Four months ago, BYU senior Kylie Mantz walked on to the school’s track team despite never competing in high school.
Mantz had previously used running as a way to relieve stress, and her only stint on a track team had been in middle school, she recently told Runner’s World.
But her relationship to running changed six months into her marriage to former BYU runner Conner Mantz, an Olympian who finished fourth at the Boston Marathon on Monday.
Before she started running regularly, Kylie Mantz didn’t understand her husband’s exhaustion from marathon training.
“He would get back from runs and need to sit down, and I was like, there’s laundry to do, dishes in the sink, and life to do, and you just want to sit there and not do anything?” she told Runner’s World.
Her frustration led her to try to understand what it’s like to be an elite runner.
“I remember having a clear thought, like you have no idea what he’s feeling and what kind of training he’s doing. Do it yourself and figure it out,” she said.
Kylie Mantz’s journey to BYU track
Kylie Mantz started going on solo runs at her top speed — until her husband told her she should consider varying the speed and distance she’d run.
She then joined the BYU club track team in April 2023.
A year later, she competed in her first college meet at the Bryan Clay Invitational, where she ran her first-ever 5,000 meters. She finished with a time of 17:19, according to Runner’s World.
Afterwards, she caught up with BYU associate director of track and field and head women’s cross country coach Diljeet Taylor and talked to her about trying out for the team.
“Especially as someone who is a support system to someone following a really big dream, I think it was really important for her to also have a dream, whatever that looks like,” Taylor told Runner’s World about Kylie Mantz.
Leading up to her own opportunity to run for BYU’s official team, Kylie Mantz supported her husband as he represented the U.S. at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Conner Mantz finished eighth in the men’s marathon.
This fall, Kylie Mantz balanced her personal training with her responsibilities student-teaching for a kindergarten class.
Her shot with the BYU track team came in January. She trained with the team for two weeks as part of tryouts.
Some elements of workouts were modified by coaches for Mantz, but “Every time we had a hard workout, she was giving every single thing she had,” Taylor told Runner’s World.
Kylie Mantz has now embraced the competitiveness of running that previously turned her off the sport in middle school.
“I like shooting for big things,” she said. “There’s something about pushing yourself to a limit that you didn’t think was possible and then doing it, that is inspiring to yourself.”
Kylie Mantz ran her first official race for BYU at the Stanford Invitational earlier this month, where she competed in the 10,000-meter event and finished with a time of 34:57.36.
“I wasn’t the fastest person in my heat, but I had a sense of confidence and I truly felt like the goal I had worked so hard for was finally coming to pass,” she told Runner’s World.
She competed in her second race for BYU, the 5,000-meter, at the Bryan Clay Invitational last week. There, she ran 16:49.68.
She graduates from BYU this spring.