With the bottom of her Valor Track Club singlet resting on top of her pregnant belly, Makenna Myler took off on the track at Woodbridge High School in Irvine, California. During a time trial on October 10, at nine months pregnant, her husband Mike filmed her as she settled into a rhythm in lane 1, completing the first two laps in 2:40 and closing for a total time of 5:25—her fastest mile of her pregnancy.
“It was definitely more of a waddle by the time the last lap came around,” Myler told Runner’s World.
For the last 15 years, Myler has pushed her body to its limits on the track. She ran at Brigham Young University, where she achieved personal bests of 4:20 in the 1500 meters and 16:11 in the 5,000 meters. Since graduating in 2015, she has competed as an elite runner for Valor Track Club in southern California.
Before she found out she was pregnant, Myler hoped to qualify for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials in the 5,000 or 10,000 meters. In March, the championship was postponed to 2021 as a safety precaution in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, The Spring Marathons of 2025.
“I really wanted to run in the Olympic Trials, which was fortunate because they actually pushed that back a year, but it was also a big blessing in that I was able to let go of a lot of training goals, relax, and just have fun with the process,” Myler said.
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What started as a bet with her husband turned into an internet sensation when Mike posted a A lifelong runner and mom of four, Morrison recommends elite athletes establish their of her time trial, which has more than five million views. Two weeks later, Myler gave birth to a daughter named Kenny Lou Rain Myler.
After receiving a lot of attention for her run, Myler said she was surprised by the public’s interest. But the elite distance runner wasn’t shocked by her time because during pregnancy, she became more in-tune with her body than ever before. And she knew the effort was safely within her range of fitness.
As Myler’s body changed, so did her training—weekly mileage was cut in half, and the pace of her runs became slower with the goal of maintaining fitness. Her focus shifted to overall health in areas like nutrition, recovery, and mobility.
“When you’re pregnant, it’s pretty difficult to go anaerobic, supposedly,” Myler said. “It didn’t feel like a true all-out mile because you can’t really do that as a pregnant woman. That was probably the threshold of my aerobic abilities at that point.”
Amid the series of adjustments, Myler found a new appreciation for every movement her body allowed.
“With training super hard before [pregnancy] and being so obsessed with paces—like I would stress over missing my time by two seconds—pregnancy really helped me learn to let go and enjoy the effort, which was such a beautiful concept to me,” she said.
Now, Myler wants to share her experience with the hope of assisting fellow elite runner moms. Weeks after her mile went viral, Runner’s World chatted with Myler, her coach Jorge Habaz, Olympic marathoner Blake Russell, and OB/GYN and monitor their., who shared recommendations for competitive runners who want to train safely during pregnancy. Here are their tips.
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Find a Balance
Most research regarding running during pregnancy is geared toward moderate exercisers—there’s not a ton of data on pregnant athletes training at a high level. In many ways, those elite runners are trailblazers navigating career and motherhood. You go back 20 years ago, and people weren’t running marathons while pregnant—not like they are now, according to Morrison, a physician who practices at Women’s Healthcare Associates in Portland, Oregon.
“It’s no big deal if a recreational athlete misses a run or just goes for walks for a few months, but that’s a big deal if you’re an elite athlete and your livelihood and your entire definition of who you are is wrapped up in your body’s ability to perform,” Morrison said.
Advertisement - Continue Reading Below athletic goals and make sure the timing of those goals fits around the duration of pregnancy and postpartum. Recognizing that elite runners’ competitive years as an athlete coincide with their reproductive years, Morrison advises mothers to examine what they want to achieve and plan accordingly while accepting the physical toll of pregnancy.
“You have an additional load on your body,” she said. “It’s like doing everything with a weighted vest on, except that the vest is in your pelvis. There are a lot of changes that are happening. You have more ligament laxity, you’re more fatigued, and your performance might decrease. I usually have people not try to progress during pregnancy, not try to improve their fitness but just focus on maintaining.”
