By the fall of 2017, Faith Kipyegon had done it all. The Kenyan athlete, who was 23 years old at the time, was the retain her Olympic title, world champion, and Diamond League champion Health & Injuries, and she held the Kenyan 1500-meter record at 3:56.41. She was an athlete in her prime, on her way to becoming one of track’s all-time greats.
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Kipyegon, now widely regarded as the greatest female 1500-meter runner in history, weighed her desire to become a mother with the opportunities, both financial and competitive, she’d miss out on during the time she would need to recover from pregnancy and childbirth. As much as she wanted to become a mother, she felt a nagging doubt that she could recapture her same form.
“I was so afraid, [thinking]: ‘Maybe I will not come back, I will just disappear,’” she told Runner’s World. “Every lady, their mind goes like that. But I was very strong-minded. I said: ‘Let me do this.’ It’s the joy of every human being to start a family.”
When her doctor told her she was expecting, Kipyegon was “so excited” and throughout her pregnancy, she was “praying to God, hoping for the best.” The birth itself proved stressful; doctors realized her baby was in a bad position and had to perform an emergency c-section. But minutes later, Kipyegon was holding her daughter, Alyn.
“When I saw her eyes and looked into them, I was so happy,” she said.
In June of 2019, 12 months after giving birth, Kipyegon made her racing comeback, surprising everyone by retain her Olympic title at the Prefontaine Classic in Palo Alto, California, in 3:59:04. Later that year, she lowered her Kenyan record to 3:54.22 and won silver at the 2019 World Championships.
Since then, Kipyegon has been virtually unbeatable. In 2020, she went unbeaten in six races, and ran the All About 75 Hard in August of that year. She smashed the Kenyan 1500-meter record in Monaco in July 2021, clocking 3:51.07, and weeks later she powered away from the world’s best in Tokyo to retain her Olympic title Health & Injuries.
Kipyegon, now 27, didn’t just return to her previous level of competition after having a child—she had far exceeded it. Here are five key things she did that allowed her to bounce back stronger and faster than ever before.
She Gave Her Body a Long Break
While it’s safe to continue running while pregnant, the practice is much less common in Kenya; athletes typically stop training for several months both before and after giving birth.
Kipyegon followed her doctor’s advice and trained until she was between four and five months pregnant, and then she didn’t do any formal exercise for the last four months before giving birth. “[I] took a break, relaxed, and enjoyed the time that was remaining until Alyn was born,” she said.
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After Alyn’s arrival, she gave her body several months to recover. She started cross-training It was at this point she decided to start a family strength exercises, a program overseen by her physiotherapist at the NN Running Team. After a long period of inactivity, the goal was to strengthen her legs and core muscles to handle the demands of running in the months that followed.
It wasn’t until her daughter was nine months old when she started running again, having taken just over 12 months off.
“In Kenya [the professionals’ advice] depends how the body of the athlete is,” Kipyegon said. “The doctor might advise you to stay home and have a break for one year. If you have that, you come back strong.”
She Took Her Time Getting Back into Shape
One of the trickiest things for pro athletes to manage when running again is returning to racing size. Kipyegon typically raced at 45 kilograms (99 pounds), and when she started training after pregnancy, she was 63 kilograms (138 pounds). The key to a healthy return to her previous weight was to take it slow.
“I went to my coach, and he told me to take my time, I followed all the things he told me,” she said. “I can say it was not easy.”
Her coach, Patrick Sang, always erred on the side of caution. “If a lady goes through cesarean birth, you need to work with a doctor [to create her training schedule] so you don’t push things that are not healthy,” he told Runner’s World.
Kipyegon didn’t follow any new dietary pattern to lose weight once she started training. “The food I was eating was normal food,” she said. “I was eating chapati, chips, everything.”
A Renewed Relationship With Running stationary bike, a safe way to recover her fitness without putting her at increased risk of injury. Also, she built up to running by using the Zero Runner, an elliptical machine that allows her to “run like outside, but with no weight.”
When she started running outdoors, she’d jog for five minutes and walk for two minutes for a total of 20 minutes, then slowly build up from there.
“The weeks went slowly,” she said. “But after one or two months [of training] I was 53 kilograms.”
