Stefanie Slekis wasn’t supposed to give birth for another month, but as she drove to pick her husband up from the New Orleans airport on Jan. 29, the contractions started.

The Nicholls State University cross country coach and former Syracuse long-distance runner had cruised through her second pregnancy without complications and stayed active by running regularly. Just 10 days earlier, she completed a marathon in Louisiana and was slated to race in the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials four weeks later.

The pair turned around and drove to a nearby hospital for tests. When Slekis went into labor, one thought remained in the back of her mind.

“If I have the baby now maybe my midwife will let me start the race,” Slekis recalled.

Others asked the same question. You can make a seven-day turnaround, a coaching friend joked in December when Slekis’s due date was Feb. 18. Be careful, a running reporter warned when Slekis hinted she planned to complete the full Olympic trial marathon. Slekis ran just 2.5 miles after giving birth before beating the cut-off time at the Marathon Trials by exactly one minute. She was one of 13 former Syracuse runners who raced in the event and finished second-to-last among those who made the cut, but still completed the whole 26.2-mile course in Atlanta with her newborn child present.

“I knew that it was really difficult at the end with minimal training, my goal was just the under that cut off time,” Slekis said. “And then obviously I had to be a little bit more ambitious.”

Slekis initially qualified for the trials by running a 2:42:24 at Grandma’s marathon in Minnesota last June. Even though she started coaching college runners after graduating from Syracuse, Slekis maintained a personal running career on the side. She was the first recruit that signed when Chris Fox and Brien Bell became the head and assistant coaches at Syracuse in 2005. “Patient zero,” Bell called her.

Slekis’ specialty was half and full marathons, and last fall she ran two half marathons while pregnant. In January, she ran the Louisiana marathon 35 weeks pregnant, finishing fifth in the women’s category.

“I was surprised at how fast I was,” Slekis said.

Slekis decided to run at the Olympic Trials after she confirmed that there weren’t any major risks in her running while pregnant. Courtesy of Stefanie Slekis

Weeks after giving birth, Slekis’ friend brought up the idea of running at the Olympic trials. Slekis ran the option by her midwife. Since she hadn’t suffered any setbacks while running pregnant, Slekis was told there weren’t any major risks in running.

Her original due date was 11 days before the trials, so Slekis ended up having more time to prepare. Friends urged that she could participate in the event, but she still laughed at what seemed impossible.

“I kinda just accepted the reality that I had qualified for the trial but wouldn’t get to run with my due date being February 18th and the trials being February 29th,” Slekis said. “There was just no way.”

But 48 hours before the trials, Slekis woke up and ran 2.5 miles — her only run since giving birth. Two days later, she was one of 700 men and women lined up at the start line in Atlanta.

“Oh my god, I’m going to do this,” Slekis thought to herself.

Before the race, Slekis spoke with two other qualifiers who ran the race pregnant and told them her story. When she ran the Louisiana marathon while pregnant, she received two types of cheers from spectators: one for participating and another when they realized she was expecting.

At the trials, Slekis figured they’d wonder why she neared last place with no visual sign of pregnancy anymore.

Instead, the cheers increased as she fell behind near the end. “It was deafening,” Slekis said. “You couldn’t even hear your watch at the mile markers.” She went on to finish 389th with a 3:14:00 time, the latest finish added to a running career that’s spanned more than a decade. The Olympics in 2024 remain an ultimate goal. So is winning a marathon.

But in the moment, none of that mattered. She just wanted to enjoy the race with her family.

Published on March 8, 2020 at 9:55 pm

Contact Skyler: skrivera@syr.edu | @skylerriveraa