Issue 418, sponsored by D+M Engineering PLLC

Lauren Gregory becomes the first U.S. woman to win OCC

It’s been a very exciting week in women’s running, but due to my life being in upheaval, I have a lot less time than usual to recap it this week. So here’s the abbreviated version of what caught my attention.

Yes, my U.S. bias is showing, but my favorite race of the week was Lauren Gregory’s come-from-behind victory at OCC, the 60K race with about 11,000 feet of climbing that serves as the 50K world championship final for the UTMB race series. (And the 50K/60K discrepancy isn’t a typo. They just do a lot of rounding in trail running, and sometimes your “50K” race is 20 percent longer.)

For much of the race, it seemed like it would come down to a battle between Great Britain’s Naomi Lang and Spain’s Sara Alonso. With 5K remaining, Alonso trailed Lang by only 24 seconds, with Gregory 88 seconds out of the lead. But after more than five hours of running, Gregory, who, like Lang, was running her longest race yet, had the most left, and she really began to get rolling.

The last 14 minutes or, if you’re pressed for time, the last five minutes of this race are worth the watch. Five hours and 56 minutes into the race, with about 12 minutes of running remaining, Gregory caught and passed Alonso, moving into second. And with less than three minutes left in her race, Gregory moved to the lead and powered to a win in 6:08:07, finishing three seconds ahead of Lang. Alonso took third in 6:09:11, but her greatest accomplishment may have been running a 60K that fast and still being able to do the worm at the finish line.

Behind them, Makena Morley, who was also a newbie at this event, finished fourth in 6:16:37.

This was one of the most exciting races I’ve followed in quite a while. Trail running is no longer just a niche part of the sport. There’s a reason it’s growing so quickly, and in many ways, when done right, it’s one of the most exciting areas of the sport to follow. In long trail races, we’re more likely to see dramatic lead changes and wild comebacks. There are real dangers and occasional wildlife encounters, the visuals are stunning, pro women occasionally win outright, and the length of the races allows for plenty of storytelling. And I will always be in awe of UTMB’s ability to capture and relay so much footage from the course.

But I don’t think races like this one can consider themselves to be true world championship finals until more of the world is included, especially countries like Ethiopia and Kenya, who tend to produce the world’s best runners. Last year, it seemed like a step in the right direction when Kenya’s Joyline Chepngeno won OCC, but a couple weeks later, she received a doping ban, which likely set back progress on that front.

It’s really cool to see Gregory, who ran for Arkansas, and Morley, who ran for CU, taking a slightly different path than most collegiate stars and excelling. I appreciate that Gregory has also trusted her gut in choosing to be coached by former pro Ben True. Staying patient and hanging back early in the race paid off for her.

It also worked out well for Norway’s Yngvild Kaspersen, who was more than 20 minutes out of the lead halfway through CCC. Due to some late course changes, the race covered 108K (67 miles) with roughly 6,000 meters of climbing this time around. She ran a patient and strong second half of the race, working her way through the field and taking the lead with less than 10K to go.

Kaspersen, who is a doctor, had a disappointing race at Western States two months earlier, and she was forced to drop out a few miles from the finish of the 100-mile race. But she bounced back beautifully at CCC, and she became the first woman to win this race twice, running 12:01:14. (She won the event in 2023, did not race it in 2024, and then DNFed in 2025.) South Africa’s Toni McCann finished five minutes back, in 12:01:14. China’s Miao Yao took third in 12:15:41, and Jennifer Lichter completed an impressive double following her Western States win, taking fourth in 12:24:01.

In the event’s grand finale, UTMB, winner Blandine L’Hirondel—also a doctor—used a different strategy, taking the lead around halfway, building a massive cushion, and then holding on in the closing miles. She covered the 173.6K (107.9 mile) course, with almost 32,000 feet of climbing, in 21:54:49, winning by 21 minutes. L’Hirondel struggled in the closing miles and took a couple of hard falls, but she persevered and became the first Frenchwoman to win the race in 10 years, much to the delight of the home crowd. Following New Zealand’s Ruth Croft, who did it last year, L’Hirondel becomes only the second woman to win OCC, CCC, and UTMB.

Rachel Entrekin, who received a flurry of attention following her outright win at the Cocodona 250 in May, is best known for her accomplishments in longer events, so it was nice to see her drop down in distance and hold her own in Chamonix. She finished second in 22:15:54, fending off a strong challenge from fellow American Emily Schmitz, who took third in 22:17:28.

Schmitz, 45, who has lived in the Chamonix valley for the past four years, went in thinking that a good day might mean finishing in the top 20, but she had a great day and pulled off one of the bigger surprises of the event. Schmitz finished fifth at both OCC in 2019 and CCC in 2023. She had never run UTMB before, but her experience on the course paid off. (OCC results | CCC results | UTMB results | Post-race podcasts with CCC champ Yngvild Kaspersen and OCC champ Lauren Gregory)

Thanks to D+M Engineering PLLC for their support in August!

Muna and David Mitchell own and operate D+M Engineering PLLC, a woman-owned, Austin-based engineering firm. It has been our pleasure to sponsor the Fast Women newsletter for the month of August.

Twenty years ago, after dating for one week, David proposed to Muna by saying that we would get married the day after she ran the Boston Marathon. She had never qualified, but he had faith in her (or maybe thought it was a long shot that would let him off the hook!). Two months later, Muna qualified at the Austin Marathon. Two months after that, she ran her first Boston Marathon on Monday, and they got married the next day. (It was a different time when qualifying and registering could be done within two months of each other.)

Boston became a part of our love story and our love of running. If we were not running the marathon, we spectated. The fast women of all ages never failed to inspire us, and sometimes we were lucky enough to meet some of our heroes there.

To learn more about our engineering services and community endeavors, please visit www.dplusmengineering.com or contact Muna Mitchell at muna@dplusmengineering.com.

Other Results, News, and Links

• Back on June 7, in her second 800m of the outdoor season, Switzerland’s Audrey Werro surprised many by running 1:53.98, which made her the third-fastest 800m runner of all time. She has remained undefeated in 800m finals since then. But dipping back into the 1:53s this year began to seem like a tall order, until Thursday, when she battled Femke Broeders-Bol of the Netherlands in front of a home crowd at the Zurich Diamond League meet. Broeders-Bol took the lead and pushed Werro until the final 150m. The result was a 1:53.70 national record for Werro, and Broeders-Bol ran 1:54.71 for second, her third 800m national record in less than two weeks. Great Britain’s Georgia Hunter-Bell ran 1:55.03 for third. (Keely Hodgkinson was originally supposed to be in the race, but she said via a statement that her body wasn’t quite ready to race again after the European Championships.) In the steeplechase, Kenya’s Faith Cherotich ran 8:55.82 to earn her second Diamond League win of the season, and I was impressed by former Alabama star Doris Lemngole, also of Kenya, who challenged Cherotich the whole way and finished second in a small PR of 8:55.94. Lexy Halladay-Lowry ran an aggressive race and faded a bit at the end, but she held off everyone in the chase pack and took fourth in 9:11.10. Gabbi Jennings took ninth (9:16.54), Gracie Hyde was 12th (9:20.75), and Emma Coburn finished 14th (9:36.83). (Results)

• Nadia Battocletti showed that she has an impressive kick in the 1500m, too, running an Italian record of 3:57.54 at the GalAthletics Bellinzona on Sunday. Addy Wiley took second in 3:58.96, narrowly improving her three-year-old personal best. Heather MacLean took fifth in a season’s best of 4:00.86, Gracie Morris took ninth in 4:02.95, and I was pleased to see that in Jessica Kain’s first-ever European race, she took another three seconds off of her PR, running 4:03.11. France’s Rénelle Lamote and Agathe Guillemot went 1-2 in the 800m, running 1:58.55 and 1:58.65. Meghan Hunter finished sixth in 1:59.85. (Results)

• Saint Vincent’s Shafiqua Maloney won the 800m at Grand Prix Brescia, running 1:58.03, and Ireland’s Sophie O’Sullivan, who was an NCAA champion at the University of Washington, took second in 1:58.60. Roisin Willis was the lone U.S. competitor in the race, and she took fifth in 1:58.95. (Results)

• Ethiopia’s Nigist Getachew won the ISTAF Berlin 800m in 1:58.04, and Poland’s Klaudia Kazimierska, formerly of the University of Oregon, took second in a personal best of 1:58.11. Nia Akins finished fourth in 2:00.51, and competing for the first time since mid June, Kenya’s Mary Moraa struggled to a 10th-place finish in 2:08.20. (Results)

• Raevyn Rogers won the 800m at the International Wiesław Maniak Memorial, running 1:58.86. Meghan Hunter took third in 1:59.55, and Maggi Congdon was sixth in 1:59.99. (Results)

• McKenna Keegan won the Monmouth 800m in 2:00.55 (Results)

• ATHLOS announced on Friday that it was canceling its New York event, scheduled for October 2. Their statement seems to suggest that they realized that it’s asking a lot to have track & field athletes extend their seasons into October. I agree, but it’s disappointing that they only came to this decision after a lot of people had already made plans to attend the event. And given what happened with Grand Slam Track last year, I think a lot of people are feeling a little leery. ATHLOS will still hold their London event on September 18, and they said that in the future they will “move to be aligned with the global athletics calendar.” Femke Broeders-Bol’s coach, Laurent Mewly, had some critical—and I think fair—words for ATHLOS on X. I feel like there’s this unstated understanding that we’re not supposed to criticize ATHLOS because Alexis Ohanian is doing us all a favor by bringing attention and money to the sport. I think it’s great he’s trying something new—and I think he has made some mistakes that were very avoidable, he has overpromised and underdelivered, and the dishonesty about selling out just makes me trust everything that comes from their PR team a little less. But I also hope the London meet is a success and they can build from there.

• I appreciated this UTMB-related comment from Katie Schide on Instagram: “It’s wild to see how far the sport has come in just a few short years. But even when all the noise seems overwhelming, it’s still just running, eating, and a lot of walking too.” I feel that way about the sport in general, not just trail running.

• You might remember Kenya’s Priscah Cherono, 46, who burst back onto the scene with her win at the Marathon Project last December. She followed that up with a win at the LA Marathon in March. And on Sunday, she ran her fastest marathon yet, despite doing it the hard way. She led the Sydney Marathon through halfway in 1:07:58, and maintained her lead until about 27K. But even once fellow Kenyans Peres Jepchirchir and Irine Cheptai caught her, she hung with them until about 31K. The race coverage missed Jepchirchir’s move, but by the 36th kilometer, she had broken away, and she went on to win by nearly four minutes, in 2:18:31. Cheptai struggled, but held on to take second (2:22:11), and Cherono dominated the masters division, taking sixth in a PR of 2:23:49.

• I unfortunately did not have the time to follow the World Masters Athletics Championships this week, but I did see that four-time Olympian Joetta Clark set a pending world record in the 60-64 200m, running 27.44.

• Elle St. Pierre, who has repeatedly demonstrated her ability to successfully balance a pro running career with having kids, announced that she is pregnant with her third child.

• Sage Hurta Klecker said on Instagram that running in spikes has continued to hurt her foot, so she has shut down her season.

• I ran out of time to write a podcast section this week, but I really appreciated hearing a little more about the work Viola Cheptoo is doing to combat gender-based violence in Kenya on NYRR’s Set the Pace podcast. I also enjoyed hearing from Sabrina Pace-Humphreys on the Trail Society podcast, Canada’s Jadyn Keeler on The Shakeout Podcast, and Sinclaire Johnson on Hurdle.

I regret the fact that I don’t have more to give here in what was a great week in women’s running. One final thanks to D+M Engineering PLLC for supporting Fast Women this month! I hope you all have the best week you can.

Alison

Issue 417, sponsored by D+M Engineering PLLC

Jenny Simpson is grateful to be alive, and grieving the loss of her ability to run

On June 16, Jenny Simpson, the 2011 world champion and 2016 Olympic bronze medalist in the 1500m, paced a group of girls who were hoping to run 5:30 at a Sir Walter Running Pop Up Miles event in Raleigh, North Carolina. After running a 5:29, she was chatting with another attendee on the infield when she started to feel unwell. She told them she needed a minute, she stepped away, and then she suffered a cardiac arrest.

Simpson nearly died that day, but thanks to the heroic work of a number of bystanders and paramedics, she did not. But even once she got to the hospital, she was not out of the woods yet. She suffered a second cardiac arrest and had to be put on ECMO.

Last week, Simpson began to share some of her story, making an appearance on CBS Saturday Morning (text version here) and speaking to The Athletic (gift link). And on September 7, she’ll be on the Rich Roll Podcast. (Side note: I appreciate that most of the people who were at Williams Stadium that day respected her privacy as she recovered and didn’t go to the media to discuss what they saw. I imagine the experience was life-altering for many of them as well.)

The CBS video is a must watch, and the Athletic piece adds some key details. Simpson has been diagnosed with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), a rare, inherited condition that disrupts electrical signals and can be difficult to screen for. Simpson said that one of her doctors remarked that they were surprised that nothing happened to her sooner. While having the condition is a stroke of unfortunate luck, if she had to collapse, it was extremely fortunate that it happened where it did.

As the details from June 16 emerge—Simpson remembers none of it—one star that stands out is Dr. Ivy Pointer, a pediatric ICU physician and runner who immediately began administering CPR, while her husband, Joey Pointer, CEO of Fleet Feet, ran to get the defibrillator that they had purchased for their son Liam’s track team, because he was born with a heart condition of his own.

As Simpson’s doctor, Albert Sun, told The Athletic, “You can point to amazing emergency care from the EMS, emergency care from the emergency department, catheterization, cardiology care, intensive care unit support, you know, all the diagnosis and all that part. But nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing compares to the importance of early CPR and AED access.”

Thanks to the Pointers and others, Simpson collapsed in a place where she had that. Just about a week later, their son Liam underwent his previously scheduled open-heart surgery, coincidentally at the same hospital where Simpson was undergoing surgery the same day. And somehow, on the weekend between helping save Simpson’s life and being there for her son’s procedure, Ivy Pointer, 47, ran a speedy 3:22:12 at Grandma’s Marathon, where she finished eighth in her age group.

Simpson, who turned 40 yesterday, now has an implanted defibrillator and a pacemaker, which will kick into action should her heart’s rhythm be disrupted again. She is grateful to be alive, but she is still recovering from the life-changing event in many ways. And because of her condition, she will never be able to run again—an adjustment that any runner would struggle to make, but a particularly tough one for Simpson, because the sport is so central to her life and her work as Fleet Feet’s Chief Running Officer.

As most of you know, about seven weeks before Simpson collapsed, my husband, Parker, had something very similar happen, likely due to an electrical issue with his heart. But unlike Simpson, he did not have immediate CPR and AED access. Paramedics were miraculously able to get his heart going again, but he never regained consciousness and died five days later. There are so many what ifs that one can go through, and I have, but in the end, in this one very important way, things did not play out in his favor.

Through his freelance work for World Athletics, Parker covered many of the big moments in Simpson’s career. He was in Rio in 2016 when she won her Olympic bronze medal and in Moscow in 2013 when she won her first world championships silver medal. (He missed her world championships gold in 2011, though, because he was home on paternity leave.) I imagine that he would have been pretty darn surprised to learn that he and Simpson had something like this in common.

After Simpson collapsed, I got a number of messages from people saying they were thinking of me and it must be triggering to see her go through something like that. It was shocking and sad, but if anything, it just drove home how little control we have over these things. Having medals from global championships doesn’t ward off health problems.

Something about my high school health class experience left me believing on some level that if I ate “well” and exercised, I would be rewarded with good health. As I spent a little more time in the world and paid more attention to the stories around me, it quickly became apparent that it was so much more complicated than that, and genetics, environment, socioeconomic status, luck, and other factors have a lot more to do with it.

That’s not to say that we have no control over our health, but we have so much less than that health class curriculum would have had me believe.

It’s not triggering to write about this, because I’ve thought about mortality more than most people in recent months. Parker and Jenny’s stories are a reminder that life can change in an instant and our futures are never guaranteed. You never know when a run—or an interaction with someone—might be your last.

I feel like I should be ending this with some great insight about making the most of every moment, but that sounds like a tiring way to live. We can’t spend our lives anticipating the moment when something will be taken from us. But most of us can probably do more to appreciate what we do have, before it’s threatened or gone.

A huge thanks to D+M Engineering PLLC for supporting Fast Women this month

Muna and David Mitchell own and operate D+M Engineering PLLC, a woman-owned, Austin-based engineering firm. We are proud to sponsor the Fast Women newsletter for the month of August. Stay tuned for one more week and to read the best part about our story.

Muna and David met through their local running club, volunteering at races starting with the Daisy 5K, initially a women’s-only race and Austin’s oldest 5K event. In our spare time alongside other volunteers, we planned the course, hired vendors, obtained the permit, designed the shirt, and deployed race-day volunteers, all while working full-time engineering jobs and making time for our own running.

We fell hard for each other very quickly and also learned that we were very good at working together. It took many more years before we took the step of starting our own engineering business together, but we are not surprised at how much we continue to enjoy working together. While we can’t help comparing PRs, we also can’t help cheering each other on through every race.

To learn more about our engineering services and community endeavors, please visit www.dplusmengineering.com or contact Muna Mitchell at muna@dplusmengineering.com.

With two more stops to go, the Diamond League season rolls on

After a month-long break for the Commonwealth Games and European Championships, the Diamond League season resumed last week with meets in Lausanne, Switzerland, and Silesia, Poland.

In Lausanne, Audrey Werro narrowly continued her unbeaten streak in the 800m, holding off the Netherlands’ Femke Broeders-Bol, 1:55.33 to 1:55.41. Werro followed the pacer through 400m in 55.3, a little on the aggressive side, and paid for it in the homestretch. Broeders-Bol ran close behind her, but with a slightly faster 400m personal best, the quick start may have taken a little less out of her. And she keeps getting better at her new event. For the second meet in a row, she set a national record, this time lowering it by 0.13 seconds.

And recall how three weeks ago I said to remember the name Saida Tsehaye after the 18-year-old Ethiopian ran a surprise 1:57.96 800m? Well she ran aggressively, took advantage of her first Diamond League opportunity, and took another second off of her personal best, finishing third in 1:56.92.

Addy Wiley was the top American, taking sixth in 1:59.22. Running her first race in more than two months, Sage Hurta-Klecker finished 10th in 2:02.78. Earlier in the meet, Raevyn Rogers, whose 1:57.94 season’s best wasn’t enough to get her into the top heat of the 800m, won the B heat in 1:59.77.

In the steeplechase, Bahrain’s Winfred Yavi, the reigning Olympic champion, earned her first Diamond League steeplechase win of the season, holding off Kenya’s Faith Cherotich, 9:00.04 to 9:01.90. Tunisia’s Marwa Bouzayani was the best of the rest, running 9:05.55 for third.

Because of the race’s more conservative start, Lexy Halladay-Lowry was able to hang with the lead pack longer than we tend to see from the top Americans in Diamond League steeples these days. And it felt just like old times, watching her battle her former NCAA rival Doris Lemngole of Kenya. Lemngole got the edge, taking fourth in 9:07.09 and Halladay-Lowry took fifth in 9:08.35, shaving 0.33 seconds off of her personal best.

After USAs, Halladay-Lowry said she felt like she was just getting started because she had been injured earlier in the season, and she backed that up in Lausanne.

In Sunday’s meet in Silesia, it looked like Australia’s Jessica Hull would be rewarded with a 1500m win for running a smart, patient race. But just as she made her move to the front, Ethiopia’s Tsige Duguma, the 2024 World indoor champion in the 800m, made an even bigger move, which brought her from fifth to first. She outkicked Hull for the win, 3:55.06 to 3:55.20. Kenya’s Dorcus Ewoi ran 3:55.58 for third, and in front of a home crowd, Klaudia Kazimierska took fourth and lowered the Polish record to 3:55.59, a 2+ second personal best.

Emily Mackay, who has been busy getting ready for her wedding next month, was the top U.S. athlete, taking fifth in a season’s best of 3:56.24. It was a tougher day for Nikki Hiltz (10th in 4:00.52) and Sinclaire Johnson (15th in 4:04.93). Hiltz wrote in an Instagram story, “Not my best race out there today but it’s all part of the journey! Grateful I have a couple more opportunities this season to compete against the world’s best.”

I expected a fast 5,000m, but no one wanted to set a quick pace, so it played out more like a championship race. And no one is tougher in a championship race right now than Italy’s Nadia Battocletti, who just won the 5K/10K double at the European Championships.She used a 58.59-second final lap to win in 14:54.09. Ethiopia Freweyni Hailu took second (14:54.62) and Commonwealth Games 5K/10K champion Rose Davies of Australia took third in 14:55.39. The slower start and fast finish didn’t play to Alicia Monson’s strengths and the lone American in the field (outside of pacer Gracie Morris) took 18th in 15:03.46. (Lausanne results | Silesia results | Lausanne 800m replay | Lausanne steeplechase replay)

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Other News, Results, and Links

• Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon shared that she is ending her season because the hamstring injury she’s been dealing with since May has been taking longer than expected to heal.

• Ethiopia’s Fotyen Tesfay, a 2:10:51 marathoner, won Sunday’s Media Maratón Ciudad de Buenos Aires in a speedy 1:03:57. She said afterward that she hoped to run a bit faster, but she felt some discomfort in her leg. (Results)

• Ethiopia’s Girmawit Gebrzihair won Sunday’s Antrim Coast Half Marathon in 1:06:13 and Dakotah Popehn was the top American woman, running 1:08:47 for fifth. (This is the closest thing to accurate results I can find at the moment, and last year’s winner is listed.)

• Great Britain’s Melissa Courtney-Bryant won the 1500m at the BMC Record Breaker meet in London, running 4:06.29, and Lindsey Butler took second in 4:06.83. (Results)

• Defending champion Hellen Obiri of Kenya headlines the field for the New York City Marathon, which will take place November 1. And it’s good to see the Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan back for another crack at the course, after she struggled to a sixth-place finish in her debut at the race last year. (Obiri, too, finished sixth in New York in her debut on the course, but it was also her first marathon, period.) The field features solid depth, and assuming they all make it to the starting line healthy, it’s going to be interesting to see which U.S. athletes lead the way as Jess McClain, Fiona O’Keeffe, Weini Kelati (who is debuting), Annie Frisbie, Carrie Ellwood, and Erika Kemp battle. (Full field announcement)

• USATF announced last week that for the sixth Olympic cycle in a row, the 2028 U.S. Olympic Team Trials will take place in Eugene, Oregon. No shock there, but what was previously a 10-day meet with two rest days in the middle will be condensed to six days, and the 10,000m, heptathlon, and decathlon will take place earlier in the spring, with the dates and locations to be announced soon. I’ll be interested to see how all of that plays out. With the marathon trials scheduled for March 25, 2028, it will likely be tougher for marathoners to use the 10,000m as their backup plan. And I hope the 10,000m and multis can pack a stadium, but I fear that conducting those events separately is going to remove some of what makes competing at the Trials special. I’d love to be wrong about that. On the plus side, I love all of the Trials events and there will now be more of them to follow in 2028. Jonathan Gault reported that the 5,000m will be a straight final, which means the qualifying standard will almost certainly be tougher than ever before, and fewer athletes will be accepted into the meet. He also pointed out that there will be only a 23-day gap between the end of the Trials and the start of the Olympic track & field events.

