How Alysia Montaño Won a National Title Six Months After Giving Birth

When Alysia Montaño ran in an 800-meter qualifying round at the USATF Outdoor Track & Field Championships while 34 weeks pregnant last June, she thought that she'd make a small splash within the running community.

Instead, with her belly standing out as much as the signature flower she wears in her hair when racing, she became an international story. Her 2:32.13 of racing that day drew far more attention than her personal best of 1:57.34, five U.S. outdoor titles, and one Olympic and four World Championship appearances ever did.

"I was hoping I could reach a few people and let them know that whatever you were doing before your pregnancy you should be able to do," Montaño says. While surprised by her sudden fame, she was grateful for the opportunity to show what she could do while pregnant.

Likewise, when she won the 600-meter final last Sunday at the USATF Indoor Championships six months after giving birth to her daughter, Linnea, she was again proud to be an example that fitness and pregnancy go hand in hand.

Montaño credits strength training before and after giving birth with helping her make such a quick recovery. While pregnant, she focused on lunges and body weight squats, which she knew would also help during labor and delivery. She also stretched. "That good blood flow helps with recovery and repair," she says.

Montaño worked with a midwife and doctor to figure out when she was ready to come back. She was shocked when they told her five days after birth that she could start exercising if she wanted to. She decided to "wait until my mind was in it," Montaño says. A few days later, she started vigorous waking and core exercises, then began alternating running and walking, and then progressed solely to running.

Her eyes weren't immediately on this year's indoor track season.

"My goal is really [the] 2016 [Olympics], and there was no point for me to rush," Montaño says. "I wasn't going to do indoors. When we were talking about our racing plan, that wasn't part of it. I thought it would take me a little bit more time."

However, when she increased her endurance training, and did a few workouts in times that were close to her pre-pregnancy norm, she asked her coach if he thought it was a good idea to run a 400-meter race. On February 14, Montaño ran the 400 at the Washington Indoor Husky Classic in 53.86 seconds. "I felt like I could have soared through another 200 meters," she says, and decided then to go after nationals.

Two key workouts let her know she had a chance at winning. Two weeks before the race, she did three 600-meter repeats with weight training circuits in between. She hit 1:34, 1:32 and 1:30 on those three repeats. (Montaño’s indoor national record in the event is 1:23.59.) A week later, she did a cut-down workout of 600 meters, 500 meters, 300 meters, and 200 meters. "The first 600 out of the gate was 1:27, and that was pretty much all I needed to do," Montaño says.

At indoor nationals, she won the 600 in 1:26.59, one day after running 1:27.47 in her qualifying round.

Montaño says her support network has been key in her recovery. She and her husband, Louis, who she credits with designing the strength workouts, moved from Northern to Southern California to be closer to family. Her mother comes over two to three days a week in the afternoon during Montaño's second workout and weightlifting to watch Linnea, and her mother-in-law and cousin have stepped in too.

Sleep deprivation hasn't been a problem since Linnea has generally slept through the night since she was six weeks old, and Linnea naps when Montaño would normally nap before an afternoon workout. Montaño is breastfeeding, so the timing of when to pump and when to run is sometimes a dance, but she's figured out the steps so far.

Instead of hampering her training, Montaño says, her daughter has helped her become a better runner. She calls Linnea her "teammate."

"She's helped me have a whole new perspective on what's important," Montaño says. Instead of focusing on what goes wrong with a workout, she's become more flexible.

"Sometimes something doesn't go 100 percent the way you wrote it down,” she says. "You have to erase it and put it somewhere else."