After Elle Purrier St. Pierre gave birth to her son, Ivan, in March 2023—during the prime of her distance-running career, a year and change before the Paris Olympics—she felt, she says, “like garbage.” Her first training run back, which came three weeks after Ivan was born, “was not fun at all,” she says. “I just knew that I needed to take it slow.”
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Six months after delivering Ivan, she returned to racing at the 5th Avenue Mile in New York City, in September 2023. Purrier St. Pierre ran a time of 4 min., 23.30 sec., placing seventh. The result was slower than she expected.
“That was kind of daunting,” says Purrier St. Pierre, now 29. “I had moments of second-guessing if I would get back to where I was. What have I done wrong?”
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Nothing at all, it turns out. Purrier St. Pierre, who made the 1,500-m team for the Tokyo Olympics, finishing 10th in Japan, has flourished in her first full running season as a mom. She broke her own U.S. record for the indoor mile, at the Millrose Games in New York City, in February before winning 3,000-m gold at the indoor world championships in Glasgow in early March, setting another U.S. record in the process. “Beating the names that I did, that should give me all the confidence in the world heading into outdoor,” Purrier told TIME a few weeks after that world-championship win.
Building off her indoor season, Purrier St. Pierre—who in her spare time still pitches in on her family’s Vermont dairy farm—is returning to the Olympics, in Paris. She won the 5,000 m at the Olympics trials in Eugene, Ore., in June, and finished third in the 1,500 m. (Because of the tight Olympic track-and-field schedule, she’ll only run the 1,500 in Paris.)
Track and field has a checkered history supporting women athletes who want to start a family. Former Olympic runner Kara Goucher has said Nike stopped paying her when she got pregnant with her son, and Alysia Montaño has said the company also told her it would stop paying her when she was pregnant. Allyson Felix, the most decorated female Olympian in track and field, felt compelled to hide the early stages of her pregnancy from Nike, and left the company. In recent years, Nike has expanded financial protections for pregnant athletes, and Purrier St. Pierre says her sponsor, New Balance, offered full support during her pregnancy that has continued since Ivan’s birth.
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Around the time of those indoor championships, Ivan was going through a phase where he screamed at the top of his lungs in a very high-pitched voice. “When you’re at a restaurant or on an airplane, and everybody turns their head to look, you’re just like, ‘Oh my god,’” says Purrier St. Pierre. So on the flight home from Scotland, she and her husband, high school sweetheart Jamie St. Pierre, had their hands full. Her neighbors didn’t care much that she had just won a world championship. They just heard Ivan’s screams. “The people next to us were not thrilled,” she says.
After her indoor triumph, Purrier St. Pierre returned home to the farm for sugaring season. “Everybody is kind of running around like crazy, making lots of syrup,” she said from Vermont in late March, “before the trees start to bud and everything.” She used her downtime to help out with tasks like data entry and milking. “It’s just good for my soul and my mental happiness to be with the cows,” she says.
While juggling running and farming and family can at times feel overwhelming, Purrier St. Pierre says Ivan has actually helped, not hindered, her performance. She broke, for example, the U.S. trials record in her 5,000-m win in Eugene in June and ran a personal best in the 1,500. “I really think that some big part of it is just me being happier and being a different person,” she says. “I feel a lot more fulfilled in my life and have a lot more gratitude and just different kinds of motivation.”
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Motherhood was always one of Purrier St. Pierre’s dreams, on par with, or even exceeding, running. “It was a hard decision to have a baby and put my career on pause,” she says. “And so now that I have done that, I just feel like this piece of me that was missing is now here. I feel more complete and so I’m more level-headed and happy. That’s just all around good for my career.”
The fruits of all her work could pay off in Paris. Her 1,500-m first round is on Aug. 6; the final is on Aug. 10. “I can’t wait for the day when Ivan’s older and I can show him all that I accomplished,” says Purrier St. Pierre. “Show him pictures of him there at my race. I know he won’t remember. But it will be really special.”
“I just feel like this piece of me that was missing is now here.”