• When experienced runners tell you the race course was not the right distance, believe them. Many runners at the Edmonton Half Marathon—which served as the Canadian championship—and Marathon knew something was up before the race was over, but event organizers originally denied there was a problem. But two days after the event, they acknowledged that both races were 674.4 meters too long. Half marathon champ Jadyn Keeler shows up as having run 1:12:12 in the results, but that means she ran 1:09:57.8 half marathon pace for about 13.53 miles, on what isn’t a particularly fast course even when it’s the right length. Keeler acknowledged on social media that she has her eye on Andrea Seccafien’s Canadian record of 1:09:38. Next up, she’ll race another half at the World Athletics Road Running Championships in Copenhagen on September 20. Before event organizers acknowledged the error, men’s half marathon winner Rory Linkletter posted about his frustration on social media. Jess McClain, who was led off course while leading the U.S. half marathon championships earlier this year had the top comment: “Big fan of running extra in half marathons,” she wrote.

• This is quite the story, about competitive age-group runners Lisa Zappala, 65, and Nadine Palmer, 58, who kept their Boston Marathon streaks alive this year despite both receiving lung cancer diagnoses. The two are roommates and both were spending significant time training on the treadmill in their basement. And it turned out that the radon levels down there were four times higher than the acceptable limit.

• Saturday’s Crim 10-Mile was delayed and then shortened to 5 miles due to heavy rain and lightning. Ethiopia’s Werkuha Getachew outran Kenya’s Everlyn Kemboi, 26:21 to 26:23. (Amy Davis-Green, who finished fourth, commented on social media that she thought the course was a bit long. And after the Edmonton situation, I’m more inclined than ever to believe the runners.) (Results)

• I appreciated Caroline Price’s Guardian article from a few weeks back about politicians working to dismantle DEI initiatives at SEC schools while those schools rely heavily on Black athletes to win titles. The article centers on University of Georgia gymnast Nyla Aquino, but it could have just as easily been about a track & field athlete.

Podcast Highlights

• Molly Seidel discussed her decision to withdraw from OCC on The Freetrail Podcast, saying she is still recovering from the Western States 100. But she’s in Chamonix, France, training on the course and doing some information gathering for the future.

• Vanessa Fraser discussed her return to full-time professional running, her struggles with R-CPD (aka “no burp syndrome”), and her 4:31 mile with her dog on I’ll Have Another. For more on her dog mile, she also spoke to Runner’s World.

• I enjoyed learning more about U.S. 10,000m champion Sydney Vaught on C Tolle Run, it was also good to hear from cross-country skiing legend Jessie Diggins, who is exploring trail racing a bit more in retirement, on Nobody Asked Us, and Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier Sarah Czuprynski was on Road to the Trials

I’ve assembled this newsletter more hastily than I would have liked, It’s late, and I have a big week ahead—unfortunately not in an enjoyable way. But the theme of this summer has been trying to find fun moments while doing tedious and unpleasant tasks.

Thanks again to D+M Engineering PLLC for supporting Fast Women this month, and I hope you all have the best week possible.

Alison

Issue 416, sponsored by D+M Engineering PLLC

Audrey Werro wins clash of the titans

Last week, Birmingham, England, hosted the European Athletics Championships, and it was a fun event to follow, partly because as long as you registered, all of the coverage was free to watch and easy to access.

It also featured one of the best showdowns of the summer so far: Switzerland’s Audrey Werro vs. Great Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson vs. the Netherlands’ Femke Broeders-Bol in the 800m. Though they’d all raced each other this summer, Friday’s 800m final (which you can watch here) was the first time all three were in the same race together.

Hodgkinson, 24, is the reigning Olympic and World indoor champion, and she came into the season as the favorite. But Werro, 22, has surprised everyone, PRing by more than two seconds, running in the 1:53s twice, and remaining undefeated heading into the European Championships. Broeders-Bol, 26, has the most impressive resume of them all, but until this season, all of her accolades came in the 400m hurdles, 400m, or 4x400m relay. She’s a newcomer to the 800m, but her performances this season have surpassed most people’s expectations. (And how cool that she chose to switch to a new event when wins in the 400mH are much more of a sure thing for her.)

The showdown nearly didn’t happen, though. Werro was leading her semifinal race when France’s Anaïs Bourgoin, who had been squeezing Werro toward the rail, accidentally hit Werro’s foot with her hand, causing Werro to stumble and take a hard fall. Werro got up and jogged to the finish, and fortunately, race officials ruled that she and Lithuania’s Gabija Galvydyte, who also fell, would advance to the final, making it a 10-runner field.

Werro didn’t have much time to recover, but by the following day, you would never know about the setback. She and Hodgkinson shared the lead through 300m, setting a quick enough pace that they didn’t have to worry about traffic. With 500m to go, Werro moved to the lead, and though both Hodgkinson and Broeders-Bol put forth a valiant effort, neither could find the gears to catch Werro.

After hitting 400m in 56.5, Werro covered her second lap in 58.31 seconds, winning in a championship record of 1:54.81. Hodgkinson took second in 1:55.01, and Broeders-Bol was third in 1:55.54. She was thrilled to take 0.06 seconds off of her personal best and tie the Dutch record that Ellen van Langen set in the summer of 1992.

All three medalists seemed to recognize that they were part of something special. Hodgkinson clearly would have preferred to win, but she acknowledged that she, too, ran a good race. And Broeders-Bol seems perfectly willing to be a beginner (albeit an incredibly good one) in her new event. And it looks like they had fun making content together after the medal ceremony.

Two days later, Broeders-Bol also earned a gold medal, anchoring the Netherlands to a 4x400m win.

Werro attributes her big jump this season to the fact that she’s been a full-time professional athlete for a year now. She passed her A-levels in the summer of 2025, and she now has more time to train, recover, and focus on the sport. She has been with the same club, Club Athlétique Belfaux, since she was nine years old, where she’s coached by Christiane Berset Nuoffer. (For more on Werro’s background, this is a good article.)

After a rocky stretch, Nadia Battocletti wins distance double

In the past two years, Italy’s Nadia Battocletti, 26, has earned four World and Olympic medals and has repeatedly shown that she has the tools to excel at the championship level. But heading into the European Championships, her status was uncertain. She finished an uncharacteristic 13th in the 5,000m at the Rome Diamond League meet at the beginning of June, and then she didn’t race again until the Italian Championships in late July.

But Battocletti quickly dispelled any concerns about her readiness, using an incredible kick to win the 5,000m (15:37.84) and 10,000m (31:41.17). Hers is the kind of kick that is essentially required to earn medals on the track at global championships these days, but against this field, it looked otherworldly. In both events, she ran away from her competitors like they were standing still.

And during the event, more information emerged about her struggles earlier in the season. Apparently she was anemic, and she took a big step back from training, but in recent weeks, she has gotten back on track.

A huge thanks to D+M Engineering PLLC for supporting Fast Women this month

As dedicated runners, Muna and David Mitchell bring unique insights into our design work for D+M Engineering PLLC, a woman-owned, Austin-based engineering firm. We are proud to sponsor the Fast Women newsletter for the month of August. Stay tuned each week for more about us and why we are in your inbox on Mondays this month.

Engineers are hidden forces behind your running. From waking up to water and electricity for your coffee, or that needed bathroom stop, you have been relying on engineers to make your run possible. When you head out the door onto your local route, you are using systems designed by engineers with your movement in mind. That pedestrian bridge on your route was designed for you and all your friends running shoulder to shoulder. At your post-run brunch spot, engineers have been there ahead of you. That AC or heat that revive you was made possible by an engineer making sure that your running group would stay comfortable. If engineers have done their job right, you will never notice that we were there.

To learn more about our engineering services and community endeavors, please visit www.dplusmengineering.com or contact Muna Mitchell at muna@dplusmengineering.com.

Gesa Krause wins steeplechase title, and Lea Meyer’s comments spark controversy

The first thing I saw when I opened Instagram on Friday morning was a statement from Germany’s Lea Meyer, following her fourth-place finish in the steeplechase at the European championships. I copied the text into a translation site, and it read, in part, “I want to reiterate that the timing, the setting, and—above all—my choice of words yesterday were inappropriate, unprofessional, and unsportsmanlike. Going forward, I realize that as a highly emotional person, I should avoid the interview zone after a race like that.”

I hadn’t had a chance to watch the race at that point, but after that, I had to. Meyer led for most of the race, but on the final water barrier, which she hurdled instead of stepping on the barrier, she caught her trail leg and went down hard. Her German teammate, Gesa Krause, who had been shadowing her throughout, won gold (9:12.54), France’s Alice Finot was second (9:14.24), and Germany’s Olivia Gürth was third (9:15.33). Meyer got up and still managed to finish fourth in 9:17.07, but it’s understandable that she walked away from the race feeling frustrated.

It’s also true that her post-race interview, where she criticized Krause for not helping with the pace and said she still believed she was the best steepler in Europe, among other things, didn’t do her any favors. It sounds like she has learned from the experience, but it was also a little refreshing to hear an athlete’s unfiltered thoughts. I’m not one of those people who thinks that the sport needs more villains and trash talking. But this is about as close as we ever get to having that in the women’s distance events. Thanks in part to social media, everything is heightened these days, so I imagine the pile-on that followed—her post has more than 1,700 comments—only made her European Championships experience all the rougher.

Alisa Vainio, queen of consistency, wins marathon gold

Finland’s Alisa Vainio went into the European Championships marathon as the favorite, and instead of chilling for part of the race, she put the hammer down from the beginning and ran the entire race alone. She hit halfway in 1:10:40 and held on to win her first European title, running a championship record of 2:22:26 and winning by nearly five minutes.

In the last nine months, Vainio, 28, has run between 2:20 and 2:22 in the marathon four times. Sunday’s race was her third marathon of the year, and we haven’t even hit the best months of the year for marathoning yet. She ran her first marathon, a 2:33, in 2015, when she was 17—an unconventional start for sure, but it seems to be working for her.

Hungary’s Lili Anna Vindics-Tóth emerged from the chase pack to earn silver (2:27:21) and Great Britain’s Abbie Donnelly earned bronze (2:27:33).

Georgia Hunter Bell delivers under pressure in 1500m

Sixteen days after winning the 800m at the Commonwealth Games, Great Britain’s Georgia Hunter Bell stayed out of trouble early in a slow-starting race and then kicked to win the 1500m at the European Athletics Championships, running 4:07.78. University of Oregon grad Klaudia Kazimierska of Poland earned silver (4:08.80), and Portugal’s Patricia Silva won bronze (4:09.22). Hunter Bell was the only middle-distance/distance runner to win gold at both championships.

Before heading back to school, Pamela Kosgei completes Beach to Beacon/Falmouth sweep

Two weeks ago, Pamela Kosgei of the University of New Mexico and Kenya won her first-ever road race at Beach to Beacon 10K, and on Sunday, she backed that up with another win at the Falmouth Road Race, covering the seven-mile course in 35:25. She narrowly edged out Jess McClain, who finished less than a second back, also in 35:25.

Now Kosgei, 22, will head back to Albuquerque for her junior year of college. She confirmed to Fast Women that despite her brief road racing detour, she plans to continue competing in the NCAA this fall. And she’s clearly ready to go.

She defeated a very strong field that also included Everlyn Kemboi (third, 35:34), Emma Grace Hurley (fourth, 35:36), Mercy Chelangat (fifth, 35:55), Carrie Ellwood (sixth 35:56), Elise Cranny (seventh, 36:23), and Annie Rodenfels (eighth, 36:48). In the wheelchair division, Tatyana McFadden earned her eighth title, in 27:56.

On Friday night, Heather MacLean front-ran her way to a win in the Falmouth Mile, running 4:25.64. McKenna Keegan took second in 4:28.55, breaking 4:30 for the first time. (Falmouth Road Race results | Falmouth Mile replay)

Running Warehouse + Fast Women

I am thrilled to announce that I’m teaming up with Running Warehouse. Through this partnership, you can save on select items while also supporting Fast Women.

I’ve intentionally avoided affiliate programs over the years because none of them felt like the right fit. But as I’ve been a long time Running Warehouse customer, this partnership makes sense—and I especially love that you can support Fast Women while buying things you would have purchased anyway.

Here’s how it works: If you use this link to buy anything on the Running Warehouse website, your purchase will help support Fast Women. And, for newsletter readers only, you can use the code FASTWOMEN to save 20% on clothing and socks, and 10% on clearance shoes, nutrition, and hats. So in review, using my link helps Fast Women and using the code helps you.

Other News and Results

• I’ve gotten a bit behind on life milestones here. Catching up: Emily Infeld’s baby arrived several weeks early, on July 30, Calli Hauger-Thackery’s baby was also about two weeks early. Susannah Scaroni had her baby on August 6, Gudaf Tsegay’s baby has arrived, and Laurie (Barton) Fierer announced last week that her baby was born in early July. And Allie Ostrander got married last week.

• Valery Tobias won the Stumptown Twilight 800m in 1:59.83, and Carmen Alder won the 1500m in 4:06.40. (Results)

• New pro Jadyn Keeler won the Canadian half marathon title, running 1:12:12 in Edmonton. (Results)

• Morgan Jensen won San Diego’s America’s Finest City Half Marathon in 1:13:12. (Results)

• Apparently Meghan Hunter ran a 1:57.76 800m time trial in Utah. Her official PR is 1:58.21.

• Kaylee Mitchell said in an Instagram post that she got a little banged up and decided to end her season early.

• Thanks to the person who made me aware of this post about Seattle Storm guard Natisha Hiedeman starting a public run club, giving people a chance to join her as she trains to meet her goal of running a marathon.

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Podcast Highlights

• I appreciated hearing Masai Russell talk a little about the contract side of the sport on RealTalkWithTee.

• I featured Jessica Kain two weeks ago, and it was fun to hear that that prompted Carrie Tollefson to reach out and have her on C Tolle Run. And I was glad to hear that Kain is going to have some opportunities to race in Europe soon.

• I was a little surprised to hear on Road to the Trials that Carrie Ellwood, who ran 2:22:53 for 10th at the Boston Marathon, didn’t sign with Asics until after the race. She was previously a first-grade teacher, but she quit her job and took a chance by going all in on running two years ago.

Additional Episodes: Breanna Sieracki on Road to the Trials | Canada’s Natasha Wodak on The Shakeout Podcast | Rabbit founder Monica DeVreese on I’ll Have Another | Colleen Quigley (who is getting into Hyrox) on Hurdle | 2:38 marathoner Maryann Gong on D3 Glory Days

I am currently in a stretch when I can’t do my job as well as I would like. On top of everything else, I am dealing with a moth infestation, and taking care of it is a multistep process that, among other things, requires cleaning out my house and thoroughly cleaning almost everything that remains. I think about moths 100 percent more than I think about running these days, and I can’t wait until moths are nothing but an afterthought. I expect that things, moth-wise and otherwise, are going to settle down at some point, but it might be a while. In the meantime, I hope you’ll bear with me.

Wishing you all a wonderful (and moth-free) week,

Alison

Issue 415, sponsored by D+M Engineering PLLC

A Sir Walter win for Margot Appleton, and a busy weekend for Kayley DeLay

I thoroughly enjoyed the women’s pro mile at Friday’s Sir Walter Miler, because at various points in the race, it looked like about six different women had a shot at the win. Sinclaire Johnson and Heather MacLean went with rabbit Hannah Ballowe early, and it looked like it could become a two-woman race. But on the third lap, their pace lagged, and at the bell, almost the entire field was back in it.

Lindsey Butler and Carmen Alder battled up front on the final lap, but Margot Appleton, who was in fifth with 300m to go, measured her kick well, took the lead midway up the homestretch, and won in 4:23.45. Kayley DeLay, who also moved up nicely, took second in 4:23.77, followed by Butler (third, 4:24.18), Annika Reiss (fourth, 4:24.21), Angelina Ellis (fifth, 4:24.46), MacLean (sixth, 4:24.59), Johnson (seventh, 4:25.15), and Alder (eighth in an Ecuadorian record of 4:26.13). Appleton earned $2,100 total—$1,600 for the win, plus a $500 time bonus.

DeLay didn’t stick around for long after her runner-up finish. She was off to Cleveland to race the Guardian Mile, a point-to-point road race, which kicked off less than 23 hours later. The back-to-back races suited her well, and she dominated in Ohio, winning in an event record of 4:16.88 (which gets rounded to 4:17 because it’s a road race). Between that and her 4:17.4 runner-up finish at the Fifth Avenue Mile last year, DeLay has really proven herself on the roads.

And she earned a total of $7,200 between her two races—$1,200 for finishing second at Sir Walter plus a $500 time bonus, and $5,000 for winning the Guardian mile, plus $500 for leading at halfway.

On the On the Record podcast last week, her coach, Danny Mackey, talked about the fact that his coaching is less rigid now compared to when he was starting out. He said that 14 years ago, he would have told DeLay that doing both races was a stupid idea. But now, “I’m like, it’s the end of the season, go get that money. You’re good, you’re fit, let’s do it,” he said. (Sir Walter Miler replay | Sir Walter results | Guardian Mile replay, with a blip at the finish, but here’s some of what they missed | Guardian Mile results)

Claire Stegall’s silver provides a bright spot for Team USA at U20 Worlds

After University of Florida rising sophomore Claire Stegall finished fifth in a slow-starting race at the USATF Outdoor Championships two weeks ago, it was clear she was ready to run well at the World U20 Championships in Eugene, Oregon. And USAs proved to be a good rehearsal for Sunday’s 1500m final, which started even slower.

The leaders hit 400m in 78 seconds, and 800m in 2:29, but that set up a very fast finish, with winner Josephine Sembeyo Mancha of Kenya covering the final 600m of the race in 1:31.39 and winning in 4:16.73. Stegall battled for the win up the homestretch, and came up just 0.04 seconds shy, but she earned Team USA’s lone middle-distance or distance medal of the meet, and capped off a breakthrough year. Kenya’s Caren Chepchirchir earned bronze in 4:17.50, and Oregon high schooler Ellery Lincoln also had a strong showing, finishing fifth in 4:22.60.

Earlier in the meet, Uganda’s Cherity Cherop won the 5,000 in 15:03.88, Ethiopia’s Almaz Yohannis dominated the steeplechase, running 9:15.81, Ethiopia’s Yordanos Tsigab won the 3,000m (8:43.65), and Slovenia’s Živa Remic won the 800m in 2:03.03.

Most of the headlines I saw from the meet were about the awful air quality in Eugene due to wildfires. The AQI rose as high as 237 on Wednesday afternoon—which is considered very unhealthy—but the competition went on as scheduled. I was surprised to read that World Athletics didn’t have more of a backup plan. They just said that they were “monitoring recommendations by local health authorities to ensure the competition is safe to continue.” Due to climate change, things like this are going to become more and more of an issue in the sport. And more often than not, if a high-stakes event is continuing on, the athletes will line up, regardless of the risks. (Results)

A big thanks to D+M Engineering PLLC for supporting Fast Women this month

D+M Engineering PLLC is a woman-owned, Austin-based engineering firm owned and operated by Muna and David Mitchell, dedicated runners and supporters of Fast Women and fans of women’s running. We are proud to sponsor the Fast Women newsletter for the month of August. Stay tuned each week for more about us and why we are in your inbox on Mondays this month.

Muna started her engineering journey with strong feelings about being simply an engineer and not a woman engineer. Instead of joining the Society of Women Engineers, she joined the American Society of Civil Engineers. That Muna would not have considered certifying her business as woman-owned and might not even have recognized the value of a newsletter dedicated to women’s running.

Thirty years of engineering and life experience later, she recognizes the value and necessity of elevating and recognizing the achievements of all women. Just as Fast Women celebrates women’s running, D+M is excited to elevate Fast Women. Together and with our many allies, we can normalize women’s achievements to move us steadily forward to greater opportunities for women in all endeavors.

To learn more about our engineering services and community endeavors, please visit www.dplusmengineering.com or contact Muna Mitchell at muna@dplusmengineering.com.

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The increasing value of running in a lonelier and more divided world

Ideally, I’d be churning out athlete features and stories about the phenomena in the sport that interest me each week. There are a lot of stories that I wish I had the time to research and write. But I’ve had some unexpected, unpleasant stuff come up lately that has required me to do a lot of mindless labor. The upside is that it has allowed me to fly through many audiobooks while I work.

Last week, I listened to Nicholas Carr’s Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart, about how modern communication tools have highlighted our differences and decreased people’s empathy. It got me thinking about running, social media, and the power of in-person connection. I’ve listened to a number of similar books in recent years and I appreciate the topic in general because, as time has gone on, I’ve only grown more confused about the role of social media in my work and life and how, if, and where I want to show up online.

I’m not going to attempt a detailed analysis of the book, but I want to zero in on a couple of topics Carr covered. I thought it got interesting around chapter five, which focused on the idea that people expect that the more they learn about others, the more they will like them, but research has shown that more often, the opposite happens. And people sharing more about themselves online has led to greater division.

We’ve all seen such things play out. There are some people who don’t know me at all, but they hate me because of the views I’ve shared online. There are a number of athletes whom I’ve followed online for years, and moments in their careers that felt like major triumphs for the entire sport, or they were people whose content I really liked. And then the 2024 presidential election happened. For a few days after the election, it seemed like some people in the running community thought Trump’s election meant they could show support for him without consequence. But then, for some, I think there were consequences—losing followers, disappointed messages from fans—so many of those people went back to being quieter Trump supporters.

But after that, I couldn’t unsee the fact that quite a few prominent figures in the running community were subtly sharing their political beliefs in other ways: liking posts about Trump winning the election or sending ICE into cities, liking posts about banning trans women from sporting opportunities that they already did not have, and posts from MAGA influencers. I think that, on the whole, the women’s professional running community leans left, but I saw enough that I felt disillusioned about the work I do.

I see my job as highlighting others’ successes, among other things, and for a while, I really lost my enthusiasm for doing that, because it felt like too many of the women I was writing about didn’t have the backs of other women, immigrants, trans people, or other members of marginalized groups.

I’d like to say that I reconciled all of that at some point. But there was no grand conclusion; I just decided that if I wanted to do this job, it was going to require highlighting the accomplishments of some people with wildly different views than my own. But I also have choice in what I cover, so in some cases, I’ve tried to profile those who have gone out of their way to stand up for marginalized groups.

