The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Myler not afraid to reach for new heights
Makenna Myler didn’t want to stop. She didn’t see a reason to.
She was listening to her body and what it needed more than ever. She was healthy, prioritizing her recovery and nutrition, and accepting all the changes that come with being pregnant.
She needed to run. She craved the outlet running provided, allowing her to sink into the countless miles and constant revolving landscapes instead of focusing on the discomfort of her changing body.
It was the final month of her pregnancy and Myler felt fast. She glided across the track throughout the four laps, cautious not to rock her large belly with her soon-to-be baby daughter in tow. She finished the mile in five minutes, 25 seconds.
The next 10 days were a near blur. Her husband, Mike, posted the video of Myler’s mile on social media to show friends. It reached millions of people and had news outlets from across the country reaching out in awe.
Good Morning America called just moments after she’d gone into labor before welcoming her first child into the world: Kenny Lou Myler
While the past 18 months for Myler have been a whirlwind, they’ve also led her to achieve her dreams: from getting pregnant in early 2020 and going viral for running a sub 5:30 mile while nine months along to building up her strength post-pregnancy and running in the Olympic Trials.
And while this year’s running season is nearing its home stretch, Myler is getting ready to tackle another dream: running in the New York Marathon. However, she’ll first take her newfound strength and speed to New Haven to run in the Faxon Law New
Haven Road Race’s 20K National championship this Labor day.
“I feel like I actually live a pretty mellow life. My life has been very intentional in this last year in just regards to the goals I’ve had,” Myler said. “I’m really grateful to be doing what I’m doing and grateful that my body is healthy, and I love being a mom. I really am enjoying the new perspective in being a new person.”
When Myler, a former collegiate runner for BYU, first saw the positive pregnancy test last winter, she knew not only was her whole life about to change but so would her training. She had been racing competitively for the past five years and there was no way she’d stop now.
“I thought, ‘Why not?’” Myler said. “Why not continue to have a healthy pregnancy and try to make the most of my fitness even though it wouldn’t show with the outcome and times I was running. The effort could still be the same.”
It was the distraction of tracking her pace throughout long runs or pushing herself through hard track workouts that gave her peace while her body began to morph into a haven for her baby.
“It [running] was something that I could control and something that made me feel capable and empowered and that didn’t change when I was pregnant,” Myler said. “I still wanted to feel capable and empowered and running helped me feel that and so I continued to do that.”
She quickly learned to adapt. Besides accepting slower times out on the track, she began to change her focus during training. She prioritized listening to her body and its needs. No longer was her body just hers, but also her baby’s.
Myler learned to fight the constant battle between always being hungry and exhausted. She took lots of naps and focused on eating healthy.
Next to change was her weekly mileage. Pre-pregnancy Myler averaged anywhere between 100 to 85 miles a week. She weight lifted, ran daily doubles, and even did multiple intense interval workouts weekly on the track.
However, by the second semester of her pregnancy, she cut her regime down to 40 miles a week and biweekly track workouts.
The hardest days were when she’d wake up ready and feeling good to run, put on running shoes and go out the door, only to call her husband in tears moments later to come pick her up because she was too tired to finish her run.
But she refused to stop because her new training priorities were paying off. She was still keeping up with others on long runs and often ran comfortably around the 5:50 to 6-minute mile pace.
She was more than eight months pregnant and had a new goal. She wanted to run a 5:20 mile. It was mostly just for fun and for her own sanity to see if she could.
“I just kinda went for it,” she said. “There was no preparation or speed preparation at all. It was all based off of aerobic work.”
On Oct. 10, 2020, Myler set out to achieve the goal. Despite missing the mark by five seconds, she was still impressed by what her body could do.
“I felt like emperor penguin running around at that track. Trying to get my momentum to go forward even though it was going side to side a lot,” Myler said. “I thought it was just funny and a fun effort and that was kinda my reaction and I also just was really grateful that my body was able to do that.”
Ten days later she gave birth to her baby daughter, while the video of her 5:25 mile continued to go viral, gaining over three million views.
Myler returned home from the hospital and took two full weeks off to rest.
But it was after that second week of sticking to just walks and recovery, she felt ready to get back and decided to test her speed by doing a few short sprints at a local park. Instantly, she felt herself falling back into running.
“When I did those strides, I felt so light and I just couldn’t stop doing strides up and down the grass,” she said. “It just felt so good and then I knew I was ready to start building very slowly.”
Next, Myler tested her endurance and ran a mile. She felt good and began running for 30 minutes every other day to ease back into training. By the fourth week she’d been home, she began to average 35 miles a week.
Her strength and speed weren’t far behind. In fact, she was stronger than she’d ever been.
“I did not return to where I was at. I surpassed it pretty quickly,” Myler said. “I started finishing runs at times that I would have been happy doing tempos at. I knew there was a new level of fitness that I was starting at and that I wasn’t my old self but a new self and a more improved self which was a really cool feeling to experience that.”
Three months after delivering Kenny Lou she resumed her regimen of 100 miles a week and just like she had pre-delivery, learning to read her body was a key in keeping pace with her newfound strength. Since she was breastfeeding, and still is, Myler made it a priority to eat proper nutrition and stay hydrated.
“I learned a lot more about what my body needed as a woman and how to fuel my body better,” she said.
On May 28 at the Portland Track Festival, Myler finished the 10,000 meters in 32:03.62 and qualified for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials.
“To be in that kind of shape, it was pretty surreal that the little things had added up and that the fitness showed when it mattered,” Myler said.
Myler went into the Trials knowing she wouldn’t make the Olympic team, but being able to compete against the country’s best and in front of her husband and newborn baby, was more than she could have asked for.
She had put her body through every obstacle, and it had brought her to one of the highest stages, finishing the 10K at the Trials in 14th with a time of 32:44.72.
“I was really proud of who I had become and how much I had to change over the last year to be there,” Myler said. “I wasn’t expecting to make the team, I just knew I was there to compete and have a good time. More importantly, was just very happy with the person I had to be to be there.”
On July 14, less than 20 days after competing in the Trials, Myler signed her first professional sponsorship deal with Asics. She debuted as an Asics athlete on July 23 at Deseret News Marathon’s half marathon in Utah.
“It is super cool to be paid to do what I love; to run,” she said. “And I’m so grateful for Asics and what they stand for. Their motto is ‘sound mind, sound body,’ and I really stand behind that because this is the time where I’ve felt like my mind and my body have never been more aligned.”
To finish her 2021 season, Myler has already committed to running this year’s New York Marathon in November.
First, however; she’ll race as one of the top women competing in this year’s 20K at the Faxon Law New Haven Road Race. While this will be Myler’s first 20K race in at least the past two years, she’s excited to test her limits and continue pushing herself to new heights.