Amber Miller, 27 years old, completed the Chicago Marathon this Sunday at a relatively slow time of 6:25:50. That isn’t a terribly remarkable feat, especially given that she ran the Wisconsin Marathon in May and logged in a time of 4:23:07. Was she disappointed? Not at all.
What is remarkable is that Miller was just shy of 39 weeks pregnant while running the Chicago Marathon and felt contractions begin several minutes after she crossed the finish line. When contractions became regular she stopped to get a sandwich. Only a handful of hours later, she popped out baby June who was a hefty 7 lbs 13 oz. As a thrice pregnant lady, I can tell you that I also find it astounding that she ran a damn fine marathon in Wisconsin when she was 17 weeks pregnant.
Apparently it isn’t terribly uncommon for world-class female athletes to continue to run extremely long distances while housing a fetus. According to ESPN, marathon world-record holder Paula Radcliffe ran 14 miles a day while pregnant and resumed training weeks after the birth of her first child. She won the New York City Marathon in 2007 just 10 months after delivery. American marathoner Kara Goucher also trained while pregnant, running 80 miles a week at times.
When asked about Sunday, Miller said that she would “definitely do it again” but that it was the “longest day of my life.” No shit.
