middle distance runner El Saint Pierre She loves winning and wins often. So when the Tokyo Olympian failed to make the 1,500m final at the 2022 World Indoor Championships, she said: Said According to reporters, she “didn’t feel like herself.”
It wasn’t until much later that she revealed the reason. She was eight weeks pregnant with her son, Ivan.
“It was something I always wanted in my heart,” the New Balance-sponsored runner tells SELF. And thanks to her former athletes, she felt she didn’t have to wait until her running career was over to make that happen.
After Ivan was born in March 2023, St. Pierre became one of a growing group of professional runners to return to the sport postpartum, including Olympians Molly Huddle, Rachel Smith and Brenda Martinez. Ta. Many became friends and confidantes, including fellow New Balance runner Abby (D’Agostino) Cooper, who had a baby a month earlier.
The two bonded more deeply while attending a high-altitude training camp in Flagstaff, Arizona. “We were on the same schedule and I wanted to get right back to my baby after training while everyone else went out for dinner,” St-Pierre said. Along the way, they exchanged stories about life as a competitor and his mother, helping St-Pierre feel less alone and confident in his choices and future.
She also credits her family with playing a big role in keeping her busy. St. Pierre sometimes brings in extra hands to help her Ivan, including a babysitter, her husband Jamie, her mother and mother-in-law, when she goes camping from her home on a dairy farm in Vermont. Get them. -Law. That way, she can focus on training when she’s on the track or on the road, but she can still have him close after her sessions are over.
Thanks to a solid foundation beneath her and her various means of support, St-Pierre is back on track (literally). She returned to racing last September at the Fifth Avenue Mile, where she finished seventh with a time of 4 minutes, 23 seconds. At her Millrose Games in February, she ran 4:16.41, breaking her own record in the indoor mile. In March, two days before Ivan’s first birthday, she won gold in the 3,000 meters at the 2024 World Indoor Championships, setting a new American record of 8:20.87.
Then she interview NBC’s Louis Johnson held Ivan in his arms. The race was painful, she said, but not as bad as 12 hours of labor. Her face lit up when he asked her what it meant to her to be with her husband, her son, and the rest of her family.
“This is a win for all of us. They got me here,” she said. And their support was more than just babysitting and farm chores, it was also confidence in her athletic abilities. “When I told them I was pregnant, they just didn’t blink. They knew I was coming back. They needed it.”
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