At the awards ceremony at the 2018 Wildflower Triathlon, professional triathlete Kelly O’Mara wondered if she should quit her birth control pill. She was sitting with several other athletes and they couldn’t believe she was still on birth control. They claimed the pill was bad for performance. Didn’t she want to be fast?
It wasn’t the first time O’Mara had heard this advice. This time around, it seemed like everyone was off birth control. She’d previously looked for research into the link between hormonal contraceptives and athletic performance and had come up empty-handed, but the anecdotal evidence was convincing. Aside from the pros around her, her coach knew people who improved when they ditched birth control, including some of her own athletes. One of O’Mara’s friends, an athlete of a similar level, placed second at an Ironman after going off hormonal contraceptives.
O’Mara describes herself as a solid middle-of-the-pack athlete. She says she felt like she was missing “some obvious breakthrough” and dropping the pill seemed like the solution that was going to help her finish at the top. She…
