Makenna Myler
Distance runner Makenna Myler made news and a post on her went viral in 2021.
Makenna, while pregnant with her first child ran a mile in five minutes and 25 seconds—just 10 days before she gave birth to her daughter in October. Her husband, Mike, created a TikTok post that accumulated over 6 million views.[1] Her story jumped to numerous other news sites around the world.
The following spring, she started entering races to qualify for the Olympic trials. At the end of May, she finally qualified with a time of 32:03.62 in a 10,000-meter race in Oregon. Her time was almost three minutes faster than her best collegiate time.[2]
In the trials on June 26, 2021—seven months after having her first baby—she placed 14th out of 44 runners in a highly competitive 10,000-meter race. Although she didn’t go on to compete in the Olympics, she signed a contract to run professionally for Asics.
In her debut as a pro runner, she ran the Deseret News half marathon in 1:09.54, beating the old course record set by fellow BYU standout Sarah Sellers. Makenna competed in track and field for Brigham Young University from 2011 to 2014.