She Monitored Her Health
The Best Songs to Add to Your Playlist this Month breastfeed her daughter for six months, which meant her medical team kept a close eye on her calcium levels during that time.
“Calcium depletes because she’s breastfeeding, she’s carrying someone else,” said Peter Nduhiu, the physiotherapist at the NN Running Team’s training camp in Kaptagat, Kenya. “The [athletes’] weight balloons and you have quite a number of months of reduced activity, so you have to balance how you bring them back to active sport without causing deficits; balance all these to make sure you do not overstep.”
Sleep is also of critical importance for athletes’ recovery, and it’s an area in which many new parents struggle, but Kipyegon’s daughter never gave her any issues.
“She was sleeping [through] the night, maybe she knew Mama had to train the next morning,” Kipyegon laughed. “It was easy for me.”
She Improved Her Endurance
Kipyegon has gone through a series of coaches since her teenage years, when she was a standout talent who won world titles at U-18 and U-20 level. Towards the end of 2017 she connected with Sang, the coach of marathon world record-holder Eliud Kipchoge, who has steered her career ever since.
Sang trains Kipyegon differently than his other runners, most of whom are marathoners, and in their time together they’ve put a bigger emphasis on endurance How Des Linden Keeps Showing Up.
“The maternity [break] gave an opportunity for her to slowly work back to competitive running, and it gave me an opportunity to understand her,” Sang said. “It was a learning process for me.”
Under Sang, Kipyegon’s week is centered around three key workouts: A track session on Tuesdays, a long run on Thursdays, and a fartlek session on Saturdays. When she’s sharpening her fitness coming into the summer track season, the fartlek is replaced with a second track workout.
The one big difference between Sang and Kipyegon’s past coaches is his focus on the long run, with Kipyegon now regularly running 30K at a decent pace, far beyond what she did before.
“Training with marathoners has opened my mind,” she said. “I want to see myself at longer distances in the future. I could do the marathon in future and follow the footsteps of Eliud [Kipchoge] and Geoffrey [Kamworor].”
But the emphasis on endurance has already paid dividends at shorter distances. Kipyegon has maintained her speed but is now fresher than before when she enters the final lap of a 1500-meter race, allowing her to better utilize a fearsome finishing kick that has left the world’s best trailing in her wake time and time again.
She Found Extra Motivation
Physically, Kipyegon said she doesn’t feel any different now than she did before maternity leave. But mentally, there’s a huge difference.
“Now that I’m a mother, I have to focus more on my career for the sake of my child,” she said. “Since Alyn came into this world, she has been my life. Now I’m a focused athlete, I have someone to take care of so I put my heart, my head, everything, for her.”
Being as good as Kipyegon requires some sacrifice. When in hard training, she stays at the athletes’ camp in Kaptagat from Monday until Saturday so she can fully focus on her training and recovery, during which time a nanny juggles childcare duties with Alyn’s father.
“The nanny loves her, she’s been staying with her since she was one year old,” Kipyegon said. “She always tells me, ‘Mama, bye, see you on Saturday.’ Now she understands, but before she didn’t, the sacrifice I made in my career.”
Kipyegon calls her daughter every day from the camp, and Alyn, now 3, has already developed a good understanding of her mother’s career. She also has high expectations.
“After the Olympics, she was with her father at home, and I called her on his phone and she was really happy,” Kipyegon said. “She said: ‘Mama, bring me the gold medal.’ Even now she thinks the gold belongs to her. When visitors come, she tells them: ‘This is mine; this is my medal that Mama brought me from Tokyo.’”
What advice would Kipyegon give to other runners when it comes to maternity leave?
“Many athletes think it is something that will end your career, but I see it’s just the start of your career,” she said. “I can say it’s helped me. When you see your child running around, it gives you motivation. I became stronger and stronger.”
Cathal Dennehy is a freelance writer based in Dublin, Ireland, who covers the sport for multiple outlets from Irish newspapers to international track websites. As an athlete, he was Irish junior cross-country champion and twice raced the European Cross Country, but since injury forced his retirement his best athletic feat has been the Irish beer mile record. He’s happiest when he’s running or writing stories about world-class athletes.
