One image that has stuck with me as a runner is that of a British ultramarathoner in one of the aid stations of the Ultra Trail Du Mont Blanc in 2018.

Stephanie Power was breastfeeding her three-month old during a 107-mile race in the Alps. She would pump milk at every aid station but it was only when she reached Courmayeur, after a grueling 16-hour race, that she was able to make a pit stop to actually breastfeed her son. It was a scene that was beautifully captured in photos and published in social media and newspapers worldwide.

Power eventually completed the race in 43 hours and 33 minutes, with her toddler holding her right hand and her baby tucked in her left arm as she triumphantly crossed the finish line.

Runner Amber Miller found out she was pregnant with her second child days after she and her husband signed up for the Chicago Marathon in 2011.

Although a non-elite runner, she had already completed seven marathons and continued running throughout her first pregnancy.

At 27 years old, she was very healthy, so her doctor encouraged her to continue non-strenuous training.

The week before the Chicago Marathon, she comfortably completed a 13-mile run and got the go signal to push on with the race.

The doctor, however, advised her that she should stop should she feel any form of pain or discomfort. She finished the race in six hours and 25 minutes while her husband crossed the finish line 19 minutes after.

She was still in her running gear when she began to feel contractions, and then went into labor and gave birth to a healthy baby girl that evening.

Another powerful story is that of sprinter Allyson Felix, who was the most decorated Olympian in track and field.

In 2018, as her contract with Nike was up for renewal, she decided to get pregnant. When Nike found out about this, she was offered 70 percent less pay.

Two years after she gave birth, she qualified for the Olympics again, dropped Nike, and won more gold medals, surpassing Carl Lewis’s record for the most track and field medals in American history.

After her story came out in The New York Times, there was a public outcry, forcing Nike to announce a new maternity policy for athletes guaranteeing their pay and bonuses for 18 months around pregnancy.

Our very own Southeast Asian Games gold medalist Christine Hallasgo admitted that she also had to deal with bouts of guilt for being away from her daughter for long periods of training.

“I just use it as my motivation to train and work really hard so that if I win for our country, the sacrifice will be all worth it,” she said.

These stories call attention to the dilemma of whether mothers should continue with vigorous sports activities while pregnant or caring for small children. These women have shown it can be done and even believed it should be done.

Power was quoted after UTMB: “There is this huge mother’s guilt that all the time you need to be 100 percent focused on your baby, and I’m saying that by not focusing on your own physical and mental health you can’t be the best mother. For me, personally, I need to be physically fit and have those mental breaks.”

In fact, this predicament is something that ordinary runners or women engaged in sports grapple with.

I, personally, was lucky to have found running when my youngest was already in his teens and, therefore, fairly independent. Nonetheless running, as a serious hobby, takes a lot of time, energy, and resources. And if the mother is already juggling childcare with a career, it can even be more challenging.

Worse, archaic societal constructs dictate that mothers should prioritize everyone else before herself.

Nowadays, many women refuse to be held back by these constraints as shown by the bad ass women mentioned above.

I can’t help but refer to the oxygen mask analogy. When you go on a flight, you are instructed to put on your oxygen mask first before helping others, if anything untoward happens. If you run out of oxygen, there is no way to help anybody else.

Pursuing passions like running allows a mother to maintain her physical and mental health. This, in turn, enables her to achieve greater things for herself, her family, and, probably, even her country.