Some of the stories I’ve written in recent years have led me to talk to people I probably wouldn’t have a lot in common with. It’s really easy to make assumptions about people based on very little information. I’ve certainly done it myself. But I find so much more value in phone conversations and in-person interactions, because there is so much more room for nuance and back-and-forth conversation, and I almost always like actual people more than what they post (or signal) online. That’s not to say that we can overcome all of our differences, but the way we show up online is almost always an oversimplification of who we are.

And it’s easy to draw incomplete conclusions about someone’s life based on what they post. If I haven’t seen a friend in a long time, and all they’ve posted is happy photos of their family on vacation, I might assume their life is going great. But when I get together with them—especially if we have the opportunity to run together—that’s when I find out how they’re really doing. I used to say that if you think someone is normal or has no big challenges or family drama, you probably just haven’t run enough miles with them yet.

Because sharing more online leads to greater divisiveness, I think we’ve increasingly seen high-profile runners and track & field athletes lean toward sticking to vanilla topics that have a chance of being relatable and appealing to all. I imagine many sponsors prefer that. Don’t rock the boat. But for me, that’s a turnoff. My favorite people to follow online are those I can learn from and are consistently vocal about what they believe in.

Carr also writes about how young people today are much more likely to socialize online than in person, they’re going out less in general, and that they are lonelier and struggle with their mental health more compared to previous generations. And the phenomenon disproportionately affects women and girls.

I also thought he made a good point about how the widespread use of smart phones and social media has reshaped society. Even if an individual makes the decision to step away from social media, they are still affected by the fact that other people are now less likely to get together in person. Being off social media can lead to further isolation, because you can miss what little interaction there is. (Or, with the demise of local newspapers, sometimes it’s the best way to get information about what’s happening in one’s community.)

Not everything is about running, the sport isn’t for everyone, and it can’t fix all of the world’s ills. But at any age, running can be an excellent way to socialize, and I think it’s one of the easiest ways to get to know new people and see an honest version of who they are. I haven’t been able to run consistently in a long time, which is really frustrating, but I am still a running evangelist because I’ve seen the many ways in which the sport has connected people and changed their lives for the better.

Sure, I’ve occasionally run with people who, as I’ve gotten to know them better, I’ve started to like less. But for the most part, the sport has helped me to have much deeper conversations with people than I otherwise would, and most of the time, it makes me feel greater empathy for them and like them more. If you’re someone who has the privilege of being able to run with other people, it’s an excellent antidote to our increasingly online lives.

Other News and Results

• Karissa Schweizer shared that she recently underwent surgery after feeling a pop in her knee during practice a few weeks ago. She did not disclose a specific diagnosis. It’s been a rough road for Schweizer. She dealt with femoral stress fractures in both 2024 and 2025, and she had Haglund’s surgeries on both sides before that. The good news is that she’s well versed in rebounding after setbacks.

• Schweizer’s setback means that she is unable to represent the U.S. at the World Athletics Road Running Championships next month, but that has opened up an opportunity for Allie Ostrander, who was the 5K alternate. She is thrilled, and I imagine we’ll get to see some good content on her YouTube channel as a result.

• Great Britain’s Ava Lloyd, 20, another M11 Track Club product, had a breakthrough race to defeat a strong 1500m field at Sunday’s British Milers Club Grand Prix, running 4:01.78 for 1500m. She took 4.67 seconds off of her previous personal best. She turns 21 this week. In the 800m, Ireland’s Sophie O’Sullivan broke 2:00 for the first time, running 1:59.65 for the win. (Results)

• Leading into this week’s European Championships, Rick Broadbent wrote a nice piece for The Times about Georgia Hunter Bell and Keely Hodgkinson’s friendship. I liked the detail about Hodgkinson teaching Hunter Bell to ride her bike with no hands, despite Hunter Bell being the one with the far more extensive cycling background.

• Romania’s Madalina Florea won Sierre-Zinal, a 31K race with 7,200 feet of climbing, in 2:55:46. Trail and mountain races continue to produce content that makes every finish line look like a party, albeit one where some of the guests arrive rather spent. (Results and recap from iRunFar)

• Former University of North Dakota standout Jadyn Keeler of Canada announced that she has signed a pro deal with Adidas and she is joining the Flagstaff-based Golden Peaks Track Club. She didn’t go into the NCAA as a big superstar, but she’s made dramatic progress over the past four years.

• Olympic 100mH medalist Jasmine Camacho-Quinn announced the arrival of her baby.

• It’s good to see that Sage Hurta-Klecker is back to working out on the track, and her former college teammate Dani Jones is also making progress and plans to race in Falmouth this weekend.

• I also listened to Lindsay Crouse’s new book, The Case for Quitting: The Surprising Benefits of Opting Out last week. Given where I currently am in life, I can’t say this is a book I would have been likely to pick on my own. But I had the chance to listen to the book in advance of its release, and I appreciate everything Crouse has contributed to the running world over the years. And unlike Superbloom, this book actually included some runners’ stories. If you are considering making a change, feeling stuck, or need a nudge to take a leap, this book could be exactly what you need. It left me thinking about the role privilege plays in the decision to quit or opt out, and I would have liked to hear more about that. But I think that regardless of where you are in life, there are enough nuggets of wisdom in there that something will resonate. Especially for distance runners, who are often used to persevering, no matter what. The book comes out September 8 and is available for preorder now.

• January’s World Athletics Cross Country Championships in Tallahassee, Florida, were such a success that Leon County officials are already working to convince World Athletics that they should host the event again in 2029. Two officials spent time in Eugene, Oregon, this past week, during the World Athletics U20 Championships, so they could make their case. Given how difficult it is to get people to show up to a track meet in the U.S., it’s impressive that they were able to draw more than 15,000 attendees this year. But part of the appeal of attending was that the event hadn’t been held in the U.S. since 1992. If it becomes a more frequent occurrence, it’ll be interesting to see if as many people go out of their way to attend.

Podcast Highlights

• I enjoyed hearing Kara Goucher recap her recent half marathon on the Ali on the Run Show. If you’re fortunate enough to be a runner over many decades, what that looks like will change dramatically over time. But Goucher’s love for the sport is still as strong as ever.

• I appreciated getting a Madie Boreman update on I’ll Have Another after her third place finish in the steeplechase at USAs. She’s at the top of the list of people I’d be featuring right now if I had more time.

• I was interested to hear Emily Mackay say on C Tolle Run that she is no longer using bicarb. She’s said she’s not convinced that it works for her and she set all of her PRs without it.

• I no longer have a reason to be a NYRR member, and I have no plans to ever run the NYC Marathon, but I still listened to NYRR’s Set the Pace episode about the changes they are making to the 9+1 program, which is many local runners’ path into the marathon. And as an outsider, I might be missing something, but all of their logic made sense to me. (If you’d prefer to read about the changes, Sarah Lorge Butler wrote about them for Runner’s World.) Times have changed dramatically, I remember the days of not having to plan ahead for most races, but running being too popular is a good problem to have. (And I have always been a fan of running the cheapest races with the easiest logistics. Many of those are really great in different ways.) I was also pleased to hear them mention the Race Free program, which allows 1,000 people per year to run NYRR races they otherwise could not afford.

• I appreciated the latest episode of Burn It All Down, which included a nuanced discussion on sports gambling, including how it’s affecting women’s sports. Though it’s more prevalent in other sports, there are an increasing number of opportunities to bet on track & field. You might remember that last year, a man in the crowd at Grand Slam Track’s Philly slam heckled Gabby Thomas at the start of the 100m and then bragged online, “I made Gabby lose by heckling her. And it made my parlay win.” Thomas spoke out about her experience and FanDuel banned him.

Additional Episodes: Christina Aragon on Fueling Forward | Amanda Vestri on Hurdle | Australia’s Jessica Stenson, 36 weeks into her pregnancy with her third child, on Run With It

I hope you all have a good week.

Alison

Issue 414, sponsored by D+M Engineering PLLC

Led by Rose Davies, Australian athletes shine at the Commonwealth Games

Australia’s middle distance and distance runners have been gaining momentum for years, and their progress was on full display at last week’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, last week, where they dominated the medal tally.

Rose Davies kicked things off by winning the 10,000m in 31:39.32. Kenya’s Diana Wanza made a big move with 2K to go and gapped the field, but she misjudged her effort, and Davies used a strong kick to run her down. Wanza held on to earn silver in 31:50.13 and Florence Niyonkuru nipped Uganda’s Esther Chebet, 31:55.47 to 31:55.70, to earn Rwanda’s first-ever Commonwealth Games medal.

Wednesday’s steeplechase initially looked like it would be a battle between Kenya’s Faith Cherotich and Uganda’s Peruth Chemutai, but Chemutai went out at a pace faster than she could sustain. Cherotich, the reigning world champion, won comfortably in a Commonwealth Games record of 9:01.76. England’s Elise Thorner bided her time and was able to run down Chemutai and win silver in a PR of 9:05.45, while Chemutai held on for bronze (9:09.96).

After finishing a frustrating ninth in the 10,000m, Scotland’s Megan Keith took charge of Thursday’s 5,000m final and made sure that the pace did not lag. The race came down to a sprint finish between Davies and fellow Australian Jessica Hull, who had run the 1500m rounds earlier in the day. Davies had a little more left and held off Hull, 14:44.53 to 14:45.01, and became the first woman to win the Commonwealth 5,000m/10,000m double. Keith’s strategy paid off and she held on to win bronze in front of the home crowd in 14:49.10.

England’s Georgia Hunter Bell led Friday’s 800m final, which went out slowly, and used a big kick to negative split and win in 1:59.51 over reigning world champion Lilian Odira of Kenya (2:00.58) and Australia’s Sarah Billings (2:00.61), who earned silver and bronze.

And Saturday’s mile capped Australia’s excellent meet as Abbey Caldwell (4:39.31), Hull (4:39.86), and Claudia Hollingsworth (4:40.20) swept the medals, bringing Australia’s total (for the events that this newsletter covers) to seven. (All results)

Pamela Kosgei wins Beach to Beacon and Elise Cranny’s road racing career is off to a good start

Running her first road race, Kenya’s Pamela Kosgei took the lead late and outkicked Olympian Elise Cranny to win Saturday’s Beach to Beacon 10K, 31:50 to 31:52. Kosgei, 22, has represented the University of New Mexico for only two years, but in that time, she’s made a splash, winning the NCAA 5,000m and 10,000m titles outdoors in 2025 and racking up a total of seven top-three finishes at NCAA championships.

If Kosgei is done at the University of Mexico, I haven’t heard about it yet. Kosgei signed an NIL deal with Hoka last November, but I haven’t seen a pro announcement. This article about Saturday’s race referred to Kosgei as a former Lobo, and her NCAA status is significant, because it would affect how much of the $10,000 in prize money she could accept.

Cranny has been trying out the roads this summer—she also earned a runner-up finish at the USATF 6K Championships last month. She told the Portland Press Herald (link above) that she thought she had time to make up ground on Kosgei, but the finish came sooner than she was expecting.

Cranny provided a good status update on last week’s episode of the C Tolle Run podcast. Though she’s been back in the U.S. for most of this year, she said that she plans to resume training with the M11 Track Club in the fall. As someone who has competed at every outdoor global championship for the past five years, she’s using 2026 to reset and make sure she’s ready to keep chasing spots on U.S. teams in the coming years. The full episode is worth a listen.

Puma Elite’s Molly Born took third in 32:14, Meridia’s Annie Rodenfels was fourth in 32:19, and China’s Wuga He took fifth in 32:20. (Results)

Thanks to D+M Engineering PLLC for supporting Fast Women this month

D+M Engineering PLLC is a woman-owned, Austin-based engineering firm owned and operated by Muna and David Mitchell, dedicated runners, supporters of Fast Women, and fans of women’s running. We are proud to sponsor the Fast Women newsletter for the month of August. Stay tuned each week for more about us and why we are in your inbox on Mondays this month.

We are a multi-discipline firm offering bridge, structural, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing services to public and private clients. We are a City of Austin certified Women-Owned Business Enterprise (WBE) and a TxDOT certified Small Business Enterprise (SBE).

From commercial to residential and public projects, from buildings systems to infrastructure, we deliver innovative and efficient engineering solutions tailored to our clients’ needs. We have designed bridge and other structures and lighting systems for infrastructure across Texas and beyond. We are passionate about sustainability and working with people to make their projects successful.

To learn more about our engineering services and community endeavors, please visit www.dplusmengineering.com or contact Muna Mitchell at muna@dplusmengineering.com.

Jessica Kain is just getting started

Jessica Kain’s goal heading into her first USATF Outdoor Championships in New York City in late July was to qualify for the 1500m final. She was seeded 21st out of the 26 competitors, and only the top 12 runners would advance.

As she looked at the results from the first preliminary heat while walking out onto the track, the 25-year-old realized making the final would require the race of her life. “It was just this immediate game time decision like, ‘Okay, I guess I’m PRing by three seconds,’” she told Fast Women.

And Kain did just that, lowering her best time from 4:09.03 to 4:06.21. Two days later, she ran an even better race in the final. When the pace lagged early, she confidently moved to the front and put in a surge. Over the final lap, she hung on to finish sixth among some of the best middle-distance runners in the country, in 4:11.10. She covered the last 800m of the 1500m in 2:05.7, nearly two seconds faster than her official 800m personal best.

“This last year, I’ve really started believing that I can compete with the best of the best,” Kain said. “And to go to USAs and really show myself what I’m capable of was the best feeling ever. This feels like it’s truly only the very beginning.”

Finding her path

Growing up in Santa Cruz, California, running was always part of Kain’s life. Her father, Pete, is a four-time age-group world champion in triathlon, and her mother, Shari, is an XTERRA world champion and a Pan Am Games gold medalist in cycling. Her younger brother, Jeremy, is a 3:41 1500m runner for Duke. Kain competed in her first triathlon, with the cycling portion on a tricycle, when she was three years old.

Sundays in the Kain household usually meant doing a long run through the forest followed by banana pancakes at home. Kain excelled in both soccer and running, but the latter eventually won out. She was a good high school runner but not a top recruit. In her final high school race in the spring of 2019, she broke 5:00 in the 1600m for the first time, running 4:56.30.

Her freshman year at San Diego State was interrupted by the pandemic, but when she returned for her sophomore year, Kain became more serious about the sport. Over the next three years, her results reflected that commitment. By the end of her senior year in 2023, she had run 4:12.33 for 1500m, which would remain her personal best until this year.

Kain returned to school for a fifth year, but her 2024 season didn’t go to plan. “I truly believe in balance and that if you live a happy and good life, you will be running your best,” she said. “And I think I was almost too into it, expecting too much of myself and putting all this pressure on myself to do something crazy.”

Kain had a solid season, but she didn’t run any personal bests, and she finished her collegiate career without qualifying for an NCAA championship. There was no question she had talent, but there’s not a lot of support for athletes on the cusp. Regardless, she believed she had more in her, and she decided to keep racing.

In 2025, Kain signed a one-year pro contract with Saucony, but her first post-collegiate track season was another rough one. She felt scattered as she tried to figure out what she wanted to do with her life. Between assistant coaching at San Diego State, working as a social media manager, and trying to run at a high level, she was spread thin. Her best 1500m time of the year, 4:23.07, was far off what she knew she was capable of.

Kain considered moving on from professional running, but she decided she owed it to herself to go all in one last time. “I just felt like I wasn’t done,” she said. “I couldn’t [quit] with my PR being something I ran so long ago.”

It all comes together

Kain’s 2026 season has been one breakthrough after another. In April, she ran her first 1500m PR in nearly three years, lowering her time to 4:10.81 at the Bryan Clay Invitational. And at the Portland Track Festival in June, she ran 4:09.03 and secured her spot at the U.S. Championships.

At USAs, she took advantage of the opportunity to race against some of the country’s best. “Getting in the right races and having people around you to pull you is half the battle,” she said. “Racing the women who are already doing these things will help me level up.”

Because of her significant negative splits in both her races at USAs, Kain is confident she has faster times in her. She’s hoping to continue racing over the next four to six weeks. She’s currently on the waitlist to get into the Sir Walter Miler field, so she’ll only be able to race if someone scratches. She’s also hoping to race in Europe and plans to compete in next month’s Fifth Avenue Mile.

After USAs, Kain posted on Instagram that if someone told her a year ago that she would finish in the top 10 in the country in one of the most competitive track events, she probably would have believed them because, as she wrote, “I’m delusional when it comes to goals.” Her latest success has her dreaming of LA 2028. “I can genuinely see myself competing for our country at the LA Olympics,” she said. “And it’s the coolest feeling.”

Kain currently lives in Encinitas, California, and balances 60-65 miles per week of training with coaching runners, managing three different companies’ social media accounts, and working as a fitness model, an opportunity that she says kind of fell into her lap. She has modeled for a number of brands, including Vuori and On. While she was in New York City for USAs, images from her On campaign were displayed throughout the city.

Kain has had sponsor support from Currently Running, a small apparel brand, and she’s hoping to secure a shoe contract soon. She doesn’t have an agent at the moment, but that could change quickly.

Kain has continued to work with her college coach, Robert Lusitana, since graduating two years ago. Lusitana coaches her workouts in person, but Kain otherwise does all of her training alone. She’d love to find some training partners and is currently considering moving to altitude.

Under the current system, the most lucrative contracts tend to go to athletes who are big high school or college stars, and it can be difficult to find support when one’s success comes a bit later. But Kain is confident that there’s a lot more where her last two races have come from, and her recent success has reassured her that she’s on the right track.

“I think so many people get so caught up in thinking that they need to do something right now, or that this year has to be their best year,” she said. “Looking back, I’m so glad I didn’t peak in high school or even college, for that matter. Things just continue to get better if you just trust your training and believe in yourself.”

Other News, Links, and Results

• Remember the name Saida Tsehaye. The 18-year-old Ethiopian won the 800m at the IFAM Oordegem in Belgium, running 1:57.96. She has had some solid results before, but this was a breakout performance for her. Georgia Griffith, another Australian standout, won the 5,000m in 14:44.64. Alicia Monson opted to skip the U.S. championships but showed that she’s in good form, running 14:50.63—her fastest time since 2023—to finish fifth. And coming off of a fourth-place finish at USAs, Rachel McArthur won the 1500m in a one-second PR of 4:02.90. (Results)

• Following her breakthrough 2:24 marathon at this year’s Boston Marathon, Elena Hayday announced that she has signed with Puma.

• Sinclaire Johnson’s latest vlog has a good update on her year so far. After the USATF Indoor Championships, she developed a stress reaction in her sacrum, but the first round of imaging didn’t catch it. She wound up taking 10 weeks off, so she’s had a very late start to her outdoor season. She had only been back to running for about five weeks when she ran a 2:03 800m at the Sunset Tour. That race convinced her she wasn’t ready to run USAs, but she’s healthy and she’ll race this weekend at Sir Walter Miler.

• Coming off of her third-place finish in the steeplechase at USAs, Madie Boreman won the Bklyn Mile, running 4:31 on the roads. (Results)

• After writing about some of the struggles Aubrey Frentheway faced during her pregnancy back in April, I was thrilled to see the news that her baby has arrived.

• I appreciated this update from Krissy Gear, who fully intends to return to professional running when her body is ready, but she is also going to be working as a case manager at a residential reentry center. I don’t know if others experience Instagram the same way, but many of the posts I see from pro runners tend to have a very supportive comment from Gear at the top. Despite her recent struggles with running, Gear continues to be one of the sport’s greatest cheerleaders.

• I appreciated Taylor Werner opening up with her struggles with race-related anxiety in this post.

• I also appreciated this post from Keira D’Amato, who did her first 10-mile run last week after undergoing hip surgery in February.

• Amanda Vestri shared that she developed an injury in early June, but it sounds like things are back on track now.

• Former BYU standout Sadie Sargent Mitchell announced her retirement from professional running.

• Olympian and world championship medalist Kara Goucher has been open about her struggles with dystonia in recent years, and it’s been inspiring to see her continue to race out of love for the sport. On Sunday, she and her friend Carrie Birth-Davis essentially tied for the win at the Queens NYC Half Marathon, running 1:32:41. (Results)

• I intentionally don’t include a lot of high school content here, but I thought this was a nice article about the long-term approach Ellery Lincoln’s high school coaches have taken throughout her career. The 17-year-old 4:27 miler will compete at the World U20 Championships in her home state of Oregon this week. (The meet begins on Wednesday, the full schedule is here, and the event will air on Peacock in the U.S.)

• I was pleased to see that Alison Mariella Désir, author of Running While Black, has launched a Substack.

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Additional Podcasts

• The Mangonada podcast returned for the start of season two last week. It’s been so disappointing to watch much of the running industry follow national trends and put less emphasis on DEI in recent years, and I appreciate how hosts Carolina Rubio MacWright and Vanessa Chavarriaga Posada continue to call that out and use running as a lens to discuss broader social and political issues.

• I enjoyed hearing from Jay Holder, USATF’s chief content and communications officer, on the Ali on the Run Show. He discussed the behind-the-scenes efforts to get Zohran Mamdani to the USATF Outdoor Championships. And I, too, am not a fan of the term “on home soil.”

Additional Episodes: Emily Mackay on her coach’s podcast, On the Record: The Elite Running Podcast | Atalanta NYC’s Emily Richards, Susan Aneno, Leah Anderson, and Devon Martin on NYRR’s Set the Pace podcast | Molly Seidel on For the Long Run | Karissa Schweizer on Pending Ratification (recorded a while ago) | Bobbi Gibb on Starting Line 1928

I am so grateful to D+M Engineering PLLC for supporting Fast Women this month—talk about a non-endemic sponsor! (And I’d love it if it actually turned out to be a good business move on their part.) Though I haven’t written about it in the past couple of newsletters, things are still really tough here, and they’re going to continue to be for quite a while.

I am so grateful for, and blown away by, all the ways in which the Fast Women community has supported me, even though most of you don’t know me. I thought I generally had a sense of how my life was going to go, and that has all essentially imploded. I still have so much to figure out, but so far, I’ve had time to focus on only the most pressing tasks. In the meantime, working on this newsletter is a little bit of a break from all of that. (If I’m being honest, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a more stressful way.)

I hope all of you have the best week possible.

Alison

A huge thank you to Marcy Withington. She is sponsoring this week’s newsletter in memory of her late husband, David Uprichard, whose encouragement carried her through so many workouts and races, and Parker Morse, whose support helped make this newsletter possible.

Eight straight for Nikki Hiltz, with their closest winning margin yet

Nikki Hiltz knows how to put on a show, and on Saturday at New York City’s Icahn Stadium, they eked out their fourth consecutive 1500m win at the USATF Outdoor Championships in dramatic fashion. Hiltz might have preferred a little more breathing room, but they timed their kick to perfection, running 4:06.92 to Addy Wiley’s 4:06.96 and Emily Mackay’s 4:06.98.

