The women competing in marathons and breaking records after giving birth

Ellie Pashley’s shoes crunch and scrape at the gravel of the Surf Coast trail, as the mother-of-two Olympian runs through the corridors of moonah trees atop Aireys Inlet’s limestone cliffs.

It’s a leisurely pace for Ellie, but she still breezes past the joggers who frequent the marathon-length trail snaking its way along the coast from Torquay to Fairhaven.

Ellie is easing back into marathon training since the birth of her second child, Bobby, about six months ago.

But an easy run for Ellie is still quick. Very quick.

In recent months, she’s won the 10 kilometre events at the Melbourne Marathon and Run4Geelong — both somewhat minor achievements for an athlete who ran the marathon in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and once held Australia’s eighth-fastest marathon time by a woman.

Part of an inspiring group of so-called marathon mums — who keep showing that childbirth is no barrier to sporting success — Ellie’s sights are now set on the next Olympics.

“So, Los Angeles is in 2028 and obviously I would love the chance to try and qualify for that,” she says, sitting back in the living room of her Surf Coast home as her first child, Tiggy, creeps up beside her.

“Mummy, I’m hungry,” the grinning three-year-old interrupts, hoping to coax the second muffin of the morning out of her mum.

As husband Joe swoops in and escorts Tiggy to the kitchen, Ellie continues.

“I’m going to give it a really good crack over the next couple of years,” she says.

“This team for LA, particularly in the marathon, is going to be so hard to make … but I feel like I’m not quite done yet with running.”

Ellie gave birth to Tiggy in mid-2022, nine months after she crossed the finish line of the Tokyo Olympic marathon — and just two years out from the next Olympics, which she had hoped to qualify for.

“The transition to being a mum and juggling training, recovery, sleep, all of those things was really tricky,” the 37-year-old says.

“And when you’re doing it for the first time, you really don’t know what to expect.”

By the time Tiggy was six months old, Ellie had started racing again, which she admits may have been “rushing it” more than she needed to.

“I ended up getting injured leading into a marathon that was within the qualifying period, backed up and tried to do two more, and they didn’t go well,” she said.

“I knew it was also going to be a tough ask coming back from having a baby, but yeah, it was really disappointing when you put so much into it.”

Now, with a three-and-a-half-year gap between the birth of her second child and the next games, Ellie wants to get back to her best.

And she has plenty of inspiration to draw on, seeing the numerous mothers racing at the peak of Australia’s elite marathon ranks.

‘I suddenly realised you can be your best as a mum’

Jess Stenson is Australia’s fastest-ever female marathon runner.

But hers is a career that almost stopped well before its peak.

In 2019, Jess considered quitting marathons. At the time, she was a 29-year-old preparing to welcome her first child, Billy.

“At that time, it was kind of accepted that 28 was your peak marathon age, and then you tended to decline after that,” Jess says from the couch of her Adelaide family home.

“That was based on a study on men, though,” she adds with a wry smile.

Six years later, Jess has two children and the title of Australia’s fastest female marathon runner, having run a blistering 2:21:24 time in Valencia earlier this month.

The record shaved 10 seconds off the previous best, set by mother-of-two Sinead Diver three years earlier.

But Jess’s return to elite running after becoming a parent was not without its challenges.

There was the discomfort of training during pregnancy, recovery from a C-section that cut through all-important core muscles, the juggle of breastfeeding and caring for an infant while finding time to train, and the mental toll of trying to do everything at once.

Despite this, a return to form came faster than expected.

“I didn’t end up running a marathon until later in 2021 and that one was a personal best,” she says.

“That was when I suddenly realised that you can be your best as a mum.

“I ran with so much freedom and just felt better than ever out there, so whether that’s because of physiological changes or just the mindset shift, I don’t know.

“But from that day onwards I sort of realised that no, this is still my career and I’ve got big goals.”

‘Treated as an injury rather than a pregnancy’

It’s no coincidence that this success has come during a period of improvement in how Australia’s top marathon athletes are supported during pregnancy and postpartum.

“It was [previously] treated as an injury rather than pregnancy,” Ellie Pashley recalls.

But a lot has changed in recent years.

Jess remembers first informing Australian Athletics (AA) of her 2019 pregnancy. She says the response made her question her future in the sport.

“I think the response was, ‘Well, basically that means you’re no longer eligible for the funding that you’re on, you’ll get put on the equivalent of the medical level of support,'” Jess recalls.

“I remember saying, ‘Oh no, no, I’m still very much going to try and continue running at my best once I’ve given birth and hopefully qualify for the next Olympics’ and the response was, ‘Yeah, that’s all good and well, but you just don’t know what happens when you give birth.””

When she fell pregnant with her second child ahead of the Paris Olympics, Jess says the response couldn’t have been more different, with AA calling to offer every support to her and her family if she wanted to have a crack at qualifying.

“[They] just gave me all of this information, and it was just such a contrast to four years earlier,” she said.

Jess ran a marathon in little more than 2 hours and 24 minutes — qualifying for the Paris Olympics — just six months postpartum, and went on to set the second-fastest Olympic marathon time recorded by an Australian woman at the Games.

Since 2019, AA has been progressively updating and improving the pregnancy policy embedded in its National Athlete Support Structure system.

Those bound by the policy are required to “remove any unreasonable barriers to participation in the sport that disadvantage [pregnant women]”.

AA’s policy update is not the only improvement being made in how Australian athletes are being supported through childbirth.

In December, just days after Jess set her new national record, the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) unveiled a $10,000 grant for female athletes returning to Olympic sport after giving birth.

‘An exciting era to be a part of’

Marathon runners push themselves to make gradual progressions for each race and throughout their careers.

It takes a mammoth effort to shave even a minute off a personal best for high-level athletes, and that effort involves incremental, consistent improvements over a long period of time.

How Australia treats pregnant and postpartum athletes has become a similar matter of gradual improvements.

From the establishment and regular reviews of AA’s pregnancy policy to the AOC’s funding pledge, it’s becoming easier for Australian women to juggle elite running with starting a family.

And as elite athletes are better supported as mothers, they’re showing the next generation that sporting careers and parenthood are not mutually exclusive.

“I think it’s really exciting,” Jess Stenson says.

“To know that there will be girls out there, like my daughter Ellie included, who can look at a career in sport and think, ‘I can actually combine that with starting a family, and perhaps, in fact, I’ll be better for it’.

“It’s an exciting era to be a part of.”

Even our current crop of elite marathon runners are drawing inspiration from their colleagues. Ellie Pashley says she’s emboldened seeing her mates break records after childbirth.

“It’s really inspiring to see that you can keep going, and a lot of them have come back and run faster than they ever have before,” Ellie says.

“And it’s nice to be a part of that little community at the moment, that is all the mums running the marathon at the top level.

“But there are some of them that are a bit speedier than me, so I’ve got a bit of work to do.”