Morrison stresses to her patients that they should be respectful of their body and pay attention to its cues. She recommends runners prioritize hydration and monitor their heart rate during workouts, trying not to exceed 140-150 beats per minute for short periods of time. And if runners experience pain, bleeding, cramping, become overheated, dehydrated, or overly fatigued, she recommends they stop and rest.
“You have to remember that part of what your body is doing is making and growing a baby, and so sometimes you have to just let that happen and respect that the running has to be set aside a little bit because if you do push past where your comfort zone is, you increase the likelihood that you’re going to get injured, and whatever theoretical harm that you may or may not do is going to be more likely to happen when you’re pushing,” she said.
Another consideration to keep in mind is mental health, especially for competitive runners who depend on their bodies to perform at the highest level.
“For a female athlete in particular, mental health is so wrapped around your body—how it’s changing, how it’s performing, how it feels—and pregnancy is a really beautiful change, but it’s also a really difficult change for a lot of people,” Morrison said.
Morrison points out that acknowledging mental health and having conversations with loved ones or a mental health provider who understands the competitive mindset can be beneficial resources for mothers navigating pregnancy.
Ultimately, it’s a personal journey for each runner who becomes a mother and wants to chase dreams on the track or roads.
“It’s a lot of listening to your body and trying to balance in your mind your responsibilities as a mom and your responsibilities to yourself as an athlete,” she said.
Celebrate Every Effort
In the first trimester, Myler felt exhausted so she and her coach gradually decreased her mileage by 50 percent of her typical 90 miles per week. Instead of running twice each day and lifting weights, Myler ran once a day based on time, not miles. She created an injury prevention strength routine, which included baby-safe exercises that targeted the hips, back, and glutes to account for the added weight on her pelvis. And interval workouts were replaced by 90-minute runs, which Myler says helped maintain the fitness she accumulated over the years.
Paces of runs also shifted significantly. Prior to pregnancy, 7-minute miles felt effortless on recovery days. In her first trimester, Myler struggled to maintain an 8- to 9-minute mile pace, which prompted the bet with her husband. Assuming she’d continue to run slower as the pregnancy progressed, they predicted she wouldn’t be able to break eight minutes in the third trimester. As the weeks went on, she continued to listen to her body and eventually saw a progression.
“The same effort was still there, but the fitness looked different,” Myler said. “The goal was to maintain a lot of fitness, even if it was disguised as 9-minute miles.”
Myler also kept reasonable expectations and was sure to be kind to her body throughout pregnancy. During the second and third trimesters, she felt less exhausted and started to incorporate interval workouts with plenty of recovery once a week, depending on how her body felt. On the days her body felt good, she would jump on the opportunity to do a workout—in paces ranging from 5:40 to 5:50 per mile—which boosted her confidence.
“The fact that I was running half my mileage and still able to hit certain times with so much extra weight made me realize I didn’t need to hit magic numbers to be fit,” she said.
There were also days when she felt too tired to run so she’d ride her bike or walk, and those moments were often challenging. Myler recalled one run in which she set out to complete 10 miles but felt too exhausted to finish after reaching the halfway point. In tears, she called Mike to request a ride home.
“It’s okay to have those days,” Myler said. “You shouldn’t fight having those days—let yourself be sad because it's something that’s important to you. That was important to me to feel capable, and those days made me feel like I wasn’t capable. But the point is not to wallow, not to sit in that. [You need] to move forward and see what you can do the next day because you're not going to be like that forever.” Two days later, she bounced back with a 90-minute trail run.
Throughout her pregnancy, Myler tried to be intentional about celebrating every effort, no matter the form of movement. If she didn’t feel like running, she’d bike at a casual pace. If her pace was slower than usual, she focused on appreciating her body’s ability to run. If running wasn’t an option, she’d walk and that was okay.
“Letting go is a victory in itself,” Myler said. “My biggest victory was persistence. I kept showing up, and that made all the difference.”