As they battled Wiley and Mackay in the homestretch, it looked like Hiltz’s win streak might come to an end, but they drew on their years of experience and mental toughness and found a way to prevail. “That was honestly probably, out of all my titles, the hardest one, so I feel really really happy with that one,” Hiltz told reporters afterward. “I was the three-time defending champ, and I think the weight just gets heavier and heavier and heavier, so I feel a lot of relief right now.” (I thought Hiltz’s entire post-race interview was really good.)

The race started slowly, with the pack hitting 800m in 2:20, and finished at a blistering pace. Hiltz covered their final 400m in 58.80 and their last 800m in 2:01.45.

Hiltz has now won the last eight U.S. 1500m championships, sweeping the indoor and outdoor titles from 2023–26. One day, someone other than Hiltz will win a U.S. 1500m title again. In the meantime, I’m appreciating this era, and the incredible athleticism, mental toughness, and consistency that has gone into their win streak.

After the race, someone in the stands tossed Hiltz a trans pride flag, and in a time when trans people in the U.S. are facing an increase in legislative restrictions, harassment, and violence, it was powerful to see them celebrate with the flag draped over their shoulders.

The following day, they wrote on Instagram, “Lately I’ve been feeling mentally exhausted from the consistent hate I experience online on a daily basis. SUPER fun to be a member of a community people are so hyperfixated on dehumanizing right now. Honestly yesterday, standing on the start line, I just felt so drained. Which makes this win so much sweeter.”

Rachel McArthur, who has parted ways with Ben Thomas and is now being coached by Josh Seitz, emerged as the best of the rest, running 4:09.59 for fourth, her highest finish yet at a national championship on the track.

And Claire Stegall, a rising sophomore at the University of Florida, bounced back nicely after missing out on the 1500m final at the NCAA Outdoor Championships, taking fifth in 4:10.24. Stegall, who will also compete at the World U20 Championships in early August, has put together an incredible freshman campaign. Despite her success, she’s flown somewhat under the radar, allowing her to develop without quite as much pressure as some other young stars have faced. (1500m replay | 1500m results)

Against the odds, Nia Akins earns her fifth national title

The 800m final was full of surprises. There was no heavy favorite going in, but if I had to pick one based on the 2026 season thus far, it wouldn’t have been Nia Akins. And to be fair, she, too, seemed surprised by her win. She got a late start to her season after suffering a concussion in a hit-and-run accident, which required her to take time completely off from training. Though she’d won several low-key races, her best time this season was 2:00.79, and she was up against four women who had run 1:57 or 1:58.

The second surprise was how conservatively the race went out. Roisin Willis led through 400m in 58.55 and 600m in 1:30.11. With 200m to go, Akins was in seventh place. She was hugging the rail and running the shortest distance, but she was also boxed in. She ran the first 600m like someone who wasn’t feeling the pressure to win, but when a path to the front opened up, it was like her muscle memory kicked in, and she knew exactly what to do.

She broke the tape in 1:59.25, with Addy Wiley (1:59.40), Meghan Hunter (1:59.67), Willis (1:59.68), and Makayla Paige (1:59.72) all close behind. Akins, who also won U.S. 800m titles in 2023 and 2025 indoors and 2023 and 2024 outdoors, earned her fifth national title. And Wiley, who raced every day of the four-day meet, between prelims and finals, earned her second runner-up finish in two days, this time coming within 0.15 seconds of the win. High schooler Paige Sheppard, who ran 2:00.99 to make the final, finished ninth in 2:02.78. (800m replay | 800m results | Akins’ post-race interview)

Emily Mackay bounces back with a 5,000m win

Before Sunday afternoon’s 5,000m final, it was pretty easy to guess how the race was likely to go. Big kickers like defending champion Shelby Houlihan and Emily Mackay would try to rely on their finishing speed, and Parker Valby, who has run the fastest time by a U.S. woman this year, would push the pace in an attempt to take the sting out of their kicks. And the race pretty much went to script.

Valby set a steady pace, hitting 1K splits of 3:01.02, 3:00.52, 3:01.87, and 3:03.16 on an 84 degree afternoon, but that wasn’t enough to shake her biggest competitors. With around two laps to go, it was down to the expected three, and with just over one lap to go, Houlihan and Mackay began to pull away from Valby.

The final lap became the battle of the kickers, and it turned out Mackay had much more left. She sat on Houlihan until she appeared to get a signal to make her move with just under 200m to go. She went around Houlihan on the turn, blasted away from her over the final 100m, and won in 14:55.82. Mackay made her 61.9-second final lap look easy, and covered the last 100m in 13.85 seconds. Houlihan took second (14:57.88), and Valby, who had trouble changing gears on the final lap, held on for third in 15:06.25. Vaught doubled back nicely after her 10,000m win and took fourth in 15:08.41.

Mackay won the USATF indoor 3,000m title in February, and she was thrilled to earn her first U.S. outdoor title. The feat was all the more impressive considering that she had two rounds of the 1500m in her legs, and she took a pretty hard fall across the finish line in the previous day’s 1500m final. Mackay called her 5,000m “a little bit of a redemption tour after yesterday.”

Houlihan, last year’s champion, has had an up and down season, but she said that she’s hoping to compete at the World Athletics Ultimate Championships in September. Valby gave herself a grade of B or B- afterward and said that she’s dealt with some minor setbacks recently. But given where she was a year ago, unable to compete at all, she’s done an excellent job of working her way back this season. (5,000m highlights | 5,000m results)

A convincing repeat for Lexy Halladay-Lowry

A year ago, fresh out of the NCAA, Lexy Halladay-Lowry surprised some people by winning her first national championship in the steeplechase. On Saturday, she pulled off a tougher feat, successfully defending her title. Halladay-Lowry made her move with 700m remaining and won comfortably in 9:12.54.

She said after the race that she’s had a tough season, because she’s been battling a nagging calf injury, but she’s finally feeling better, and as a result, it feels like her season is just getting started.

Gabbi Jennings, who led most of the race, narrowly held on to take second—her highest finish yet at USAs—in 9:17.42. And Maddie Boreman, who had been stuck in the 9:30–31 range so far this season, had a breakthrough when it mattered most, emerging from the chase pack to take third in 9:17.68. Boreman, who is unsponsored, shaved 4.3 seconds off of her two-year-old personal best. Angelina Ellis, who finished fourth in 9:18.84, was the only other athlete in the race to set a personal best.

I thought some of the camerawork at this meet was quite good, but I was frustrated that the broadcast showed only Halladay-Lowry finishing. One of the things I appreciate about coverage of trail racing is that there’s more focus on who finishes in the top 10. This is my informal petition to make track and road racing more like that. Maybe it’s not the top 10 for every race, but we want to know how the people the commentators have been talking about for much of the race fare.

Speaking of which, Emma Coburn was clearly disappointed with her seventh place finish (9:29.68), but it was good to see the 10-time champion in this event back out there again after a three-year hiatus. Marisa Howard was also back after having her second child less than a year ago. Knowing all that goes into getting to a multi-day meet across the country when one has young kids and no sponsor, it was tough to see her take a hard fall going over a barrier in the middle of the race. But she got back up and finished ninth in 9:42.78. (Steeplechase highlights | Steeplechase results)

In her first pro track championship, Sydney Vaught delivers

With the country’s top seven ranked 10,000m runners sitting out the USATF Outdoor Championships, a new name was guaranteed to emerge atop the podium. And Arkansas graduate Sydney Vaught (née Thorvaldson) took control of the race and made sure it was hers.

No one wanted to lead for 25 laps on a warm evening, so the race went out at a pedestrian 18:09 for 5K. But right around halfway, Vaught went to the front, started hammering, and made it a 5,000m race. Initially, only Katie Izzo, Allie Buchalski, and newcomer on the pro scene Mikayla Reed went with her. Reed was the first to drop off, around four miles in, then Buchalski, who fell back with three laps to go.

Izzo hung with Vaught for another lap, but with about 700m to go, Vaught took off and pulled away to win 33:30.60 to 33:36.98. Vaught’s winning time was the slowest since 1998, but the way she did it—running 15:21 for her second 5,000m—was impressive. Buchalski took third (33:42.29), Cailie Hughes moved up to take fourth (33:46.75), and two weeks after finishing sixth at the USATF 6K Championships, Reed improved to fifth here, in 33:49.23.

Vaught, 23, was a SEC champion for Arkansas, but her highest finish at an NCAA championship was seventh in the 10,000m in 2024. In February, she impressed at the SEC indoor championships, soloing a 15:02.52 5,000m. But she was sick by the time the NCAA indoor meet rolled around. Vaught had no outdoor eligibility left, and in April, she announced that she had signed with Nike.

She is still working with her college coach, Marc Burns, and she said after the race that she’s exploring her options as far as training groups go. Her husband competes professionally in rodeo as a team roper, so Vaught has some additional factors to consider as she determines where she will be based. (10,000m Results)

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Other USATF Outdoor Champs Notes

• One thing that I enjoyed about USAs this year was seeing a more developmental group of athletes get opportunities, because some people skipped the meet. And it was fun to watch a new group of athletes step up and unexpectedly make finals. In the 1500m, Teagan Schein-Becker of the Brooks Beasts lowered her 1500m personal best from 4:06.58 to 4:04.91. Recent BYU grad Carlee Hansen went from 4:06.18 to 4:04.92, Taryn Parks of the Golden Peaks Track Club also PRed (4:05.92 to 4:05.14), as did Wisconsin’s Kylie Finger (4:08.58 to 4:05.78) and Jessica Kain (4:09.03 to 4:06.21), who both made significant jumps. Kain had a particularly strong showing in the final, where she finished sixth in 4:11.10. And Finger was a 4:18 1500m runner at the beginning of the outdoor season.

• Because there were only two rounds of the 800m, the field went from 22 runners down to nine in the prelims, and there were a number of surprising casualties, including Michaela Rose, who missed advancing by 0.13 seconds, McKenna Keegan, who is otherwise having a strong season, and Valery Tobias. Though others toyed with the idea, only Wiley ended up doing the 800m/1500m double.

• I loved seeing New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani make an appearance at the meet, and it sounds like this Threads post from Melissa Jefferson-Wooden helped make it happen. USATF made sure that Jefferson-Wooden got to spend some time with Mamdami before she dominated the 200m the following day. Mamdami’s office also gave away 500 free tickets to the meet, and 7,000 people applied. (So I assume cost is part of what’s keeping people away from these events. It’s clearly difficult to fill all the seats at a track meet in the U.S. right now, no matter how great the athletes are.)

• There are the glamour events in track & field, and then there’s the race walk, which barely gets any attention. (And yes, I contribute to that.) I looked for a broadcast of the race on Friday night, and if there was one, I missed it. But I watched Lauren Harris’ splits as she walked a half marathon in 1:38:35 and won the race by more than nine minutes. I appreciate that this event has gone from 20K to 13.1, because now it’s easier for runners to compare their running times and be impressed. (Race walk results)

• At the Para National Championships, held concurrently, Lipscomb graduate Liza Corso won the T13 1500m in 4:28.61, and Kaitlin Bounds won the T20 1500m in 4:46.75. Hoda Ismail won the T54 5,000m in 12:35.45, Hannah Dederick won the T54 1500m (3:35.47) and 800m (1:52.47), Linden Williamson won the T34 800m (1:57.07), and Yen Hoang won the T53 800m (2:01.69). (Results)

• I appreciated this video of Atalanta NYC’s Emily Richards being congratulated by the high school athletes she coaches after she competed in the 800m prelims.

• Juliette Whittaker, who won three NCAA titles for Stanford and was a 2024 Olympic 800m finalist, signed with Brooks and announced she’s joining the Seattle-based Brooks Beasts. She’s still being coached by J.J. Clark for now, but she’ll be making the switch in the fall.

• Makayla Paige, the 2025 NCAA indoor 800m champion for UNC, and Chloe Foerster, a 1:59.91/4:05.75 runner for UW, have both signed with Nike. Along with Gracie Morris, they are joining the Flagstaff branch of the Swoosh TC. Morris, who has produced many stellar results in the past year, has struggled this month. At USAs, she missed making the 1500m final by 0.12 seconds. And BYU’s Carlee Hansen is joining the Provo hub. Both Whittaker and Paige had NIL deals with On, and Foerster’s was with Brooks, so all of them made a switch.

Other News, Links, and Results

• Defending champion Hawi Feysa of Ethiopia will return to the Chicago Marathon this fall, and she’ll be up against Kenya’s Sharon Lokedi, among others. It will be interesting to see how Lokedi fares running her first flat marathon. Emma Grace Hurley will make her marathon debut, and the other U.S. women in the field include Susanna Sullivan, Dakotah Popehn, Natosha Rogers, Molly Born, Gabi Rooker, and Elena Hayday, Sara Hall, and Des Linden.

• Great Britain’s Clare Elms set two more 60-64 age-group world records on Wednesday at the Dave Clarke Mile, running a 5:17.25 mile and splitting 4:56.09 for 1500m en route.

• Taylor Roe reported that she recently had surgery to repair a torn tendon in her foot.

• After talking to her for this article, I was thrilled to see Anna Camp Bennett announced that she has signed with Asics. She was already pregnant when she found out that Adidas would not be extending her contract, and she was advised that there wasn’t much she could do about finding another sponsor until she was back to racing again. That didn’t sit well with her, so she kept looking for opportunities, and found a good one. She had her first child in May.

• Melissa Riggins, who was a 4:24.98 miler for Georgetown, has signed with Atlanta Track Club Elite.

• Audrey Werro won the 800m at the Swiss Championships in 1:57.21, and she also ran an impressive 50.80 personal best in the prelims of the 400m, but she opted to skip the final. (Results)

• Australia’s Claudia Hollingsworth, 21, won the 800m at the TIPOS P-T-S Meeting in Slovakia, running 2:00.34. (Results)

• Morgan Nokes won the Deseret News Half Marathon, which takes place at altitude but has a net elevation loss of 1,600 feet, in a speedy 1:09:56, and Grace Clements took second in 1:10:34. Allie Ostrander won the 10K, which has a net elevation loss of about 600 feet, in 30:50. (Results)

• Kenya’s Everlyn Kemboi, whose 2023 NCAA 10,000m title was vacated for unpublicized reasons, won the Bix 7, running 35:30 and averaging 5:04/mile for seven miles. Kassie Parker, who took fifth in 36:46, was the top U.S. finisher. (Results)

• Paige Wood won the Wharf to Wharf 6 miler, running 30:34 and averaging 5:05/mile. (Results)

• Lauren Gregory won the Speedgoat 50K in 5:56:04. (Results)

• Samantha Hastie won the Ryan Shay Mile in 4:30.4. (Results)

• Anna Oeser won the NYRR Team Championship 5 Miler in 26:30, and Roberta Groner, 48, took second in an impressive 26:50. (Results)

• Former Stanford teammates Lucy Jenks and Grace Connolly went 1-2 at the San Francisco Half Marathon, both running 1:16:13. (Results)

Podcast Highlights

• Ciara Mageean’s appearance on The GAA Social podcast was powerful. She discussed the jarring transition from pursuing her goals as one of the world’s best runners to learning she had stage 4 colorectal cancer. She said that unfortunately her last six rounds of chemotherapy were not as effective as her first 12, so they’re going to have to change her chemo regimen. She discussed planning her wedding and things she wants to enjoy while she can. And she encouraged listeners to go to the doctor if they have any concerning symptoms, and to become organ donors. I think there’s a lot of messaging out there about all of the things we can do to be healthy, but Mageean’s story is one of many reminders that there is so much that is beyond our control.

• Rachel Schilkowsky was great on the Road to the Trials podcast. She discussed working with Kellyn Taylor to get her Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier at the Vermont City Marathon, balancing motherhood and training with her engineering job, and finally figuring out marathon fueling.

• I’ve heard from some people who want to know more about David Roche, now that he’s coaching a handful of the country’s top road races. The latest episode of C Tolle Run is a good place to start.

• I appreciated hearing from Australia’s Claudia Hollingsworth on The [Female] Athlete Project podcast, though the episode was recorded months ago.

Additional Episodes: Erin McDonald on Runners of the Bay | Emma Grace Hurley on the Lactic Acid Podcast | Gracie Hyde on Pending Ratification | Cailie Hughes on I’ll Have Another | Mary Cain on Set the Pace | Former MIT standout Maryann Gong on Fueling Forward | MIT’s current director of track and field, Julie Heyde, on Sideline Ascent

For the first time in eight years, this year’s USATF Outdoor Championships didn’t serve as the qualifier for a global championship. But even without the higher stakes, the meet was still really fun to follow, and I’m glad so many athletes opted to show up anyway.

A big thanks to Gregorio Denny for spending the last four days at Icahn Stadium, capturing all the action, to Sarah Lorge Butler for editing this newsletter for the past 7+ years, and to Marcy Withington for her touching sponsorship of this week’s newsletter.

I hope you all have a great week.

Alison

Mile records, and steps forward for Keely Hodgkinson and Jessica Hull

The most hyped event of Saturday’s London Diamond League meet was understandably Josh Kerr’s world record attempt in the mile. He called his shot months in advance and delivered, running 3:42.66 and taking 0.47 seconds off of Hicham El Guerrouj’s mark that stood for 27 years. Because there is no global championship outdoors this year, this track season has fewer built-in super exciting, high-stakes moments. Kerr and his team did a good job of making their own.

The attempt naturally made me think of Faith Kipyegon’s Breaking4 attempt from last year, where the stated goal, a sub-4:00 mile, was impossible from the beginning, and she raced in a mostly empty stadium. The attempt got a lot of attention and inspired a lot of people, but it also drove home how helpful competition and fans can be in getting the best out of oneself.

Kerr had both. Yared Nuguse challenged him for about 1300m and Kerr had 60,000 fans in London Stadium willing him to the record. The crowd was incredible. Kerr deserves 99.9 percent of the credit for what he did out there, and I like to think that the crowd chipped in that final 0.01 percent.

The women’s record, 4:07.64, is only three years old, and it will be interesting to see if anyone can challenge it any time soon. When Kipyegon set it at the Monaco Diamond League meet in 2023, she shaved 4.69 seconds off of the previous mark, partially because it was a fantastic run and partially because the distance isn’t run that often.

Also in London

The men’s mile was the penultimate event of the London meet, with the women’s 800m closing out the program. When Great Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson broke the indoor 800m world record in February, taking a shot at the outdoor record in London seemed feasible. But the record, 1:53.28 from 1983, is one of the toughest in the books.

When Hodgkinson ran 1:54.33 in her outdoor 800m opener, a record chase still seemed possible, assuming Switzerland’s Audrey Werro—who ran 1:53.98 and beat Hodgkinson in June in Stockholm—didn’t get there first. But Hodgkinson’s season hasn’t gone to plan. On June 21, she withdrew from the 400m final at the UK Athletics Championships after feeling a twinge in her leg while warming up. And days before the Prefontaine Classic, Hodgkinson took a bad fall during a cooldown. She competed in Eugene with her knees taped, finishing second to Kenya’s Lilian Odira in 1:56.19. (Last week, Hodgkinson put out a YouTube video that chronicled the days leading up to the race.)

Neither Werro nor Odira raced in London, and Hodgkinson’s training partner, Georgia Hunter Bell, pulled out of the race due to lingering illness. But Hodgkinson still raced a strong field and earned her first win of the season, running 1:56.21. And I’ve been so impressed by Femke Broeders-Bol this season as she takes on a new event. She kept the race close and finished second in 1:56.46. Ethiopia’s Tsige Duguma rounded out the top three, running 1:56.92.

Earlier in the meet, Australia’s Jessica Hull—who has also faced some bumps in the road this season—ran a smart race to win the 3,000m in 8:24.69. The race was exciting, with a handful of athletes still in contention with 200m to go, and Rose Davies made it an Australian 1-2, taking second in 8:25.38. (All results | 800m replay | men’s mile replay)

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Emily Venters wins her second U.S. title

One week after winning her first U.S. title at the USATF 6K Championships, Emily Venters picked up another win at the USATF 8K Championships, hosted by the Crazy 8s 8K in Kingsport, Tennessee. In muggy conditions, Venters covered the course in 25:05, and Allie Ostrander took second in 25:42.

There was a significant gap back to the rest of the field. Maybe it was the smaller prize purse, or the proximity to both the 6K championships and the USATF Outdoor Championships, but the field lacked the depth we usually see in a championship race. The prize money went 10 deep, though, which created a nice opportunity for a new group of women. (Results)

The USATF Outdoor Championships head to New York City for the first time in 35 years

The USATF Outdoor and Para National Championships begin Thursday, and for the first time in seven years, the event will not be held in Eugene, Oregon. Instead, New York City’s Icahn Stadium, on Randall’s Island, will host. And if you’re in the vicinity, there are still plenty of tickets left.

Though there’s no global championship to qualify for this year, and some big names have opted to sit this one out, most events have still attracted high-quality fields, and there should be some excellent racing. Nikki Hiltz is entered in the 800m and the 1500m. If they end up doing both, that would mean racing once per day throughout the four-day meet (1500m prelims, 800m prelims, 1500m final, 800m final).

The 10,000m was not a popular option this year. Allie Buchalski goes in with the fastest seed time, and whoever wins will be a first-time U.S. champion on the track. Sinclaire Johnson, Karissa Schweizer, Weini Kelati, Elise Cranny, and Alicia Monson are among those who have raced this season but won’t be racing USAs.

You can browse all of the entries here (use the filter at the top left), the full meet schedule is here, and this page is blank right now but the results will be available here soon. And here’s the TV schedule:

Thursday, July 23

• 12:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. ET – Peacock, USATF.tv

• 4:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. ET – USATF.tv

Friday, July 24

• 12:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. ET – Peacock, USATF.tv

• 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. ET – USATF.tv

• 6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. ET – Peacock, NBCSN

• 8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. ET – USATF.tv

Saturday, July 25

• 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. ET – Peacock, USATF.tv

• 2:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. ET – NBC, Peacock

Sunday, July 26

• 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. ET – USATF.tv

• 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. ET – NBC, Peacock

Other News and Results

• Sarah Lorge Butler wrote a good article for Runner’s World about how Simeon Birnbaum and Marco Langon signed with Diadora, despite coming from Nike schools. Diadora’s chief marketing officer told Lorge Butler that the brand is hoping to add women to its pro athlete roster as well.

• NC State’s Angelina Napoleon said that she was battling Achilles tendinitis throughout her season, which limited how she could prepare for her races. She’s skipping the USATF Outdoor Championships and will focus on being ready for the NCAA cross country season.

