Britain’s Tina Muir to race Boston as a Wave One runner

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.

RELATED: Tina Muir’s struggle with amenorrhea described in new book

From the happiest place on earth to Boston’s world stage — @tinamuir is ready to tackle another target. #TeamWR https://t.co/G5CDPtAEDB

— Women's Running (@WomensRunning) February 6, 2019

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.

RELATED: It’s a girl! Melissa Bishop-Nriagu’s baby born July 2

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtRmWp6lS6w/

“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.”

RELATED: Des and Yuki are returning to the Boston Marathon

Regarding running after childbirth, Muir says: “…the other women I read about running postpartum, they think about their child and it pushes them to run harder. It doesn’t work for me; it has the opposite effect. I think, Bailey loves me no matter what, so it doesn’t matter. I try to compartmentalize and focus on the task at hand, which is running as fast as I can. The lead cyclist at the race, he said he didn’t know if I even spoke English because I was so focused. As soon as the race finished, my first thought was, Where’s my daughter? But during the race itself, I was just focused on what I was doing and keeping it separate.”

And to new moms who feel pressure to prove that they’re as good as they were pre-baby, Muir has this to say: “We have this image in our heads of what we’re posting on social media the day we’ve officially come back. There’s a lot of pressure in that. Be it six months, nine months, three years—you don’t have to come back. You don’t have to prove yourself to the rest of the world to be valued.”