Kellyn Taylor, the veteran Hoka NAZ Elite marathoner who placed 15th several weeks ago in the 2024 Women’s Olympic Marathon Trials, announced via Instagram recently that she has been diagnosed with a femoral stress fracture. That goes a long way in explaining her time of 2:30:28, well off her personal best.
Taylor, 37, wrote that she underwent an MRI “a couple of days before the race,” but the focus was on her hip, not leg. Even before the injury late in training, it wasn’t the greatest buildup for Taylor, less than a year after giving birth to her daughter, Keagan. She reported that she was sick for about six weeks. That, coupled with breast feeding and heavy mileage, seemed to doom her chances. Taylor is known for her hard-as-nails toughness, and this news only bolsters that reputation.
In a way, the diagnosis perhaps can ease Taylor’s mind a bit, knowing that the fracture greatly contributed to a time nearly six minutess slower than her PR. The downsides, of course, are overwhelming. Any hopes Taylor may have harbored of competing in this summer’s Olympic Trials in the 10,000 meters, which she has run in previos cycles, are off.
What will Taylor do now?
On Instagram, she wrote, “Dreading the cross training but looking forward to the comeback.”
This is the third stresss fracture Taylor has sustained in the past four years. She finished a strong eighth in the 2020 Olympic Trials in Atlanta (2:29:55) despite finding out later she ran on a tibial stress fracture. In 2021, another stress fracture hindered her bid to make the Olympic 10K team.
This time, she hinted that breast feeding may have contributed to bone weakness. Her teammate, marathoner Aliphine Tuliamuk, mused on social media that more research needs to be done on the effects of breast feeding on elite athletes, alluding to her own SI joint injury in 2021 and Molly Huddle’s injury while breastfeeding her newborn.
Correlation or causation? Exercise scientists might want to delve into the situation. So far, at least, Rachel Smith, Elle St. Pierre and Abbey Cooper — new moms all — remain fit going into the trials.
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