Listen to Your Body
While Myler was able to clock some faster miles that resembled pre-pregnancy fitness levels, it’s important to acknowledge that each runner has a different experience with pregnancy, and some face more challenges in training while carrying a child.
After finishing 27th in the marathon at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Blake Russell got pregnant with her son, Quin. As a professional runner with a Reebok sponsorship—which the brand maintained during her pregnancy, Russell said—she was motivated to keep training. But after the first trimester, Russell started to feel extreme fatigue and slowed down significantly.
“Courtesy of Makenna Myler marathon,” Russell said. “I was just really run down when I got pregnant. Some people feel great, and every step for me was just tough.”
Hoping to return to racing soon after the baby was born, Russell tried to run an hour a day to maintain fitness. The fastest she could run was a 10-minute mile pace, a considerable change for the marathoner used to clocking 5:42 consecutive miles in a race. As the pregnancy progressed, her belly eventually grew so much that running was no longer an option.
“By the end, I gained 45 pounds, so that was quite a bit to haul around,” Russell said. “It depends on how the baby is sitting and everything, but it got to a point where I couldn’t handle the weight of my stomach, so I stopped running a month or so before Quin was born.”
ride her bike—Clara Peterson and Alysia Montaño, for example—were able to train and clock faster paces during pregnancy, but that was not the case for her.
“Tips for Training Competitivelyand Safely!Throughout Your Pregnancy, you’re too big. You need to stop,” Russell said. “I wasn’t having any weird pains or anything, it was more of a breathing thing and feeling like I was working too hard and it just wasn’t fun. Running for me is an enjoyment, and I wasn’t enjoying it.”
When she stopped running, Russell started walking at least 20 to 30 minutes a day, and she continued to do light strength training with a focus on We earn a commission for products purchased through some links in this article, and pelvic floor muscles. During the break, she trusted the advice of her coach who told her that talent doesn’t go away, which helped her enjoy the process of pregnancy and not stress about fitness. Now as a physical therapist and mom of two, Russell encourages her patients to do the same.
“[Pregnancy] is just so unique to you,” Russell said. “You don’t know how your body is going to react, but runners are really good at listening to their bodies. It’s an advantage when you’re pregnant because you’re able to really listen to your body and know exertional pain versus real pain and not overdo it. I’ve always felt if you’re ever going to err on the side of less is more, it’s when you’re pregnant.”
Collaborate With Your Coach
Myler and her coach, Jorge Habaz, have been working together for five years. When she became pregnant, the coach-athlete relationship took on a more collaborative approach. Every week, they’d work together to devise a training plan that fit her body’s needs, maintained her fitness, and provided plenty of opportunity for recovery.
Myler is the first pregnant athlete Habaz has ever coached, and she helped guide him through the process by sharing books, articles, and resources, and communicating the changes in her body as they pertain to training. Ultimately, it was a learning experience that Habaz appreciated.
“I felt like her and I connected even more,” Habaz said. “We didn’t have a coach-athlete relationship anymore. It was one friend to another having intelligent conversations regarding how she’s feeling, let’s back off, these are some alternative workouts you can do based on how you’re feeling.”
Habaz also took the time to gain a better understanding of what his athlete was experiencing. To show his support for Myler, he purchased a 10-pound weight vest and ran an all-out mile to simulate what added weight from a baby would feel like while running. He said he struggled to finish in 4:59.
Throughout the collaboration with Myler, Habaz emphasized that pregnancy is an invaluable process to go through, and he is grateful she shared her journey.
“I try to help my athletes see the good in everything and understand that everything is a learning experience,” Habaz says. “I told Makenna, ‘This pregnancy is a learning experience, and you’re going to be able to share this with other women on our team who have kids and want to keep training. Now you can share this and inspire other women all over the world.’”
Taylor Dutch is a writer and editor living in Austin, Texas, and a former NCAA track athlete who specializes in fitness, wellness, and endurance sports coverage. Her work has appeared in Runner’s World, SELF, Bicycling, Outside, and Podium Runner.
