British runner Tina Muir has announced she will race this year’s Boston Marathon, but as a fast amateur rather than an elite

Muir was a professional runner and Olympic hopeful who finished fifth at the 2016 London Marathon, and who recently published a book about her nine-year battle with amenorrhea. She has returned to the running world after taking two years off to recover her health and have a baby, winning the Walt Disney World Half-Marathon on January 13.

Muir’s time at Disney was six minutes off her personal best, and according to Women’s Running, she does not plan on racing with the elites at Boston. Nonetheless, Muir reports being “at peace” after all that she has been through over the past 10 years, struggling with amenorrhea and then leaving the sport to get healthy, culminating in the birth of her daughter one year ago.

“I understand that some people are driven by goals,” she told the magazine, “but for me at this point, I have too many other things going on in my life with my business, my baby, maintaining relationships with family and friends. I don’t have the mental or physical capacity to train at the level I want. I’d rather be out there enjoying it and still running hard, but not having that same pressure that I would as an elite.”

“I understand that some people are driven by goals,” she told the magazine, “but for me at this point, I have too many other things going on in my life with my business, my baby, maintaining relationships with family and friends. I don’t have the mental or physical capacity to train at the level I want. I’d rather be out there enjoying it and still running hard, but not having that same pressure that I would as an elite.”

posted Wednesday February 6th