train and instead would have had to do my Army job in finance at the same time as being a new mother.”
Kibet appealed the decision after winning the Army 10-Miler in Washington, D.C., on October 8, 2023. She asked for more time to train and regain fitness to compete, and she was given an ultimatum: qualify for the U.S. Olympic Trials in the marathon—an event she had never raced before—or lose her place in WCAP.
Kibet set her sights on meeting the 1:12:00 half marathon qualifying time for the Trials, which she knocked out at the Indianapolis Monumental Half Marathon in 1:11:26 on October 28, 2023, just over a month before the qualifying period ended.
Kibet acknowledges that the running industry as a whole is moving in the right direction in terms of supporting athletes who decide to pursue parenthood while still competing, and overall, she felt supported as a new mother in the Army. In fact, the Army Parenthood, Pregnancy, and Postpartum Directive was passed in April 2022 (just days after Mylo’s birth), which excuses soldiers for “365 days after the birth of their child from all continuous duty events that are in excess of 1 normal duty day/shift.”
Still, Kibet is hopeful organizations like WCAP can use her example to understand that the return to competition postpartum isn’t linear and depending on how pregnancy and childbirth went, some athletes may need more time than others.
“Putting pressure on new mothers to quickly meet certain standards often leads to things like stress fractures and even mental health problems,” Kibet says. “It should be individualized, and athletes should be able to navigate their comeback with guidance from their medical professionals.”
Even pro athletes need a healthy relationship with social media
When Kibet was navigating her postpartum return to running, she found breastfeeding and pumping to be challenging. She would scroll on Instagram and grew frustrated as she fell into the trap of comparing herself to all the pro athlete moms who seemed to have a quick and seamless return to high-level running.
It’s no secret that moms are having a moment in long-distance running, especially as more shoe brands support those who choose to have children in the middle of their careers. But it’s often a majority of success stories that get circulated widely versus athletes who have had a tougher time with their postpartum comeback, which was something Kibet often had to be reminded of.
“Social media can be so deceiving and I really got sucked in—you see people breaking world records when they come back, but for many of us, it’s [not that easy], and there is [often] a lot of setbacks, a lot of tears, a lot of struggle getting back,” she says. “So I think it is good to share with other women even when not everything is rosy and nice, the way we like to put it on social media.”
Kibet noted that Kipchirchir was vital in grounding her and getting her to focus on herself rather than those on the outside.
“There were some days I would say ‘You know what, I will log you out of Instagram,’” and I had to remind her that people have different recoveries and that her delivery was a rough one,” Kipchirchir says. “I wanted her to focus more on her recovery and the baby’s health rather than rushing back, and I’m happy to say she’s come a long way.”
Mental health and body image issues are still prevalent in sport
In her book, Garton also delves into the story of WCAP athlete and 2020 U.S. Olympian Samantha Achterberg Schultz. Schultz struggled with eating disorder recovery, which ultimately led to her retirement from competing in modern pentathlon. Her eating disorder was missed in a Team USA mental health screening before the Tokyo Olympics, highlighting the sport’s shortcomings.
Witnessing Schultz’s eating disorder struggles was a culture shock for Kibet, having never seen or heard of anyone experiencing this growing up in Kenya, and it played into her decision to study public health and research how to better address such issues.
“A lot of young girls equate being skinny with running fast, which is [not true]. This showed me that it’s important to help young girls have a positive body image from a young age, and it starts with the parents—even with my son now, I have a lot of work to do,” she says. “Leaders and coaches need to be there, be aware, and provide the resources or recovery tools that they need while also not to pressure athletes [about their weight].”
America still has a racial injustice problem
While the overarching goal of Garton’s book is to shine a light on how Kibet and Kipchirchir pursued their American dreams, she doesn’t sugarcoat the challenges they faced as Kenyan immigrants, which included direct experiences with racism while in college and in Colorado Springs. For Garton, it was important to include these experiences in the book because American media has largely shifted away from highlighting racism as an ongoing problem since the social justice reckoning that took place in 2020.
“A lot of white people don’t have a touch point that [racism still] happens—there’s a literal disbelief about it,” Garton says. “As an author, I’m hopeful I’m able to draw somebody into a story of a person of color and then have readers get attached to those characters who are actually really real people. I’m hopeful it will start some dialogue about where we are because 2020 feels a million years ago and we’re not even remotely close to where we need to be right now.”
“[My experiences were] very important for me to share because it just shows there’s some ugly part of America that some people are just still so backward in that way, and it’s playing a lot into our sports as well,” Kibet says. “Racism can be so subtle sometimes and you don’t notice it, but it’s very sad that we have experienced it here. You’d think America is the greatest country and a big land of opportunity, but it’s that one part still needs to progress.”
At the end of the day, these athletes want to give back
Both Kibet and Kipchirchir still have aspirations as professional and competitive athletes. Kipchirchir finished seventh at Sunday’s USATF Championships at the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler in Washington, D.C. in 47:45. He is also entered in the 25K Championships in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on May 11. Kibet is aiming to run her second marathon this fall. However, they have both thought long-term about what they hope to accomplish once they’re finished running competitively. Kibet plans to obtain a master’s degree in nursing to eventually become a nurse practitioner.
“I would like to give back to the communities, helping out in terms of just equipping [health clinics] better, maybe giving my time off to train people and provide medical clinical help to my village and also Shadrack’s village,” Kibet says.
Kipchirchir, meanwhile, hopes to eventually build an educational nonprofit and improve the current infrastructure where he and Kibet attended school as children.
“You have to start with the basics for a good education by providing books, having decent classrooms, and even teaching [kids] to use a computer,” he says. “The first time I ever used a computer was when I came to the United States, so I want to help [kids] use them now to gain the knowledge they need to get a better education for their future.”
Emilia Benton is a Houston-based freelance writer and editor. In addition to Runner's World, she has contributed health, fitness and wellness content to Women's Health, SELF, Prevention, Healthline, and the Houston Chronicle, among other publications. She is also an 11-time marathoner, a USATF Level 1-certified running coach, and an avid traveler.
