Kylie Mantz started running to better understand her husband, an Olympic marathoner, and she ended up finding her own talent and passion for the sport. Photo by Bradley Slade.
As a senior racing among freshmen, Kylie Hall Mantz (BS ’25) felt like an imposter on the first day of tryouts for the BYU track team.
Mantz, who hadn’t been on a track team since her freshman year of high school, had made it her goal to walk on to the BYU team a year earlier after competing independently in the Bryan Clay Invitational 5K with an impressive time of 17:19. At the time her husband, two-time NCAA cross country champion Conner B. Mantz (BS ’22), was preparing for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
At first Kylie didn’t fully grasp the demands on a professional runner. Six months into married life, she grew frustrated with Conner, thinking, “There’s laundry to do, and the dishes need to be done, and you’re on the couch because you’re tired.”
A spiritual prompting led Kylie to gain insight into Conner’s life by stepping up her running hobby to more serious training. She began to understand both the exhaustion and joy of serious running.
“Seeing her actually go out and enjoy it and have fun—that was pretty special,” says Conner. Kylie says she “fell in love with it pretty quick” and set her sights on making BYU’s team. But as a senior, she knew her window was short—just one semester.
That fall the elementary-ed major balanced student teaching with 5 a.m. workouts. Conner woke up early to cheer her on and make lunches. When tryouts rolled around in January, Kylie trained for two weeks with the team. “Every time we had a hard workout, she was giving every single thing she had,” Coach Diljeet Taylor told Runner’s World. Kylie earned the single open spot on the team.
“I hoped to represent BYU in the best way possible.”
Kylie Mantz
The night before the Stanford Invitational, she donned her BYU uniform for the first time. “It was powerful,” she remembers. “I hoped to represent BYU in the best way possible.”
At the meet the next evening, Kylie ran her 10K under the lights as teammates cheered her on at the edges of the track. “I actually feel like I belong here,” she thought as she rounded her last few laps.
Although Kylie graduated from BYU in April, she still has running ambitions. She plans to train for marathons like Conner and dreams of qualifying for the 2028 Olympic trials. “It would be really cool to stand on the starting line together.”
