Keeping pace: Mother versus athlete identity among elite long distance runners

This paper explores the ways elite female athletes negotiate the competing identities of motherhood and athlete as they return to high-level training and international competition after giving birth. This paper draws on findings from 14 semi-structured interviews with world class runners from Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia. We identified three main discourses: first, participants reported that support from their spouses, families, and sponsors allowed them to make meaningful decisions about elite sport and motherhood; second, elite female athletes reported feelings of guilt upon their return to training, which in turn, gave rise to a binary where athletes felt that motherhood necessitated selflessness and running required selfishness; finally, some participants reported that running/competition enhanced their mothering, transforming the ethic of care that informed their guilt into a site of empowerment.