Pregnant Goucher still runs

PORTLAND – On her whisper-slim marathoner’s frame, Kara Goucher’s five-month baby bump is more of a baby blip.

The Olympian, one of America’s best female distance runners since Joan Benoit, is still so tiny to be so close to her next big challenge: motherhood. And she’s approaching it with the same mettle as she would a race.

“Right now I’m really just focused on being a mom, and being a really good mom, raising this boy to be happy and to be a good person,” she said.

Goucher and her husband, Adam, a fellow Olympian, are expecting their first child in late September.

It’s the latest – and some would say most significant – accomplishment for Goucher, who made her marathon debut in the 2008 New York City Marathon. She came in third, becoming the first American woman on the podium since 1994.

While the decision to have a child just as her marathon career is taking off may be puzzling, for Goucher it has always been about timing.

She was the 2000 NCAA champ in the 3,000 and 5,000 meters at Colorado, but after college her pro career foundered. Enter Alberto Salazar, who won three straight New York City Marathons in the early 1980s and now coaches for Nike’s elite Oregon Project stable of runners.

Kara and Adam moved to Portland to train under him and never left.

The alliance with Salazar began to pay off for Goucher almost immediately and at the Olympic Trials in 2008 she finished first in the 5,000 and second to American record-holder Shalane Flanagan in the 10,000.

But after her finishes in Beijing – she was 10th in the 10,000 and ninth in the 5,000 – Goucher began to doubt herself and her goals.

“Beijing was really an eye-opener for me. I was hurt. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t proud to be there. I was ashamed,” she recalled. “My coach was like, ‘I know what kind of goals you have. Those goals are realistic, you’re just not running the right race yet.’ That’s when I said, ‘OK, tell me what to do.’ ”

Salazar told her she should run marathons. So she did, and instantly became one of America’s brightest stars. After Goucher became the darling of the NYC marathon, she came in third in the 2009 Boston Marathon.

But all the while, she was being tugged by the desire to be a mom.

Goucher figured she had a window in which to start her family. Too late, and she wouldn’t be ready to run in the 2012 Olympics in London.

Right on Goucher’s self-imposed deadline, she got the happy news. The couple waited before going public because they wanted to make sure the baby was healthy.

She has kept up an amazing training regimen while pregnant. Just last week she logged 80 miles, but that made her a bit tired, so she’s probably going to keep it around 75 miles. She’s also been training on Nike’s antigravity treadmill, making for a less laborious workout.

She’s planning to run all the way until the birth, if possible.

“It’s strange, I have to be honest with that. Someone just asked me if I loved being pregnant, and I do. But it’s an adjustment,” she said. “Normally my job is running 110 miles a week and being really fit and working out all the time.

“Things change, and you have no control over it.”

It’s fine for Goucher to run through her pregnancy as long as she’s closely monitored by her physician, said Dr. Linn Goldberg, professor of medicine and head of Health Promotion and Sports Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University.

Once she delivers, Goucher doesn’t plan to be away from competition long. She’s even set a goal “in pencil” of running in the Boston Marathon next spring.