• Bahrain’s Winfred Yavi dominated the steeplechase at the KBC Night of Athletics in Heusden-Zolder, Belgium, running 8:52.87. France’s Augustine Haquet won the 1500m in 4:03.56, and Rachel McArthur took second in a personal best of 4:03.90. (Results)

• Australia’s Abbey Caldwell and Claudia Hollingsworth went 1-2 in the 1500m at Hungary’s Gyulai István Memorial, running 4:01.79 and 4:02.09. (Results)

• Jamaica’s Kelly-Ann Beckford, who ran for the University of Houston, won the 800m at Switzerland’s Spitzen Leichtathletik Luzern, running 2:00.53. (Results)

• Ethiopia’s Shito Gumi won the 5,000m at Belgium’s Meeting International d’Athlétisme de la Province de Liége, running 14:49.66. (Results)

• Dakotah Popehn dropped way down in distance and won her wave at the Hopkins Raspberry Run road mile, running 4:48. In a different wave, Kaytlyn Larson had the fastest time of the day, running 4:44.

Podcast Highlights

• I thoroughly enjoyed Molly Seidel recapping her experience at the Western States 100 on the Ali on the Run Show, and I appreciate that she can already see many of the silver linings in her experience, even though the day didn’t go to plan. It was interesting to hear her thoughts on what it’s like to be swarmed by photographers at aid stations (not a fan), and I loved hearing about her pacers who stepped in at the last minute.

• I appreciated the opportunity to learn more about 2:28 marathoner and full-time nurse Madey Dickson on the Out and Back podcast.

• Countless running events throughout North America have been canceled or postponed recently due to poor air quality. On The Trail Network Podcast, it was interesting hearing Hardrock 100 runner-up Careth Arnold talk about how the wildfire smoke affected her during and after the race. (And while it’s always disappointing when an event doesn’t happen, I was glad to see so many events make the right call this past weekend.)

Additional Episodes: Sinclaire Johnson and Weini Kelati on Pending Ratification | Lily Anderson on Road to the Trials (I appreciated her comments on the commercialization of running) | Retired pro runner Tera Moody on The Mother Runners Podcast | Riley Brady on l’ll Have Another | Dani Moreno on The Steep Stuff Podcast | Laura Thweatt on Hurdle | Moving Comfort founders Ellen Wessel and Elizabeth Goeke on Starting Line 1928

Things that made me smile

• Keely Hodgkinson and Femke Broeders-Bol raced twice last week. You can see their other matchup here.

• This five-minute video, which includes the most footage I’ve seen of Joan Benoit Samuelson’s 1984 Olympic marathon win, popped up in my Facebook memories last week. It has more than 180,000 views on YouTube, so perhaps you’ve seen it before, but it gets me every time.

Last week was a quieter one in the running world, but this week is going to be a big one. In the past, I’ve sent out multiple newsletters during championship meets, but this year, I’m going to do my best to condense everything into one issue.

I hope you all have the best week possible.

(And I am still unable to thank people via the Venmo app, but a huge thank you to those of you who have sent money to support Fast Women!)

Alison

How Rachael Rudel became one of America’s fastest road racers

Three months ago, Denver’s Rachael Rudel was unknown to most distance running fans. Then she started showing up near the front of some of the country’s most competitive road races.

On Memorial Day, Rudel, 32, kicked to a third-place finish at the Bolder Boulder 10K, running 32:46, the fastest-ever time by an American woman at the event. A month later, she finished only three seconds behind two-time Boston Marathon champion Sharon Lokedi of Kenya at the Boston 10K, running 31:31, a significant personal best.

From the outside, Rudel’s rise seemed to happen almost overnight. In reality, her breakthrough is the product of years spent rebuilding her physical and mental health, and finding balance outside of the sport, which has allowed her to train consistently and reach a new level.

A multi-sport athlete

Rudel grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado, in an athletic family. Her father was a standout college decathlete and football player, who was briefly with the Dallas Cowboys in the 1980s. Her mother was a gymnast, marathoner, power lifter, and, later, a triathlete. Rudel followed suit, playing basketball, soccer, volleyball, and competing in track.

Initially, she wasn’t a fan of distance running. She joined the cross country team as a freshman at Fort Collins High School but got a migraine in her first race and quit the sport. During track season, Rudel specialized in the triple jump and long jump, but she dreaded the 200m and 400m. “I wish I was joking about this,” she told Fast Women. “But I would hide in the bathroom and cry because I hated it so much.”

Rudel finished fourth in the triple jump at the Colorado 5A State Track & Field Championships as a sophomore. One year later, she was constantly sick. She didn’t tell her parents how severe her symptoms had become, because her mother was undergoing treatment for breast cancer and Rudel was reluctant to speak up about her own struggles. A doctor initially suspected Rudel had an eating disorder and encouraged her to eat more, but doing so only made her sicker.

Further testing showed that she was dealing with a severe case of celiac disease, and her treatment involved going on an elimination diet. Restricting her diet eased her GI symptoms, but she became afraid to reintroduce certain foods. What began as treatment for celiac disease evolved into an eating disorder that would last for years.

Hitting rock bottom

Rudel took a medical leave from school during what would have been her first year at Colorado State University, and while visiting family for Thanksgiving in Arizona, she suffered acute pancreatitis, which required her to spend 10 days in the hospital and stop eating to heal her body. “I didn’t know until years later, but the doctors told my family I might not make it,” she said. “They said I needed to put weight on before flying home or I would likely die.”

Rudel gained weight but she continued to struggle. Having lost so much strength, she was unable to do the explosive events she once loved, so she took up distance running instead. When she returned to CSU in the fall of 2013, the cross country and track coaches took note of how well she ran in a 5K road race and added her to the team’s roster. “I don’t think I even loved running then,” she said. “I think the eating disorder loved running at that point.”

Because of her illness, much of Rudel’s college experience remains a blur. But she remembers her coaches and teammates being thrilled when she won the Mountain West Conference 10,000m title during her first year of college competition and not sharing their joy. Later that night, she watched a replay of the race at her parents’ house and barely recognized herself. “I remember hearing some girls in the background saying, ‘Oh my God, that girl is so thin. She looks like she’s going to die.’ That hit me so hard. I remember going to the bathroom and just sitting in there and crying.”

Two days later, she checked herself into eating disorder treatment. Once again, she gained weight, but the treatment did not last long enough to resolve the underlying issues.

At the end of her junior year, Rudel suffered an injury and her coaches began to urge her to eat more and work with a nutritionist. “That’s when I gave up on them,” she said. “They wanted to help, but I still wasn’t ready to help myself.”

Going into her senior year, Rudel learned that she had a BRCA1 gene mutation that put her at high risk of developing breast cancer. She had watched her mother make a double mastectomy and hysterectomy look easy, and she had also seen her grandmother struggle through the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation. The decision seemed like a no-brainer. She opted to get a prophylactic double mastectomy during her final year of college, and though her recovery went smoothly, that was the end of her collegiate running career.

Finding a way forward

After graduating from CSU in 2017, Rudel worked briefly in the restaurant industry and stayed active through spin classes, weightlifting, and other high-intensity workouts. She still ran occasionally, but not because she loved the sport. “It was what fed the eating disorder,” she said.

The following year top local runner AnnMarie Kirkpatrick approached her about helping start a post-collegiate team based in Fort Collins. Rudel loved the concept. “I told her, ‘I’m all in, but you’ve got to give me time to get my shit together, because if our goal is to be inspirational for younger runners, I can’t look like this.’”

Much of that work happened during the pandemic. Rudel initially took on a behind-the-scenes role with Front Range Elite, while she focused on her health and happiness. She found that slowing down gave her the space she needed to recover. “It was exactly what I needed,” she said. “I needed the quietness. I needed to bond with people…and realize that life is beyond food, life is beyond stressing about every little thing, life is beyond running. And when I finally learned that, I started to realize that I truly love the sport and the people that are involved with it.”

She dealt with a series of setbacks, including a foot injury that she suffered while dancing barefoot at a Christmas party, which required surgery. Imaging showed that her bone density was low, so her coach at the time, Craig Depperschmidt, prescribed a lot of cross training and, until this year, she ran only three days per week most of the time, usually totalling around 25 miles.

Rudel eased her way back into competition by training for a half Ironman. Over time, she gravitated back toward running, but in the process, she learned how to cross train and that it worked well for her.

Still running about 25 miles per week, Rudel continued to improve. She finished second at the 2023 USATF Trail Half Marathon Championships, ran 16:09 for 5K at altitude in 2024, clocked 26:25 at the 2025 Shamrock Shuffle 8K, ran 1:11:33 at the Indianapolis Monumental Half Marathon, and placed 17th at the 2025 USATF Cross Country Championships.

The breakthrough years in the making

When Rudel began working with coach David Roche in February 2026, she was swimming twice a week, biking three or four times a week, and running only three days most weeks. Now her running mileage hovers in the 50s. She still bikes, but she also takes one day completely off each week. “David is very strict about that,” she said, “especially because of my past.”

Rudel has also become more deliberate about her fueling during training, which has been a game changer for her. She now takes a gel any time she runs for more than an hour, and she prioritizes carbohydrates immediately after training, which helps her recover faster post-workout and sleep better.

The results have followed. Rudel’s first big performance of the season escaped the notice of many outside of Colorado. Racing at roughly 5,000 feet above sea level, Rudel shattered the event record at the Horsetooth Half Marathon, running 1:12:29 on a hilly course.

Two weeks later, she finished second behind Kassie Parker at the Bloomsday 12K, running 39:39. On Memorial Day, she finished third at the Bolder Boulder 10K, and on June 6 she finished second to Parker again, running 20:23 at the USATF 4 Mile Championships, hosted by the Steamboat Classic.

Rudel doesn’t spend a lot of time sizing up her competition, but she did know who Lokedi was heading into the Boston 10K. “She was the coolest person to talk to the night before,” Rudel said. “She was so chill, she was the last person at dinner, just laughing and talking to the racing directors and having a good time.”

Rudel doesn’t get intimidated by her competitors; she considers it an honor to race them. She did wonder if she would pay for her decision to go out with the lead pack in Boston, though. Lokedi made her move with 1K to go and Rudel temporarily dropped to fourth, but then she outkicked 1:05 half marathoner Veronica Loleo and Winfred Mbithe, both of Kenya, to take second.

Before the Boston race, Rudel was feeling a bit run down from her racing schedule and work travel, and she was feeling it in her foot and her hip. She took a week off from running, but she’s already back to training. She has her eye on the USATF 20K Championships on September 7 and the USATF 10K Championships on October 3. She’d also like to target a fast half marathon this fall.

Shortly after Bolder Boulder, Rudel signed with agent Josh Cox, but as of now, she remains unsponsored and buys all of her own shoes and gear. ““I’ve never had a shoe brand reach out and offer to send me shoes,” she said. “So it’s more fire underneath my butt to run a little bit faster and prove myself more.”

Regardless of her sponsorship status, Rudel has no plans to quit her day job. She works remotely as a strategic partnerships manager for CompanyCam. “I love what I do right now, and it’s working well so far,” she said. “Running can be taken away at any point and I’m the type of person that needs other distractions.”

Rudel’s brain has had to quickly catch up to what her legs are now capable of doing. “A few months ago, I was just planning to do the Olympic Trials in the marathon for fun with my friends,” she said.

Rudel knows that maintaining the balance she’s built over the past several years will be crucial. She relies on her Denver training partners, her Front Range Elite teammates, and other family and friends help keep her accountable.

For years, Rudel’s running was tied to illness and obligation. Now she wakes up excited to train and has learned to keep her running in perspective. “I’ve been through enough that if the thing I’m stressing about now is how to compete with the best,” she said, “that’s a pretty damn good thing to be stressing about.”

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News and Results

• The Monaco Diamond League meet featured only one women’s women’s distance event, but Kenya’s Agnes Ngetich made it worth watching. Paced by Australia’s Jessica Hull, Ngetich broke away from the field early and ran a solo 8:08.95, the third-fastest performance of all time. Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon, who is returning from injury, lined up for the race knowing that she might not be at her best and ended up fourth in 8:24:21. Cassandre Beaugrand, the reigning Olympic triathlon champion, finished eighth in a French record of 8:32.86. (Results | Replay)

• Following a great run at the New York Mini 10K last month, Emily Venters won her first national title at Saturday’s USATF 6K Championships in Canton, Ohio. Venters pulled away 12 minutes into the race and finished in 18:08 (4:51/mile for 3.73 miles), earning $6,000. Making a rare appearance on the roads, Elise Cranny finished second in 18:12, and Annie Rodenfels took third in 18:16. Venters said afterward that she also plans to race Saturday’s USATF 8K Championships in Kingsport, Tennessee. (Results)

• Racing in her UNC uniform, Makayla Paige (1:58.14, PR) edged out Emily Mackay 1:58.14), Lithuania’s Gabija Galvydyte (1:58.28) and Meghan Hunter (1:58.43) to win the 800m at Sound Running’s Sunset Tour. Kayley DeLay used an excellent kick to win the 1500m in a PR of 4:04.64, and China’s Wuga He won the 5,000m in 15:22.23. Madie Boreman won the steeplechase in a solid 9:30.82, and running her first steeplechase in three years, World and Olympic medalist Courtney Frerichs finished fifth in 9:40.95. I appreciated her post about her race. (Results)

• Courtney Dauwalter won the Hardrock 100 in 26:03:10, breaking her own clockwise course record by eight minutes. For more on her race, she was on The Freetrail Podcast.

• Emma Bates and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone both announced the arrival of their babies. Bates’ son arrived a bit early, on her birthday.

• Annie Frisbie is recovering from a stress fracture in her tibia, according to her latest Instagram post.

• Great Britain’s Jemma Reekie won the 800m at the British Milers Club Grand Prix, running 1:58.41. (Results)

• McKenna Keegan, who’s in the midst of her best season yet, won the Meeting Lignano 800m in a personal best of 1:58.54. Australia’s Claudia Hollingsworth won the 1500m in 4:00.70, and Annika Reiss took second in a big PR of 4:03.54. (Results)

• Ethiopia’s Tsigie Gebreselama won the Boilermaker Road Race 15K in 47:29. (Results)

• Ireland’s Sophie O’Sullivan edged out Chloe Foerster, her former University of Washington teammate, to win the 1500m at the Morton Games, 4:08.26 to 4:08.47. (Results)

• Turkey’s Şilan Ayyildiz won the Folksam Grand Prix Karlstad 1500m in 4:06.87. (Results)

• Shafiqua Maloney of St. Vincent and the Grenadines won the 800m at the Ed Murphey Classic, running 1:58.72. (Results)

• Amina Maatoug of the Netherlands edged out Taylor Werner to win the Cork City Sports 3,000m, 8:45.72 to 8:45.85. (Results)

• Sinclaire Johnson launched a YouTube channel and her first video is available here. On a recent episode of the Axel’s Personal Best podcast, Johnson briefly talked about the injury she suffered around the USATF Indoor Championships, which originally got misdiagnosed. She said that because of her late start, she won’t be surprised if she’s not at 100 percent fitness by the USATF Outdoor Championships. But she has traditionally been able to get fit quickly.

• Northeastern Global News featured 2028 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier Hannah Rowe, who is an assistant professor at the school.

Podcast Highlights

• Alyssa McElheny qualified for the 2028 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials by running a 2:34:28 at the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon last November. Two weeks later, at the urging of a friend, she tried her first Hyrox competition, which turned out to be a life-changing experience. In June, she became the Hyrox Elite 15 World Champion and is now an Adidas-sponsored athlete. She was on both the Ali on the Run Show and D3 Glory Days last week.

• I appreciated the chance to hear from Peninsula Distance Club coach Dena Evans on the Sideline Ascent podcast recently.

Additional Episodes: Des Linden said on Hurdle that she hopes to run the Chicago Marathon and rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon as she builds up for the Javelina Jundred, her first 100 miler, on Halloween | Jennifer Lichter on I’ll Have Another | Sarah Carter and Dani Moreno on Women of Distance | Lexy Halladay-Lowry on Pending Ratification | Steph Bruce on Out and Back | Canada’s Rachel Cliff on The Fueling Forward Podcast | Liv Paxton on Women’s Running Stories

Thank you to all of you who reached out in response to last week’s newsletter. I’m working on becoming someone who responds to my messages once again, but I still have a little ways to go. And I am so grateful to those of you who became Patreon supporters or sent money via Venmo. (I’m usually able to thank people directly in the Venmo app, but despite a bunch of troubleshooting, that feature isn’t working for me right now. Instead, I am just shouting a big blanket thank you to all of you here.) Because of your support, I can rationalize putting my time into this venture.

I’m still figuring out how much work I can handle in a week with my current schedule. This week, I had pretty extensive gum surgery on Tuesday, and talked to Rachael Rudel while I was still numb. Putting out this week’s newsletter would have all been very doable if everything else had gone to plan, but it did not. So I learned that I need to build a lot more wiggle room into my schedule. (The surgery went fine. My face is swollen and bruised, but my recovery is going smoothly. The only hard part is that I need to consume a liquid diet. I am really looking forward to chewing again.)

Many of you have encouraged me to take my time coming back, and I appreciate that. Especially since my boss (me) can be kind of stubborn. I hope you all have a good week.

Alison

Getting back to work

First, I want to thank everyone who reached out following my husband Parker’s death two months ago. I am more grateful than I can say for the outpouring of support we received. Because it came all at once, while we were overwhelmed with so many other things, I was barely able to respond to any of it. But I appreciated all of it.

These days, when people ask how I’m doing, I often feel like they want to hear something brief and reassuring, like I’m making progress and feeling better. But that’s not really true, so I usually try to avoid answering the question.

The truth is that I feel about how you’d expect someone to feel if the person most central to their life disappeared in an instant. (To those of you who know what it feels like, I am so sorry.) I think that when I got the news, I went into shock, and my brain has allowed reality to sink in only a little bit at a time. I am well aware of what happened, but there is still part of me that can’t quite believe it.

The big picture questions—how to even attempt to fill Parker’s shoes on the parenting front, where we’re going to live, where our health insurance is ultimately going to come from, and whether I can afford to stay in the running industry—are scary. So instead, I just focus on the smaller items on my to-do list each day.

As much as I would have liked to curl up in a ball and just be sad, with this change came more responsibilities. I’ve been able to get a lot of stuff done because I haven’t really had a choice. I haven’t been taking time away from Fast Women because my grief has kept me from functioning; I’ve been taking time off because there has been so much other work to do. Our lives were built around having two available parents, and now I have to learn how to make everything work with just one.

For someone who believes in equal gender roles, there were quite a few household tasks I never learned to do because I always lived with someone who was very willing to take them on. So in some ways, I am finally growing up and becoming an adult. (Next up: figuring out how to vacuum all the smoke alarms and change the batteries without setting them off.)

And there have been countless small tasks to handle. Returning Parker’s computer to his workplace, unsubscribing him from email lists so I don’t miss something important, donating the food that the rest of us won’t eat before it expires, collecting photos, videos, and memories for our kids, convincing companies to move our accounts into my name (which is surprisingly hard at times) so I can pay our bills, giving our cat extra attention, because he has no idea what happened to his favorite person, and so on.

And LOL that I thought that I would automatically have access to the autopsy report because I had the power to make all sorts of major decisions at the end of his life. I was very naive about all of the ridiculous hoop jumping that goes into settling someone’s estate, even when they have a very straightforward will.

I still have plenty of work to do on that front, but because my schedule is less hectic starting today (fingers crossed), I am planning to return to work. My being back at work doesn’t mean I’m okay. It just means that I am attempting to carry on with my career and hoping this work feels like a nice break from the other work I’ve been doing recently.

In normal times, I’d have a lot of Fourth of July results for you this week, and I’d try to recap everything I’ve missed over the past couple months. Like Switzerland’s Audrey Werro running 1:53 in the 800m twice, the huge amount of attention that Rachel Entrekin’s Cocodona 250 win earned her, and the fact that Rachael Rudel finished only three seconds behind Kenya’s Sharon Lokedi at the Boston 10K. And, of course, I have been thinking about Jenny Simpson a lot and hoping that she has all the support, resources, and privacy that she needs as she recovers.

But things have been busy up until today, and I haven’t been paying close enough attention to do a thorough job of summarizing what I’ve missed. At the moment, I don’t feel particularly qualified to tell you much about what’s going on in the running world, but I am pretty confident in my ability to get back up to speed.

While I was out, I was struck by how much news I missed by just passively following the sport. I wished I had someone sending me updates about what was happening in women’s distance running, so I hope that means that this newsletter still serves a purpose.

But going forward, things might look a little different. When I had my kids, I was a college cross country and track & field coach. Having children is seen as a liability in a lot of professions, but that was particularly true in college coaching, where the hours are long and untraditional. (When I interviewed at Wellesley College, which in theory should have been a progressive place, the athletic director at the time, who was seen as a trailblazer in her field, asked me how on earth I was going to do the job with young twins at home.) As a result of those types of attitudes, I got used to trying to make my family as invisible as possible at work, and focused on getting stuff done regardless of what was happening at home.

That has carried over to my work with Fast Women as well. For more than seven years, I put out a weekly newsletter regardless of what ridiculous things were happening around us. Sometimes it felt like a minor miracle that the newsletter went out at all.

Going forward, I can’t afford to do that, so you will likely be able to tell that I have a family. And I’ll continue to do my best with the time I have, but sometimes, I’m going to have to drop some balls.

Because life is never all good or all bad, I can end this on a more positive note. The plan is for both of our kids to spend a lot of their summer in a wonderful place. And I already knew I was capable of learning new things, because I do so all the time. But these past two months have shown me that my capacity to do so is even greater than I realized.

Most of all, thank you to everyone who has supported our family during the past two months. And thank you to those of you who continued supporting Fast Women on Patreon and/or Venmo even when you knew I’d be taking time off. Your kindness has meant more than I can express.

Due to various circumstances, I don’t have any sponsors lined up for the rest of the year. If you or your company might be interested, I’d love to have a conversation and see whether it would be a good fit. I’m at alison (at) fast-women.org, or you can just reply to this message.

Now onto some running news. (The plan is for next week’s newsletter to be a lot more running-focused and less me-focused.)

A handful of things that have happened in the past two months

• What a thrill it was to watch Nikki Hiltz kick to a win in the mile at the Prefontaine Classic on the Fourth of July. In the 1500m at last month’s Rome Diamond League meet, Hiltz made their move with more than a lap to go and ended up third. This time out, they waited until the final strides and timed things just right. Afterward, in the mixed zone, they weighed in on on the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold state bans on trans women competing in women’s sports and joked that “a lot of people can’t really even insult me correctly” due to their lack of understanding about what it means to be nonbinary. The Athletic has an good article (gift link) that came from the same interview. (Results with detailed splits)

• Hiltz, 31, beat a stellar field, including Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon, who hadn’t lost a 1500m/mile race in more than five years. Kipyegon, who is still only 32, was running her first middle-distance race of the season, and she said in an Instagram post yesterday that she has been dealing with a hamstring injury since May’s Shanghai Diamond League meet, where she won the 5,000m.

• Kenya’s Lilian Odira pulled off a minor upset to win the Pre Classic 800m over Great Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson, 1:56.19 to 1:56.73. Odira is the reigning world champion, so a good run from her is no surprise, but Hodgkinson ran an impressive 1:54 in her season opener. But she revealed after the race that she took a bad fall during her cooldown the day before she traveled to the U.S. to race.

• I’ve appreciated all of the interviews Ireland’s Ciara Mageean has given while promoting her book, My Greatest Race, and her honesty about the realities of living with stage 4 colon cancer. It’s fun to root for athletes as they pursue their athletic goals, but now I’m rooting for Mageean more than ever.

• During my time away, five women earned new qualifiers for the 2028 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. Mattie Carter won the Bayshore Marathon in a PR of 2:36:38. Rachel Schilkowsky finished second to Kellyn Taylor at the Vermont City Marathon, running 2:35:51, former Colorado State runner Mary van Laarhoven finished fourth at Grandma’s Marathon in 2:32:40, repeat qualifier Annmarie Tuxbury ran 2:35:00 to finish sixth at Grandma’s, and Shalaya Kipp, a 2012 Olympian in the steeplechase, finished eighth at Grandma’s in 2:36:58.

• Gracie Morris, who was previously with Puma Elite, has joined Nike’s Swoosh TC. If anyone has specified which hub she’ll be a part of, I missed it.

• I appreciated this thoughtful Q&A Jason Suarez did with Marielle Hall.

• Both Dani Jones and Sage Hurta-Klecker have had to take a step back this season due to injury.

• I was impressed that in her first trail race, 42-year-old Steph Bruce finished ninth in the ascent (what was formerly known as the VK/vertical kilometer) at the Broken Arrow Skyrace and made the U.S. team for the WMRA Mountain Running World Cup. But Bruce isn’t the oldest team member. Kasie Enman, 46, made the Classic Mountain team and Alicia Vargo, 44, made the Long Distance Mountain team. The complete U.S. rosters are available here.

• Jess McClain won Saturday’s Crown City Classic in Coronado, California, running 39:17 (5:16/mile) for 12K. McClain’s in-laws live in Coronado, so she has run the race a handful of times, but this was her fastest result yet. (Results)

• Marisa Howard, who is 11 months postpartum with her second child, won the Independence Day Classic 5K in Newhall, California, running a speedy 15:20 (15:17 chip time) and finishing less than a second behind her husband. (Results)

• Atlanta’s Peachtree Road Race had an exciting finish, with Ethiopians Tsigie Gebreselama and Melknat Wudu going 1-2 in 31:02 and 31:03. (Results)

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Podcast Highlights

I’ve been listening to all of my usual running podcasts for the past two months, but I haven’t done a good job of remembering which ones are worth sharing or who said what. Here are some that I remember enjoying.

• We don’t get to hear Kenyan athletes tell their stories in much detail all that often, so I really appreciated hearing Agnes Ngetich discuss overcoming losing her father at age 10, and other challenges, on The Citius Mag Podcast.

• I also appreciated hearing Kenya’s Mercy Chelangat tell more of her story on C Tolle Run after her fourth-place finish at the Boston Marathon. Chelangat, who runs for HOKA NAZ Elite, was a standout runner for the University of Alabama, but the part of her story that didn’t get much attention at the time was the fact that she had her daughter in the middle of her NCAA career.

• I’ve also enjoyed the first seven episodes of Built to Last with Allyson Felix & Wes Felix. The best athletes in the world (understandably) rarely give us this kind of access when they’re at their peak, but it’s fun to have it as Felix gives pro track & field another shot at age 40. (And I was sorry to hear that she, too, is aware of and has been negatively affected by the LetsRun message boards.)

Also: Vanessa Fraser on The Fueling Forward Podcast | Kassie Parker on DIII Glory Days | Laura Thweatt on the Ali on the Run Show | Grace to the finish: A panel discussion on immigration advocacy on the Running Behind podcast | Emma Coburn (who lowered her steeple time to 9:15 on Saturday) and Parker Valby on the Ali on the Run Show | Emily Venters discussed her excellent run at the New York Mini 10K on C Tolle Run | Gracie Hyde and Courtney Frerichs on I’ll Have Another | Emma Grace Hurley on The Citius Mag Podcast | Grayson Murphy on The Eat for Endurance Podcast | Calli Hauger-Thackery on Run With It | Des Linden on Long Run Labs | Alisa Harvey on Women’s Running Stories | Makena Morley on The Sub Hub Podcast | Brett Clothier discussing catching dopers on Marathon Talk | Sports psychologist and former professional runner Lennie Waite on The Fueling Forward Podcast

Thanks for bearing with me as I ease my way back into following the sport. I hope you all have the best week possible.

Alison

Finding a way forward without Parker

In case you missed last week’s newsletter, my husband, Parker Morse, passed away very unexpectedly a week ago. We still don’t know why it happened, and even though the reminders are constant, it hasn’t fully sunk in. Though I never publicly gave him any credit for it while he was alive—I don’t think he would have wanted that—he was central to any success this newsletter has had.

I thought it might be therapeutic to share a little more about him and the role he played in Fast Women. All of this is just one small part of who he was. We were together for 26 years and married for almost 17 of them. He was an incredible father and husband. Losing him in the way we did feels extremely unlucky, but we were so fortunate to have him in our lives at all.

I first crossed paths with Parker on the t-and-f@gac.edu listserv when I was in college. Email and the internet were new to me at the time, and the listserv was the way all the running nerds found each other. All the new members provided brief introductions, and we first connected over the fact that he went to college in my hometown (Amherst, Massachusetts), and I went to college near his (Phippsburg, Maine) and we competed in the same conference.

We must have been in touch in at least some form beyond that, because in June 1995, when we were both in Amherst, we met for the first time and went for a run together. (I wouldn’t have remembered the year, but our training logs are surprisingly good for fact checking. For the people who know Amherst, we ran in Amethyst Brook, and his log notes that as predicted, we got lost.) The run was fine, but I wouldn’t say we hit it off. As far as I remember, we were not in touch again for another four and a half years.

In early 2000, I was living in New York City working on New York Road Runners’ magazine and website. I remember reading in a Runner’s World editor’s letter that Parker had qualified for the Boston Marathon. Aside from my co-workers, I didn’t know other people my age working in the running industry, so I decided to reach out to him to congratulate him, thinking that he might be a good business connection to have.

He told me he was going to be in New York for the Millrose Games, so we arranged to do a run around Central Park and then go to the meet together. (And I remember we got most of the way to Madison Square Garden before I realized that I left my media credential back at NYRR’s headquarters.) This second encounter went a lot better, but I was under the impression that he was in a long-term relationship, so I didn’t realize until after the fact that it was our first date.

For a while, we alternated spending weekends in New York or Emmaus, Pennsylvania, where Runner’s World was based. It was during this time that I decided to start my own women’s running website, because I was fed up with how lopsided so much of the running coverage and conversation was. These were the days of dial-up internet, and there was so little online that it didn’t take much to make a contribution. I remember throwing around names with him in my apartment and him suggesting Fast Women. I couldn’t think of anything better, so I went with it.

Some time after that, NYRR bought Fast Women from me, we made a similar men’s site, and running those two sites became my job. Parker was Runner’s World’s first “webmaster” and we traveled to a lot of the same events. He would report on them and I considered myself to be more of a photographer at that point. (Again, the bar was low.)

I was not cut out to live in a major city long term, so in 2001, I moved back to Amherst, and later that year, Parker left Runner’s World and joined me. Even back then, he was concerned about the practicality of trying to make a living in the declining magazine industry. He had been a Russian major in college (speaking Russian not particularly well was something else we had in common), and he started taking prerequisites so he could get a master’s in computer science.

But even as he built a career outside of running, he stayed involved in the sport in a variety of ways. As I continued traveling to cover events for NYRR, he took on freelance assignments and joined me at a lot of them. He got a cool gig helping with the IAAF’s (now World Athletics’) coverage of its own championships. He traveled the world and covered two Olympics and six world championships before deciding to step away, because our lives became too complicated after we had kids.

We spent 12 years moving around for each other’s education and jobs, which was a challenging balance at times. When we moved to Medford, Massachusetts, so he could attend graduate school at Tufts, it became harder for me to work remotely for New York Road Runners, and I eventually stopped. When I decided to attempt to make a living as a college coach, he didn’t complain about uprooting our lives so I could work all hours and barely get paid.

We got married in 2009, but I don’t consider that to be a significant moment in our relationship timeline, because we had already been together for a long time. The big turning point came when we had kids. Because I am a twin and Parker’s father is a twin, I used to tell everyone I was going to have twins. But we were shocked when we found out I was right. (Especially since our children are identical, and fraternal twins are what runs in families.)

I wouldn’t have had kids with someone who wasn’t ready to be an equal partner in everything. But having twins kind of forced that—it was all hands on deck at all times. Neither of us previously had much experience with kids, so we weren’t naturals, but we figured it out. We started out parenting the way we thought we were supposed to parent. But when it became apparent that our kids needed us to take a different approach, we threw out nearly everything we thought we knew and figured out what worked.

About nine years ago, it became clear that we needed one parent who was able to drop everything and be available at a moment’s notice. Because of Parker’s commute at the time and our income differences, there was no question that was going to be me. I was doing a lot of freelance work for Runner’s World (kind of full circle, given our origins), and I stepped back from that. In 2019, when my schedule allowed me to take on a little more, I re-started Fast Women in a new form, after a roughly 13-year hiatus. On weekdays, I worked, but I remained the more available parent. And on weekends, when I put in the most time on this newsletter, Parker was in charge our children.

He was regularly one of the only dads supervising girl scouts outings, he became the leader of the 4H club for a stretch, and as our kids got a little older, he excelled at adopting their interests as his own, no matter how obscure they seemed. Three days before everything turned upside down, he took our kids to the Mystic Aquarium for some very specific reasons, even though we have another aquarium much closer to home. He learned all about vocaloid in preparation for Hatsune Miku’s North American tour. He watched the first eight episodes of The Amazing Digital Circus with our kids, and bought tickets to see the finale with them in June.

He could have an intelligent conversation about nearly anything. He loved being roasted by our children. He still read to one of them nearly every night, and the two of them would regularly make book references that I did not understand. In more recent years, we have been through a lot of tough stuff as a family, but the four of us were always on the same page. Much of the time, it felt like us against a world that wasn’t evolving as quickly as it should.

Even though running was the thing that brought Parker and me together, and we were both still involved in the sport in our own ways, it wasn’t something we talked about all that often (unless I needed to vent about something work-related). I would occasionally call him in to join me when something big was happening, though. Most recently, we watched together as Sebastian Sawe and Yomif Kejelcha broke 2:00 at the London Marathon (after briefly pausing history in the making because his oven timer went off).

Parker didn’t do a lot of work in the sport anymore, but the one commitment he held onto was his Boston Marathon volunteer job, which he had for longer than I can remember. From the basement of the Copley Square Hotel, he and others would receive information from the bike spotters on the course and relay it to the broadcast team. He put in some extra work in advance this year and was pleased with how smoothly things went on race day.

Before we had kids, whatever job I was doing, he was always willing to pitch in. During my eliterunning.com years (a site I started after I left NYRR), he learned to take pretty good running photos with my old camera. And when I was placed on bed rest during my pregnancy and the school I was working for refused to hire anyone else to help run practice, Parker would go over to campus to check on the team here and there.

After we had kids, he had no direct involvement with the work that I did, but his indirect contributions made it all possible. I appreciated that he tolerated being married to someone who has never known how to turn off work at the end of the day, and he always treated my career just as seriously as his own, despite the fact that his job was much more important for our financial stability.

I’ve had some (non-life-threatening) health struggles in recent years, and they required Parker to pitch in more on weekdays. When he did so, I’d make him promise it wasn’t going to get him in trouble at work. Though I wish he had had more down time in his life, in retrospect, I’m glad he did as much as he did, because it meant spending more quality time with our kids, who couldn’t have adored him more.

I created this newsletter so I could highlight other people’s accomplishments, so it makes me a little uncomfortable to put so much of myself into this one. But it’s hard to tell Parker’s story without also telling some of mine. Having seen how the internet has evolved over time, both of us had pulled way back from putting a lot of personal information out there, especially when it comes to our kids. But it helps me to put some of this in writing.

I have no idea what our lives are going to look like going forward. Doing what we did felt overwhelming at times with two parents. It is completely unimaginable to me how it’s going to work with just me. My own parents always seemed to have everything together all of the time, so it’s been a surprise to arrive at adulthood and realize that I still have no idea what I’m doing most of the time. And that’s especially the case now.

My two sisters, my mother, and Parker’s family have been incredible throughout all of this. And so many people have offered to help in some way. I am so fortunate on that front, but I also know that I’m going to need to build more of a support network. Between the pandemic, my inability to run in recent years, my health challenges, and other factors, my world has gotten really small. I’ve been fortunate to know many wonderful people throughout my life, and I interact with many lovely people online, but I don’t think I will offend anyone when I say that I have no friends that actually live in my town. (One of our kids said this week, “Wow, you and Dad used to know a lot of people!”)

Thank you to everyone who has reached out. I am so touched. In normal times, keeping up with all of my inboxes is overwhelming, but I usually at least attempt to respond to most things. Right now, it’s not possible, which is a nice problem to have. But thank you for your messages. I have seen them and I appreciate them.

I have no immediate plans for Fast Women to end, and I will let you know if that changes, but as you can probably tell, I have a lot to figure out.

I know this isn’t the most uplifting thing to read on a Monday morning, but I truly do hope you all have the best week possible.

Alison

P.S. For those asking, we have launched a GoFundMe in an attempt to help our children have a more secure future.

The worst week of my life

I wish more than anything that this was like any other week and I could just relay the latest news in women’s distance running. But on Wednesday, my husband, Parker Morse, suffered an undetermined cardiac event, for unknown reasons. And he passed away early this morning, a few weeks after his 52nd birthday. (Which sounds old until you get there.)

I have a lot more to say about him, and I think it will be therapeutic to write a little about our story as it relates to running. But I need more sleep and to be in slightly less shock to do a decent job. And I’ve spent my Sunday fielding calls from the organ donation team, hospice, and the hospital, approving plans for his body, and waiting for word that he is officially gone.

None of the work I’ve put into building Fast Women over the past 7+ years would have been possible without him. And he was the one who came up with the name, back in 2000, when I started the original website.

I am going to be stepping back from Fast Women as I figure out what life looks like for me and our two children going forward. I might still participate here and there on social media, but for now, I am out of the office. I truly hope I can find a way to keep doing this kind of work, but I will also have to be practical.

As word of Parker’s situation has started to spread, several people have reached out with offers of assistance. I haven’t had time to respond, but I am so appreciative, and once I figure out how people can help, I will let you know. I appreciate everyone’s patience. If any of you knew him personally and have memories or photos to share, my sister is collecting them at courtneywade@gmail.com.

I wish I could help you start off your Monday in a more uplifting manner, but if nothing else, let this be a reminder to hold your loved ones close and make sure they know you love them and appreciate them. I wish Parker could see the outpouring of love and support he’s had this past week.

Alison

Issue 407, sponsored by SOAR

Tigst Assefa winds up on the winning side of a sprint finish in London

The London Marathon came down to a three-woman sprint, and at 26 miles, defending champion Tigst Assefa of Ethiopia proved to be least affected by the previous two-plus hours of running. When she made her move, she quickly pulled away and won her second-straight title in London, running 2:15:41 and shaving nine seconds off of the women’s-only world record that she set last year.

Racing on a flat marathon course with pacers for the first time, Kenya’s Hellen Obiri finished second in 2:15:53, taking 1:48 off of her personal best. And Kenya’s Joyciline Jepkosgei, who was second at this race last year, finished third in 2:15:55, her best time on the London course. It was the first time in history that three women broke 2:16 in the same race.

London’s first-place prize money, $55,000, is low compared to that of other World Marathon Majors, but the race offers many bonuses for running fast. So Assefa also earned $125,000 for breaking the world record, $25,000 for breaking the course record, and $75,000 for breaking 2:16, for a total of $280,000. Obiri and Jepkosgei earned $30,000 and $22,500, respectively, for finishing second and third, but they also earned $75,000 bonuses for breaking 2:16.

Asefa has been on the losing end of some sprint finishes in marathons in recent years—including the 2024 Olympic Games and the 2025 World Championships—so she was thrilled to come out on top this time. She screamed with elation at the finish and said afterward that she really worked on her speed during her marathon build.

Race organizers said in advance that the three pacers would take the lead group through halfway in 1:07:30, and just like last year, that plan went out the window early. They hit halfway in 1:06:12, and Assefa ran the second half in a comparably pedestrian (but still super fast) 1:09:29.

Ethiopia’s Degitu Azimeraw let the leaders go early on and finished fourth in 2:19:13. Kenya’s Catherine Reline Amanang’ole went with the leaders initially, dropped off before 15K, and hung on to take fifth in 2:21:20. And Bahrain’s Eunice Chumba finished sixth in 2:23:44.

The race also served as the UK Athletics Marathon Championships, which Eilish McColgan won in 2:24:51 despite suffering from a painful blister in the second half. Behind her, running her first marathon since she earned a surprise bronze medal at the world championships, Uruguay’s Julia Paternain finished eighth in a national record of 2:25:47. Spain’s Marta Galimany (10th, 2:27:38) was the top masters competitor and the only woman in the pro field who negative split the race.

The women’s pro field had only 15 starters and 13 finishers, plus a slew of pacers, so I imagine it got pretty lonely out there at times. London isn’t the only major marathon that has a separate start for the women, but it’s rough with a field that small. I’d like to see the race increase its depth, which I think would lead to some stronger performances. There were no U.S. runners in the pro field; the top U.S. finisher was Lauren Kelly, who ran 2:40:14.

Actress Cynthia Erivo, who was coached by pro runner Erika Kemp leading up to London, impressed, running a big personal best of 3:21:40.

Six days after finishing second in Boston, Switzerland’s Catherine Debrunner outsprinted Tatyana McFadden to win the wheelchair race, 1:38:29 to 1:38:34.

The following athletes won their age groups: Andrea Clement (40-44, category does not include the pros, 2:32:11), Sarah Holt (45-49, 2:37:46), Alice Braham (50-54, 2:36:25), Alice Riddell-Webster (55-59, 2:56:44), Ruth Hutton (60-64, 3:13:38), Linda Tyler (65-69, 3:24:20), Lisa Compton (70-74, 4:16:07), Susan Garner (75-79, 5:20:28), Helena Mackay (80+, 5:39:45). (Results)

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Addy Wiley wins U.S. road mile title, and Gracie Hyde pulls off an upset to make her first U.S. team

Tuesday night’s USATF 1 Mile Road Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, served as the selection race for the World Athletics Road Running Championships, with the top two earning the opportunity to compete in December in Copenhagen.

Addy Wiley and Gracie Morris, who both represented the U.S. at the World Indoor Championships last month, went in as the favorites. With a quarter mile to go, there were five athletes left in the lead pack. Wiley and Morris led, with Gracie Hyde, Eleanor Fulton, and Annika Reiss right behind them.

It came down to an all-out 100m, and it looked like Wiley and Morris would go 1-2, but Hyde closed hard in the final strides and nipped Morris at the line. Wiley won in 4:25.42, with Hyde (4:25.64) and Morris (4:25.75) close behind. Reiss produced another strong race to take fourth (4:26.92), and Fulton was fifth (4:29.34). The prize money went 10 deep, with Wiley earning $10,000, Hyde earning $5,500, and Morris winning $3,000.

Wiley, 22, said on the broadcast that she took some time off after worlds, but she clearly hasn’t lost much momentum. “It feels really good, like where I should’ve been for a long time,” she said. “I’m very relieved to be performing the way I know I can and should.”

This was a huge moment for Hyde, 26. “I’m trying not to be shocked, because me and my coach knew that that was the ultimate goal,” she said on the broadcast. “I definitely did feel like a little bit of the underdog on paper, but seeing my training, I knew that I had a chance.” (I covered some of Hyde’s backstory two years ago.)

And after spending the past eight months pulling off a number of upsets of her own and making two U.S. teams, Morris, 24, narrowly missed out this time. “My turn to get clipped at the line,” she wrote on Instagram. Still, she ran a solid race, and this should be a big year for her on the track, because it will be easier for her to get into more competitive races thanks to her recent success.

And Reiss was also impressive here. She didn’t quite have the final gear that the lead trio did, but this is the second time in the past five months that she’s come pretty close to making a U.S. team. (In December, she missed making the world cross 4 x 2K relay squad by one second.) On Saturday morning, I wrote, “One of these days, she’s going to have her moment.” But now I’m updating this to add that on Saturday afternoon, she outkicked Wiley to win the Drake Relays mile, 4:25.52 to 4:25.96.

The event also hosted the USATF Masters 1 Mile Championships and Susie Duke, 45, was the overall winner, in 5:24.

Three days after making the U.S. team, Hyde won the Drake Relays steeplechase in 9:22.19, a 2.43-second PR. She’s ready to go this season. Rachel Anderson of Minnesota Distance Elite took second in a 5+ second personal best of 9:28.22. (USATF 1 Mile Road Championships results | Drake Relays mile results | Drake Relays steeplechase results)

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Penn Relays wins for Penn State, UNC, and NC State

The relays at Penn Relays don’t have a lot of bearing on how the rest of the collegiate season goes—there’s nothing to qualify for. But some of the best teams show up because wins at this meet mean something, and it’s a fun event.

Stanford and UNC had a great battle in Friday’s distance medley relay (which goes 1200-400-800-1600m). Juliette Whittaker built a nice lead on the opening leg for Stanford, but UNC’s Makayla Paige closed the gap on the third leg, splitting 2:00.43 for 800m. The two teams handed off for the anchor leg together. UNC’s anchor, Vera Sjöberg, sat on Stanford’s Mena Scatchard before kicking to a narrow win and meet record, 10:36.82 to 10:36.90. Sjöberg split 4:26.15 for 1600m and Scatchard split 4:26.65.

Also on Friday, Hayley Kitching anchored Penn State to a win in the sprint medley relay (200-200-400-800m). She got the baton in third place, behind Michigan and Clemson, but split 2:01.77 and brought her team home in 3:42.35.

Only four teams lined up for the 4x1500m, but the field was still strong. NC State’s Hannah Gapes opened up a lead on the second leg, and her teammates never relinquished it. Anchored by Sadie Engelhardt, NC State won in 16:59.86.

In the 4x800m, Penn State’s Boh Ritchie split 2:02.41 and opened up a three-second lead on the third leg, and no one could close the gap after that. Kitching split 2:01.96 on the anchor leg and carried Penn State to an 8:18.43 win. Stanford’s anchor, Juliette Whittaker, put in a valiant effort and split 2:00.78, the fastest of the race, but it wasn’t enough to fully close the gap. Stanford took second in 8:20.60.

After racing the road mile championships in Des Moines on Tuesday, instead of remaining in Iowa for Drake Relays, Eleanor Fulton made her way to Philadelphia and won Saturday’s Olympic development 1500m in 4:12.11. Former Villanova runner McKenna Keegan returned to her old stomping grounds and won the 800m in 2:01.41. Victoria Bossong won the 600m in 1:26.25, and Rosey Effiong won the 400m in 51.74.

Sage Hurta-Klecker dropped down in distance and raced the 400m in 55.31. “Not what I came for but not bad coming off of 7 x 60 mile week,” she wrote in an Instagram story. “Catch me running that mid-workout soon, but good learnings from this process.”

On Thursday, Wisconsin’s Kylie Finger won the college 1500m out of the second heat, running 4:11.69. Liberty’s Allie Zealand broke PattiSue Plumer’s 42-year-old meet record, winning the 5,000m in 15:26.38. And NC State’s Angelina Napoleon won the steeplechase in a meet record of 9:37.72. (Penn Relays results)

Other News

• I wasn’t aware of the disturbing act of antisemitism from a Boston Marathon spectator early in the race until the B.A.A. posted a statement on Friday that read, in part, “There is no place for hatred of any kind at the Boston Marathon or in running.” The statement didn’t provide any details, so everything I know about it comes from the comments on the B.A.A.’s post and from hearing from runners who witnessed it. There was reportedly a person dressed like Hitler standing on an Israeli flag, telling the runners, “Happy 4/20” (the date of the race, but also Hitler’s birthday) and doing the Nazi salute, among other things. There’s been very little news coverage, so I don’t know how the situation was resolved. But I’m sorry to everyone who had to witness it.

• Molly Seidel announced last week that she has signed with Satisfy. She discussed the move on The Freetrail Podcast and said that while the company’s offer was competitive, it wasn’t the most lucrative. She chose the company because it felt like the best fit. She also made an appearance at the beginning of another episode of The Freetrail Podcast the next day.

• For anyone in the Boston area, the Women’s Health, Sports and Performance Institute is hosting an evening with Mary Cain to discuss her new book, This Is Not About Running, on Friday, May 1, at 6:30 p.m. at WHSP’s offices in Brighton, Mass. The event is invitation-only, but I have four tickets to share with Fast Women readers. If you’re interested, email connect@whspinstitute.org and mention Fast Women.

• The USATF 5K Championships will take place on Saturday in Indianapolis and the entries are available here.

• For All Mothers+ announced that Kaylee Michell received a grant that offers financial support for fertility preservation for athletes. I appreciate that such a thing exists. (Another reason to be grateful for Alysia Montaño, who founded the organization.)

Additional Results

• Makena Morley won the Canyons 50K, which includes more than 5,500 feet of climbing, in 3:47:14. (I’d fear that this is the beginning of us losing her to the trails for good, but she confirmed in a post-race podcast that she still has plans to race on the roads at the end of the year.) Lauren Gregory took second (3:51:28), and Molly Seidel was third (4:07:03). It was fun to follow the live results as these three women, who could also rip a fast half marathon, duked it out on the trails of Auburn, California. Riley Brady won the 100K in 9:41:09 and earned a golden ticket for the Western States 100. (Results)

• Kenya’s Brillian Kipkoech won the Hamburg Marathon in 2:17:05, shaving nearly seven minutes off of her PR. (Results)

• Amanda Martin won the Eugene Marathon in 2:34:20 and qualified for the 2028 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. Former UVA standout Jenny Schilling won the half marathon in 1:13:04. (Results)

• Talk about a dramatic win: Andie Cozzarelli topped the field at Toledo’s Glass City Marathon, running a chip time of 2:36:57 and qualifying for the Olympic Trials with three seconds to spare. Cozzarelli also qualified for the 2016 Trials. (Results)

• Jaylah Hancock-Cameron won the Australian Road Mile Championships in a national record of 4:26.4. (Results)

• Clare Peters won the Maybelline Women’s Half in NYC’s Central Park, running 1:14:33. (Results)

• Jess Minty won the USATF Masters 10K Championships, hosted by the James Joyce Ramble in Dedham, Massachusetts, in 37:17. (Results)

Podcast Highlights

• Emma Grace Hurley was great on C Tolle Run. I appreciated her perspective on why she often takes charge of her races: “I think about the resources that go into bringing us to these races, and I have a huge appreciation that [people care] what we do. And so when I’m at these races, I want to do my very best, not just for me and for my coach and for my family, but for the race and the people watching. I want it to be interesting and I think the best way to [do that] is to do my very best every time.” It was interesting to hear her discuss how she and her coach, Andrew Begley, have approached her career with a long-term focus. It’s fun to hear that she wants to get into broadcasting—I think she’ll be great at it—and I was amused to hear that she was taking notes while watching the Boston Marathon. (But also same.)

• I really enjoyed hearing about Carrie Ellwood’s Boston Marathon breakthrough on I’ll Have Another. Though Boston was her sixth marathon, it was her first under coach Andrew Kastor, and her training and fueling have changed significantly. I was also interested to hear that she paid for her own flight and hotel. Fortunately her 10th place finish earned her $5,500.

• Amanda Vestri provided a raw recap of her Boston Marathon on the The Citius Mag Podcast.

• Sara Hall discussed both her book and her painful Boston Marathon experience on Citius Mag and The Runna Podcast.

Additional Episodes: Former college roommates Annie Frisbie and Amanda Vestri recorded a live episode of the Ali on the Run Show at the Boston Marathon expo | Uruguay’s Julia Paternain, always a good podcast guest, was on Podium Athletics before the London Marathon | Great Britain’s Georgia Hunter Bell on Citius Mag | Molly Huddle discussed pregnancy and pro running on The Lane 9 Podcast | Bailey Kowalczyk on Women of Distance | Jess Donohue and Annabel Stafford discussed qualifying for the Olympic Marathon Trials on Road to the Trials | Age-group record holder Jenny Hitchings on Run Long After 60

Whew. Five newsletters in a 15 day span was tough, but now things will quiet down every so slightly over here. (Though I still have about 11,000 Boston Marathon photos to sort through.) Thursday’s newsletter wound up being a little sloppier than I like—including Irine Cheptai’s last name getting autocorrected to Chapati in one of my photo captions. I did some light edits to clean up the online version.

One last thanks to SOAR for sponsoring most of my April content. Their giveaway is open a little while longer, but this will be my last opportunity to promote it.

Thank you, also to everyone who helps keep this newsletter going with your support via Venmo and Patreon. I hope you all have a good week.

Alison

Issue 406, sponsored by SOAR

This is a special Boston Marathon newsletter, so I can avoid covering the race a week after the fact. Fast Women will return to its regular once-a-week schedule on Monday.

Sharon Lokedi repeats as Boston Marathon champion

Running fast at the Boston Marathon requires a mix of good fitness, strategy, health, and weather, with maybe a little bit of luck mixed in. Marathons are still hard, so plenty of people struggled on Monday, but what seems like a much higher percentage of people than usual walked (or hobbled) away pleased with their races, thanks in large part to the weather cooperating.

In the 60-year history of women racing Boston, there have not been a lot of perfect-weather days—especially not ones that remain perfect throughout the day, for the masses. But 2026, with its temperatures in the 40s and a light tailwind, will go down in history as one of them.

As expected, Sharon Lokedi dominated the race, winning in 2:18:51, the second-fastest winning time ever, behind only her 2:17:22 course record from last year. Kenyan women swept the podium with Loice Chemnung taking second in 2:19:35 in her Boston debut, and Mary Ngugi-Cooper having a great day to take third in 2:20:07.

Last year’s Boston Marathon was unusual in that some of the top seeds went hard from the start, and their competitors took the challenge seriously and followed them. This year’s race still started relatively quickly, but at a pace that much of the pro field could handle. For the first 20 miles, the U.S. runners did most of the leading, with Kodi Kleven, Susanna Sullivan, Annie Frisbie, Carrie Ellwood, Jess McClain hitting some of the key checkpoints at the front.

At halfway, which the leaders hit in 1:11:02, there were still 16 runners in the pack. The course record was safe, but it was a perfect setup for many of the athletes in the field to run personal bests.

The broadcast I watched missed some of the moments in the race that I would have liked to see, but Frisbie did some of her leading in the 17th and 18th miles, and it was around that time that Emily Sisson, Ellwood, and Dakotah Popehn fell off the back of the pack, before they made the turn onto the Newton Hills. And not long after the turn, Kleven dropped back as well.

Just after 30K, Jess McClain went to get her bottle and dropped it, so she did a quick U-turn, grabbed it, and lost only a handful of seconds. It didn’t take her long to reel the leaders back in. She said at the post-race press conference that her gloves got in the way. “I was feeling really good each time that I got the carbs and fuel in,” she said. “So I just knew I needed it, especially going into the Newton hills.”

In the 21st mile, which includes Heartbreak Hill, Lokedi began controlling the pace, and the pack started to fall apart. Frisbie and Ethiopia’s Bedatu Hirpa dropped back first, and then McClain, followed by Mercy Chelangat of Kenya and NAZ Elite. And between 21 miles and 35K (21.7 miles), Lokedi’s pace also caused Ngugi-Cooper and Ethiopia’s Workenesh Edesa to drop back.

At 35K, which they hit in 1:57:20, it was down to Lokedi, Chemnung, and Kenya’s Irine Cheptai. But Cheptai, who was fourth in Boston last year, dropped back soon after. And in the 23rd mile, as she was going through Cleveland Circle, Lokedi dropped Chemnung for good.

I had heard all about what happened in the race before I watched the broadcast, but when I finally had a chance to watch, the thing that struck me most was how quickly Lokedi dropped her competitors when she decided to go. And it’s no wonder they couldn’t stick with her. She split 4:41, 4:49, and 4:36 for miles 22-24, according to data provided by race organizers. There’s a net elevation loss of 198 feet over those three miles, but that’s still flying.

Lokedi was running the race with a borrowed watch. She realized on the bus to Hopkinton that she didn’t have hers, so her coach, Stephen Haas, hunted one down. Because she’s sponsored, it had to be a Garmin. Lokedi said afterward that she could see the paces in kilometers, but she didn’t know how fast she was going. The owner of the watch (former CU runner Stephen Pifer) uploaded Lokedi’s run to Strava.

Lokedi was on another level on Monday, and her closing miles were uneventful but fun to watch. She won by 44 seconds and ran the fourth-fastest time ever by a woman on the Boston course. The only faster performances came last year, when Lokedi (2:17:22), Hellen Obiri (2:17:41), and Yalemzerf Yehualaw (2:18:06) went 1-2-3. After running even half marathon splits of 1:08:46/1:08:36 last year, Lokedi went 1:11:03/1:07:48 this year.

With her two titles in Boston and her 2022 New York City Marathon victory, Lokedi, 32, now has three World Marathon Major wins on her resume. It will be interesting to see if she keeps alternating between Boston and New York or if she goes the Obiri route and tries a flatter marathon at some point. She earned $150,000 for the win.

Some expected Chemnung, 29, to be Lokedi’s closest competitor, based on her 1:03:57 half marathon, and she delivered. After finishing fourth in Chicago last fall, she made her first podium at a World Marathon Major, and earned $75,000.

Ngugi-Cooper, 37, said that after finishing 11th in Boston last year, she wondered if her best days were behind her, but on Monday, she ran her fastest time of her seven appearances in Boston and made it back onto a World Marathon Majors podium for the first time in four years. Despite losing the leaders in the 21st mile, she kept running strong, and in the 35th mile, she caught Cheptai and took over third for good. She earned $40,000.

Behind her, Chelangat was having a breakout race, running 2:20:30 for fourth. I don’t think her performance has gotten the attention it deserves. Because I was out on the course taking photos all day, it took me hours to actually look at the results, but Chelangat’s performance was one of the things that immediately jumped out. Chelangat, 28, won the 2020 NCAA Cross Country title (in March 2021) for Alabama and is the 2022 NCAA 10,000m champion. She won her debut marathon in Ottawa last May, running 2:23:33, but finishing just off the podium in her first Boston Marathon is a really nice step forward for her.

Cheptai might have paid for going with Lokedi for as long as she did. In the last two miles, she faded from third to sixth. McClain closed well and caught her in the final strides to take fifth in 2:20:49 (more on that below) and Cheptai was sixth in 2:20:54. Edesa took seventh in 2:21:52 and Hirpa was 11th in 2:23:58.

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Jess McClain runs the fastest time ever by a U.S. woman in Boston

Last year, Jess McClain (seventh, 2:22:43) and Annie Frisbie (eighth, 2:23:21) had great days at the Boston Marathon, and this year, both managed to top their performances. McClain took fifth in a PR of 2:20:49 and Frisbie was eighth again, but improved her personal best to 2:22:00.

Shalane Flanagan previously held the fastest time by a U.S. woman on the Boston course, with her 2:22:02 from 2014, and both McClain and Frisbie surpassed that.

Former New Englander Emily Sisson has raced in the city of Boston enough that it’s a little surprising that this was her first Boston Marathon. But she had a strong showing, finishing ninth in 2:22:39. When you’re the American record holder, it’s hard to PR, but she said in an Instagram reel that it felt like a step in the right direction for her after some ups and downs in recent years, and I would agree.

And Carrie Ellwood…I thought she ran one of the most exciting races of the day. She has proven her strength at everything from the 5K to the 25K in recent years, but she just hadn’t put together the kind of marathon she was capable of yet. And she’s been at it for a while. She made her debut in Chicago in 2021, running 2:31:51, and in the four marathons she had run since, she hadn’t been able to improve upon that. But on Monday, she had a massive breakthrough, finishing 10th in 2:22:53 and taking eight minutes, 58 seconds off of her PR. The sixth time’s a charm. I look forward to hearing more of her thoughts on the race and how she pulled it off.

Dakotah Popehn was the next U.S. runner across the line, finishing 12th in 2:24:04. It was clear she wanted more, but it was a 16-second personal best.

Her Minnesota Distance Elite teammate, Elena Hayday, had another one of the great breakthroughs of the day, finishing 13th in 2:24:45. Unlike everyone in front of her, Hayday didn’t go with the lead pack. She trailed the leaders by 65 seconds at halfway, but after 25K, she began to reel in some of her competitors. After spending 2023-25 stuck in the 2:30-2:31 range, Hayday PRed by six minutes, six seconds.

Kodi Kleven also had a huge day, finishing 14th in 2:24:48, and because she spent a decent amount of time leading the race, it left a lot of people wondering who she was. Kleven first made this newsletter when she won the 2021 St. George Marathon in her debut at the distance, running 2:32:45 on the downhill course at age 29. I noted at the time that she ran collegiately for Utah Valley University and then BYU, but suffered from injuries and health issues over the years.

She won St. George two more times, in 2024 and 2025, and lowered the course record to 2:28:42 last October. (The race has a net elevation loss of 2,517 feet.) I came to associate her name with downhill races, but she’s also done some strong trail racing. She ran Boston in 2:37:25 last year, and then took a step forward, running 2:29:18 to finish eighth at CIM in December.

Her run on Monday was a breakout performance. Given her racing history, I was not surprised that she felt at ease on the downhills of the Boston course. Her first half split—1:11:02—was also a PR. She’s coached by Ed Eyestone and is another athlete benefiting from the Run Elite Program’s support of athletes in Utah. (Runner’s World has more about her here.)

In her second marathon, Amanda Vestri finished 15th in a personal best of 2:24:49. She clearly had mixed feelings about her performance, but it’s another step in the right direction.

NAZ Elite’s Paige Wood ran 2:26:34, her fastest time since becoming a mom and only 32 seconds off of her PR, to finish 17th. And Madey Dickson was the 10th American across the line and 18th among the women, running 2:28:12, a 45-second personal best.

Until Monday, Nell Rojas’ 2:24:51 was the 10th-fastest time a U.S. woman had ever run on the Boston course. Here’s the new list, and kudos to Joan Benoit Samuelson for hanging in there, despite all of the technological advancements we’ve seen in the past 43 years.

All-time top 10 times by U.S. women in Boston
1. Jess McClain 2:20:49 (2026)
2. Annie Frisbie 2:22:00 (2026)
3. Shalane Flanagan 2:22:02 (2014)
4. Emma Bates 2:22:10 (2023)
5. Des Linden 2:22:38 (2011)
6. Emily Sisson 2:22:39 (2026)
7. Joan Benoit Samuelson 2:22:43 (1983)
7. McClain 2:22:43 (2025)
9. Carrie Ellwood 2:22:53 (2026)
10. Jordan (Hasay) Hogan 2:23:00 (2017)

Additional Winners

• Great Britain’s Eden Rainbow-Cooper won the wheelchair division in 1:30:51, Switzerland’s Catherine Debrunner took second in 1:32:59, and Tatyana McFadden was third in 1:36:43. Rainbow-Cooper also won Boston in 2024, and she is still only 24 years old. Switzerland’s Manuela Schär, who finished fourth this year, holds the course record of 1:28:17 from 2017, but Rainbow-Cooper’s time is the second-fastest ever by a woman on the Boston course.

• The following athletes won their age groups: Sara Hall (40-44, 2:31:55), Lisa Weightman (45-49, 2:32:41), Juliet Hershey-Beatty (50-54, 2:56:16), Tania Tasaka (55-59, 3:03:00), Lisa Veneziano (60-64, 3:00:37), Tomoko Yamada (65-69, 3:15:31), Jennifer Kellett (70-74, 3:41:01), Sharlet Gilbert (75-79, 4:16:30), Diane Leonard (80+, 4:32:37).

• And these athletes won their respective categories in the Para Athletics division:
  T62/T64; T42/T44 (Lower-limb impairment): Kelly Bruno, 3:14:09
  T20 (Intellectual impairment): Esmee Anne De Meulmeester, 3:20:15
  T45-T47 (Upper-limb impairment): Caroline Reilly, 3:29:49
  T11/T12 (Vision impairment): Jessie Waterman, 3:50:41
  T13 (Vision impairment): Caitlin Lee, 3:44:17
  T35-T38 (Coordination impairment): Cristina Burbach, 3:43:54
  T61/T63/T43 (Lower-limb impairment): Meghan Bradshaw, 4:03:37

• The winner of the nonbinary division was Winter Parts, who ran 2:30:04.

Other Boston Marathon Notes

• Des Linden was the top woman from the mass start, running 2:35:49 and finishing 30th among the women. It’s a remarkable accomplishment given that it came only nine days after she finished the Marathon des Sables, a 250+ kilometer stage race across the Moroccan Sahara. But put Linden on the Boston course and she knows what to do. She paced her husband, Ryan, until the Newton hills (and grabbed a beer along the way) before taking off. She didn’t need a qualifier for the 2028 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, because she has already qualified by virtue of being a member of the 2016 U.S. Olympic marathon squad, but now she has one. I enjoyed her recap of her race on the latest episode of Nobody Asked Us.

• By my count, 21 U.S. women ran under the 2028 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials qualifying time of 2:37:00 in Boston, and I believe eight of them were new qualifiers: Carrie Ellwood, Paige Wood, Erin Del Giudice (24th, 2:33:54), Monica Hebner (29th, 2:35:11), Linden (sort of), Olivia Taber (32nd, 2:36:37), Katie Florio (33rd, 2:36:38), and Marybeth Chelanga (35th, 2:36:45). According to USATF, that brings the total number of women who have hit the qualifying standard to 134.

• At last year’s Boston Marathon, Great Britain’s Calli Hauger-Thackery finished sixth in 2:22:38. This year, she ran 2:43:58, 22 weeks into her pregnancy. She said the first half was a rollercoaster ride, with two stops at medical tents to deal with a trapped nerve, but the second half went much better. This Runner’s World story has more detail about her run. She has gotten more media attention for running pregnant than she likely would have for earning another top 10 finish. So not only is supporting pregnant pros the right thing to do, it can also be a good business decision.

• When I saw that 609 women broke 3:00 this year, I knew that had to be a record, so I decided to make another graph. The previous record, set last year, was 385. The weather definitely played a role, but that’s a pretty ridiculous jump. (The results from 2000 and earlier are kind of a pain to access, so I had to put some real work in here!)

• It was also a historic day for the pros. Until this year, there have been only 33 sub-2:23 performances in the history of the race. But this year, a record-breaking 10 women dipped under 2:23.

• A total of 29,025 runners officially finished the race, including 12,579 women and 106 nonbinary runners.

• The oldest finisher of this year’s marathon was Carol Wright, 84, who ran 5:44:39, more than 12 minutes faster than last year. Because there’s only an 80+ age group and qualifying time (5:20), it gets significantly harder to qualify for Boston as time goes on. All of the other 60+ age groups get an additional 15 minutes every five years. So this is my official petition to add an 85-89 age group and qualifying time! If Wright can finish the race next year, and no new players enter the scene, she could become the oldest woman to officially complete the race. (Katherine Beiers finished the 2018 Boston Marathon, which featured some of the worst weather in the race’s history, when she was 85, but her finish wasn’t fast enough to be considered official.)

• Sharon Lokedi and John Korir threw out the first pitches at the Red Sox game on Tuesday night. I appreciated that Lokedi’s coach posted a video of her practicing in the streets of Boston ahead of time.

• I enjoyed WCVB’s post-race interview with Lokedi, in which she mentioned being spurred on by a little girl along the course who yelled, “You’ve got this, ladies,” and texting with Hellen Obiri before the race.

• Breanna Sieracki, who was hoping to break 2:30, experienced some of the worst chafing of all time, and still managed to finish the race in 2:53:55.

I am extremely thankful for Amy Roberts’ help covering the race again this year. She got some incredible shots from the women’s lead vehicle. I’ve shared some of them here, and many more on Instagram. And I am so grateful to the B.A.A. for giving her that access. I went through all of Amy’s photos before I watched the broadcast, and I felt like I had already seen almost everything.

I spent 4+ hours out on the course on Monday taking photos of all of the fast women I could spot. I really noticed the increased depth among the women in the mass race. I had only three people in my tracker (Des Linden, Suni Williams, and Carol Wright), and I was happy to spot them all, and I also had a bonus Chelsea Clinton sighting. My sister very kindly helped me out again this year and I definitely would have missed Williams, whose bib wasn’t visible when she went by, without her help. Marathon spectating should be its own sport. I still have 18,000 photos to sort through (do not recommend) so I will slowly be reliving all of it, eventually.

What a year, though. In my many years of attending the Boston Marathon, I don’t remember ever experiencing better weather on race day. (I missed the 2011 race.) And it’s just incredible how much deeper the women’s field has become.

Thanks again to SOAR for supporting Fast Women this month. There’s still time to enter their giveaway. And thanks to all of you who support this newsletter via Venmo and Patreon, this newsletter would not exist without you.

Alison

Issue 405, sponsored by SOAR

To avoid covering the Boston Marathon a week after it happens, I’m planning to send out an extra issue of Fast Women in the next day or two. This newsletter will return to its regular Monday-only schedule after that.

Wishing you a wonderful Marathon Monday

While I realize that the majority of you are not running the Boston Marathon today, I like to imagine that some of you will be reading this on your bus ride to Hopkinton, or as you try to stay warm as you wait for the start of the race. I hope that those of you racing have a fantastic time and get the day you’re hoping for. But if it doesn’t turn out the way you want, hopefully the experience makes up for it in other ways.

To those of you volunteering, cheering, or working the race, thank you. In many ways, today is one big team effort to get about 30,000 runners across the finish line as quickly as possible, and hopefully in decent shape. And fortunately, the weather is doing its part this year, which is a major stroke of luck given that we’ve had snow, thunder, and temperatures in the high 80s recently.

I’ve spent so much time in recent weeks going all in on writing about pro runners and pregnancy that the marathon snuck up on me this year. I’m less informed than usual about certain details surrounding the race. I have not trained properly for race day (evidenced by the fact that my arm got a little sore after photographing the 5K). But it’s here, and I’m going to do my best :)

Assuming all goes to plan, I’ll be in my usual spot before halfway, getting photos of as many fast women as I can. But far more exciting is the fact that the B.A.A. has given Amy Roberts, who you might know as @runninphotog, the opportunity to ride on the women’s lead vehicle for the second year in a row, and she will undoubtedly get some fantastic shots for Fast Women, which we’ll share on Instagram.

As I was writing this, I got the email saying Fiona O’Keeffe is out of the race due to a recent hamstring issue. (I was apparently quite invested in this because I gasped.) Based on her recent resume, especially her phenomenal run in New York, I would have called her the U.S. favorite. And she sounded really ready to go. This sport can be so cruel sometimes. She shared more detail here. (Even before this news, I’d been wondering why we’ve been hearing about so many hamstring issues among pro women recently.)

Some things I’ve been thinking about heading into Boston, and other race-related news

• Kenya’s Sharon Lokedi, the defending champion, goes in as the favorite, but almost all of the chatter has been about Lokedi and the U.S. women. There’s definitely a little less depth in the international field this year, but I assume that at least one of the women who has broken 2:19 in the past 15 months (Kenya’s Irine Cheptai and Loice Chemnung, and Ethiopia’s Workenesh Edesa and Bedatu Hirpa) will put together a good day. Chemnung ran 1:03:57 (chip time) to win the Barcelona Half in February, so she’s clearly fit.

• Des Linden will be the official starter for the pro women’s race. Linden is also running the race, wearing bib 2018, and it will be interesting to see what she can do, given that she’s had so little recovery time following the Marathon des Sables. And defending women’s wheelchair champion Susannah Scaroni will be the starter for the women’s and men’s wheelchair divisions. Scaroni is sitting this one out because she’s pregnant and due in August. She shared over the weekend that she was newly pregnant when she won Boston last year, but sadly, she later miscarried.

• Great Britain’s Calli Hauger-Thackery will be a fun one to watch. She’s a 2:21 marathoner, and she’s currently 22 weeks pregnant. Her baby is already an accomplished marathoner. Hauger-Thackery won December’s Honolulu Marathon when she was unknowingly four weeks pregnant. And then she won January’s Houston Marathon in 2:24:17, eight weeks into her pregnancy. (And if you need a reminder that this kind of achievement during pregnancy is the exception, not the rule, read the article I published on Friday about pro runners’ recent experiences with pregnancy.)

• Chelsea Clinton will be racing, and it’s not a secret like it’s been in NYC, but her bib number has not been published in advance. In past years, many of the VIPs have started at the back of wave one. I’d love to see astronaut Suni Williams, who will be wearing bib number 608.

• Erika Kemp will unfortunately not be racing. “Sometimes when it rains it pours and right now it’s really coming down,” she wrote in a post on Thursday. “A sudden series of unfortunate events is putting it incredibly mildly but I’m in no place mentally, physically or emotionally to toe the line on Monday.”

• Looking at the age/gender breakdown of who runs the Boston Marathon, the 18-39 age group is the only one where women outnumber the men. In all of the masters age groups, women are significantly outnumbered. As an older person, I have some theories as to why that is, but I’d love to see those numbers even out over time.

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How to follow the Boston Marathon

There will be national coverage on ESPN2 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and WCVB will have local coverage all day. If I were solely watching the race from home, I would probably access the international broadcast via a VPN, because it’s going to have far fewer interruptions (and bonus, Kara Goucher will be commentating).

Helpful links: Live results (also available via the B.A.A. racing app) | Start lists | Uniform guide | The media guide (if you really want to study)

Select start times:
9:06 a.m. ET Men’s wheelchair division
9:09 Women’s wheelchair division
9:37 Professional men
9:47 Professional women
9:50 Para athletics division
10:00 Wave 1
10:15 Wave 2
10:28 Wave 3
10:41 Wave 4
11:01 Wave 5
11:21 Wave 6

Thanks to SOAR for supporting Fast Women this month

SOAR produces the world’s best running apparel. For women, that means race kits built to go all-in: refined in fit, reduced in weight and designed to perform when every second matters.

Two key SOAR race pieces are the Marathon Shorts and Race Vest. The Marathon Shorts — built for long efforts — combine a secure, barely-there fit with a proprietary, fully integrated storage system and complete freedom of movement. The Race Vest is engineered for speed: featherlight, ultra-breathable and cut away at the shoulders and back for total range of motion. Bonded seams eliminate chafe. The result: a race-day kit that works as hard as you do.

Whether you’re chasing a faster 10K, racing a half, or lining up for 26.2, these are pieces designed to help you stay cool, comfortable, and focused when intensity rises.

To celebrate spring race season, SOAR is offering Fast Women readers the chance to win a Women’s ADV Race Set. Enter via the link here and, once you’ve signed up, you’ll also receive a unique 15% off code for your next order.

Catching up with Mary Cain in advance of her book launch

Mary Cain’s memoir, This Is Not About Running, comes out April 28. When I received a PDF of the book in November, I opened it planning to read just a few pages. But the opening paragraphs made it clear she wasn’t going to hold back, and they drew me in. I ended up putting off much of what I intended to do that day and reading it in one sitting. (It’s also a quick read because most of the chapters are only one or two pages.)

I think a lot of people have stories about their experiences in the running industry that they mostly keep to themselves, especially because they plan to remain in that world, and it’s a small one. But Cain, who is in her second year of medical school at Stanford, wrote her book like someone who has other plans for her life. Cain is critical of Alberto Salazar and Pete Julian, and the running media, but also some of the women she encountered during her time in elite high school running and pro running. But I hope her central message, about building a healthier culture in sports, has a real impact.

We spoke on December 28, while Cain was on break from school, but I didn’t have permission from the publisher to share the details of our conversation until now, even though I’ve avoided spoilers. This has been edited for length and clarity.

What feelings do you have as you prepare to put this book out into the world?
Honestly, I just feel really proud of it. It was a really interesting and unique experience sitting down and writing it. I recorded the audio book a couple weeks ago, and I enjoyed that, even though it’s hard to read. It’s cool being able to put something out in the world that I feel very proud of creating.

The emotions are very positive, and I recognize that there might be a curiosity [whether I have] any concern or fear or anxiety. There’s a little bit of that, but I think that’s just a normal thing at this point for me, any time that I have to be somewhat public facing.

Did you have any help writing the book?
No, I didn’t have a ghost writer. Writing has always been one of my favorite hobbies, and everyone in my family was a big reader. I purposefully wrote the first draft of the manuscript before selling it, because I wanted to really make it clear that I was going to tell my own story.

It’s no surprise that a publisher would be interested, but did you know anything for sure when you wrote the draft?
After the New York Times piece came out, I had an agent, literary publishers, and editors reach out to me saying they would love me to write a book. At the time, I was so new to coming to terms with anything, so I said, “Thank you but no, I will write this when I’m ready to write this.” But I reached out to agents decently early in the writing period, so I had a team member well in advance of when I ultimately sold the memoir. And because of that, I kind of had a feeling [publishers] would be interested.

I think some people were a little surprised by the book when I sold it, and it’s a little bit more personal and emotional than some folks expected. So I wondered how people would react to it, but I was only going to create something that I wanted to write.

And how long did it take to write that first draft?
I started in January of 2024. A month later, I got my first acceptance into medical school, so when I started, I was hopeful I would be going to medical school the next year. I was still working at the time, so over the course of six months, I wrote the first draft and then sold it. Then there was a year of going back and forth and having random bursts of very intense editing work, and I was in school by then.

Had you documented many of the experiences you wrote about in real time? What were you working from—training logs, memory, anything else?
Especially for some of the things that happened in my younger years, I did have more documentation of certain events. I was also able to pull from emails. So there was a pretty big chunk of it where there was research involved, whether it was email documentation or training logs, and then other things were more just based on memory.

Was the legal side of things complicated at all? Were there things you wanted to include but couldn’t?
Not really, it was maybe more just semantic changes, which are not, to me, a big deal. I think honestly the most difficult piece is the stuff from my younger years, just based on the nature of some of the individuals involved. There’s never been any culpability over what happened, and there’s never really been a reckoning, if you will. So I’m kind of approaching that piece of it with a little bit of curiosity about what happens. But I actually have more documentation of some of that because we were going to school at the time.

What you wrote about your high school experience was one of the parts that surprised me the most.
It’s always made me a little sad, because there were so many moments where I was still kind of treated like I did something bad by not continuing to run for my team. The track world is small and everyone’s pretty interconnected. In some ways, that’s always been kind of difficult because even though I never spoke about it, I think a lot of people were aware of what was going on.

There’s this tendency, especially in women’s distance running, to promote the idea that everyone gets along, and people love the idea of women supporting women. But it sounds like throughout your career, you rarely had that experience. It seems like, with this book, you made a decision to speak up about some of those things. Why was that important to you?
I feel like there’s a false sense of safety for a lot of young women that when you enter a room where maybe you have an older female teammate, or whatever, you are going to be safer. And there are absolutely situations where that is true, but not [necessarily].

I didn’t talk about this in the memoir, but the only part of my New York Times article that I did not want to include was the specific language that we used to talk about needing more women in coaching. And it’s not that I didn’t believe that, but we need a culture that wants more women coaches. Because those are two different things. When there’s a culture of perpetuating bad behavior—and it’s often from fear or your own trauma in women’s sport—I think it creates this opportunity for people to be like, “We have a woman in the room, things can’t be that bad.” Instead, [we should] have a culture where this is valued and we [hire women] because we believe in it, versus just doing it to check a box.

So I think for me, it was having people sit with the slightly uncomfortable reckoning that a bigger systemic cultural change involves women’s behavior also changing and standing up. But also creating systems where you don’t feel like the crazy person because you’re looking around and being like whoa, other women are condoning this.

Compared to the New York Times piece, I think this level of nuance is going to make a lot of people very uncomfortable, and there’s not quite the same level of quick fix. But if I’ve learned anything over the last five or six years with the work I do to help end abuse in sport, it is not easy or quick. There’s a lot more uncomfortable stuff we have to sit with. And so that’s part of the reason I felt it was really important to just be really honest.

I think about the stories I’ve heard throughout my career and how few consequences some people face.
In one of my final chapters, I have that laundry list of things that current professional coaches have done—and they’re stories that we’ve all heard. And I’m just like come on, guys. If I could stand up for myself at 24, I’m hoping to embolden some people to maybe do the same thing and actually make sports better, instead of there being this smoke and mirrors of like look, we caught one person once, everything’s good now, instead of taking a look at the whole culture.

The book made me think a lot about the fact that it’s possible to have good intentions but still be part of the problem. I’ve tried to adjust as I’ve learned more, but when I started covering the sport and coaching, I had zero training to do either one of those things. And the more I cover women’s running, I realize it’s easy to praise and promote people’s accomplishments without realizing you’re praising unhealthy behaviors and systems.
I understand that. Something like an eating disorder is not always obvious—they’re not like, one shape, one size. But sometimes they are really obvious. And then there are other things like someone failed a drug test, and maybe they’ve served the time, but they were never honest about their culpability, and things like that. I think it can be very difficult for the media to figure out how to navigate that.

But one thing that I rarely see—and it’s part of the reason that I’ve stopped following running—is broader think pieces. Have a conversation about the ways in which eating disorders are still a problem in the sport. Have a conversation about how we feel about athletes returning to sport (after doping bans). Those sorts of conversations often fall more to like, the LetsRun forums of the world, the Twitters of the world, the Instagram comments, and aren’t necessarily reported by the big media sites.

I feel like social media is only making the media environment worse. At times, I’ve seen people clamoring to get content with young star runners. Do you have thoughts on how people can responsibly cover the careers of young runners?
When I recorded the audiobook, I cried a decent amount. But the only chapter that I actually sobbed during is the one about the Runner’s World article (titled Teen Star Mary Cain Returns Home Amid Disappointing Track Season, from 2015). There were a lot of really, really horrible articles written about me but that was one that, to this day, still affects me.

I think pieces like that, where we are questioning what a young person looks like, in terms of their weight, and why they’re not running as fast, and all of those sorts of things, I just don’t think ever have a place. If a kid who ran really well in high school has a bad race, I don’t think we need to report on that. Report on the person who won, report on the person who had a good race. I don’t think that has to be a news story.

But I think the other thing, too, is I do feel sometimes like we want more from young people than we do from pros. Like, I used to watch other people’s interviews after races, because I really used to really love track and field. But I think what was odd was I felt there were so many more questions directed at me. With the pros, it would be low key, like, “Hey buddy, how was the race?” And the athlete would be like, “I didn’t do too good.” And everybody would be like, “Wow, insightful.”

But then to a kid, it would be like, “What are you going to major in? Where are you going to college? Do you like your teammates? Are you mean?” And it would be like why are we reaching for more personal information from a young person than an adult? And so I think just like taking a step back and, especially if someone’s a minor, it’s okay to report on, like, hey, they had a really good race, they ran this time, and they’ve committed to insert college.

I was the sort of kid who would always set goals for myself before interviews, and I would try to say like one SAT-level word and make a couple jokes. I would try to make it kind of fun. And if a kid wants to offer that, they will. And if a kid doesn’t really want to, then keep it to the race stuff specifically.

What is your involvement with Atalanta NYC these days?
I’m on the board of directors. Our executive director is now Devon Martin, who runs the organization in the way that I did for the first three years, which is day to day, on the ground. And now I work more on the bigger picture, with the other board members. It’s been amazing seeing the ways that it’s continued to adapt and grow.

Right before I read your book, I listened to Linda Flanagan’s Take Back the Game. It touches on some of the ways that adults get way too caught up in young people’s success and how you gain status as a parent if your kid is good at sports, and stuff like that.
We do put such a burden on children in that sense. Part of the reason that the title is This is Not About Running is that it’s s a book that, if you’re a soccer parent or your kid is a really good cellist, you can learn something from this. This is the entertainment industry, this is academia, this is competitive music, this is a lot of different things. I hope this resonates beyond running in the same way that the New York Times piece did. And I hope there are more people [who will read it] and maybe be like, “How can I leave with some action items for myself after this, even if I’m not a sports marketing executive?”

How’s medical school going?
I’ve absolutely loved med school. Day in and day out, I’m surrounded by really good people who are funny, incredibly talented, and intelligent. And then the ability to embark on this career is such an honor, and even when it’s hard, it’s just so cool, because you learn so much, and it’s really amazing. I know that’s so cliché, probably, but it also just feels like it’s so real for me.

And is running still part of your life these days? And what form does it take
Yeah, since my surgery (for functional popliteal artery entrapment syndrome, in 2023), I’ve been able to do it again and it’s been really fun. It’s been really nice just exploring it and kind of just seeing what happens. Right now, I do it because I want to want to do it, and there’s something very satisfying about being like I think I can be a healthy runner. That’s my first goal, and anything that goes beyond there, I’m only going to do it if I think it’s fun.

I run before class some days and cross train other days. And I’ve weirdly gotten some of my classmates to start aqua jogging with me. They think it’s a lot more fun than any runner does, except for me. I don’t feel like I have anything to prove. I’m just kind of doing it if I like it, and I will see where that goes.

Results Highlights

• I looked to see what I wrote in this newsletter the past several Marathon Mondays, and last year’s newsletter included a news item about Jane Hedengren running 14:57 and destroying the U.S. high school record at the Bryan Clay Invitational. She’s in college now, but not much has changed, because she ran 14:50.50 on Friday to win the 5,000m at Bryan Clay, and shaved 1.68 seconds off of Parker Valby’s outdoor collegiate record from 2024. Hedengren also holds the indoor/outright record of 14:44.79. Washington State’s Rosemary Longisa dominated the 1500m, winning in an NCAA-leading 4:02.55. Notre Dame’s Sophie Novak won the steeplechase in 9:24.95, which also leads the NCAA. Alabama’s Caren Kiplagat won the 10,000m in 31:40.74, and Kansas’ Emmaculate Jemutai won the 800m in 1:59.88. (Results)

• Four NCAA athletes—Duke’s Lauren Tolbert (1:59.58), Arkansas’ Sanu Jallow-Lockhart (1:59.70), Indiana’s Veronica Hargrave (1:59.79), and Jemutai (mentioned above)—broke 2:00 over the weekend at three different meets. I’m too short on time and space to go into detail, but you can learn more by looking at the NCAA’s descending order list.

• Victoria Bossong won the 800m at the Tom Jones Memorial meet in 1:59.56. (Results)

• South Carolina’s Salma Elbadra won the 1500m at the Wake Forest Invitational in a speedy 4:02.63, which was an NCAA-leading time until Longisa ran faster at Bryan Clay. NC State freshman Sadie Engelhardt took second in a big PR of 4:03.28. Clemson’s Gladys Chepngetich won the 800m in 2:00.67. (Results)

• Ethiopia’s Gela Hambese repeated as champion at Saturday’s Boston 5K, running 15:28. Rachel Smith summoned a nice kick and edged Katie Izzo for second at the line. Both were timed in 15:33. (Results)

• Dorcus Ewoi, of Kenya and Puma Elite, won her second straight B.A.A. Invitational Mile in an event record of 4:29.73. Rachel McArthur took second in 4:34.36. (Results)

• Because a couple versions of the Rotterdam Marathon results didn’t include the sub-elite field, I missed one of the more fun stories of the week last week. Erika Fluehr was the top U.S. finisher in the race. Paced by her twin sister, Kathryn (who has already qualified for the Trials), for 20 miles, she ran 2:37:00 chip time and hit the Olympic Trials qualifying time right on the nose. (Results)

• Ethiopia’s Tigist Gezahagn (2:20:06) and Haftamnesh Tesfaye (2:20:18) went 1-2 at this morning’s Vienna City Marathon. And running her first marathon in 18 months after returning from a hamstring tear, Lindsay Flanagan finished seventh in 2:28:34. (Results)

• Hannah McGovern won the Jersey City Marathon in 2:33:39. I wish I could say with confidence that it’s a qualifier for the 2028 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, but there are a couple of questions I haven’t been able to answer yet, so I’ll have to get back to you on that. (Results)

Other News and Podcast Highlights

• This was already apparent from Mark Coogan’s Instagram posts, but Roisin Willis officially announced last week that she has joined New Balance Boston.

• Sweden’s Mia Barnett, who most recently raced collegiately for Oregon and has run 4:05 in the 1500m, announced that she has signed a pro deal with Nike.

• In an Instagram post, Krissy Gear said that she will have to miss the 2026 track season due to injury.

• I meant to mention last week that Laurie (Barton) Fierer of Atlanta Track Club Elite is also pregnant. Had her announcement come about a week earlier, I would have tried to include her in my recent articles.

• Hannah Borenstein was great on The End of Sport podcast last week discussing the hidden labor of Ethiopian runners. She raised a number of topics that should be discussed more but simply aren’t.

• Uruguay’s Julia Paternain was really good on Run With It and though I’ve heard her recount her experience winning a surprise bronze medal at the world championships last summer, these were the most detailed reflections I’ve heard from her yet on how the race played out and everything that came in the aftermath.

• Sara Hall’s book, For the Love of the Grind, is coming out on Tuesday and she was on the Ali on the Run Show and LetsRun’s podcast last week. So far the consensus seems to be that everyone is most surprised by her use of magic mushrooms.

• Bailey Kowalczyk’s appearance on The Fueling Forward Podcast drove home what an important role coaches play in athletes’ lives, and how misguided advice can affect athletes for a long time to come.

• Additional Podcast Episodes: Jane Hedengren on The Running Effect | Gordon Bakoulis on Starting Line 1928 | Tayler Peavey on Women of Distance

Because it took me most of last week to write Friday’s newsletter and I spent Saturday doing photo-related work, I’ve written all of this newsletter in much more of a rush than I would have liked. Thanks to my editor, Sarah Lorge Butler, for working overtime these days.

Thanks so much to SOAR for sponsoring Fast Women this month, and don’t forget to enter their giveaway. This newsletter would not exist without reader support, so a huge thank you to all of you who help keep it going with your support via Venmo or Patreon.

I hope you all have the best day and week possible.

Alison

Issue 404

Don’t worry, it’s not Monday. I’m sending an extra newsletter so I can share the final part of my two-part series on pregnancy and professional running in a timely manner. You can read part one, which focuses on the business side of pregnancy and professional running, here.

Next week will likely be another two-newsletter week because of the Boston Marathon, but after that, Fast Women will return to its usual Monday-only schedule.

Thanks to SOAR for supporting Fast Women this month

SOAR produces the world’s best running apparel. For women, that means race kits built to go all-in: refined in fit, reduced in weight, and designed to perform when every second matters.

Two key SOAR race pieces are the Marathon Shorts—built for long efforts—and the Race Vest, which is engineered for speed. Whether you’re chasing a faster 10K, racing a half, or lining up for 26.2, these are pieces designed to help you stay cool, comfortable, and focused when intensity rises.

To celebrate spring race season, SOAR is offering Fast Women readers the chance to win a Women’s ADV Race Set. Enter via the link here and, once you’ve signed up, you’ll also receive a unique 15% off code for your next order.

Pro runners talk pregnancy, motherhood, and the reality of making it work

Not long ago, many professional runners in the U.S. waited until the end of their careers to have children, if they had them at all. That has begun to change. In the past several years, an increasing number of high-level runners have announced pregnancies while still competing. Among the reasons for the shift? Stronger sponsor support, a better understanding of what training during pregnancy can look like, and a growing list of athletes showing what’s possible.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Raising young children is difficult to balance with any career. For professional runners, part of the challenge is that elite sport and pregnancy require the body to adapt in different, sometimes competing, ways. And every athlete’s path back to high-level running comes with its own set of obstacles.

And while this story focuses on athletes’ experiences with pregnancy and returning to professional running, it’s only part of a broader picture. In recent years, professional runners have also become parents through adoption and surrogacy, and more athletes have begun sharing their experiences with fertility preservation as they try to extend their careers. Fertility struggles and pregnancy loss are also a reality for many athletes.

Deciding when the time is right

The timing of a pregnancy is often beyond an athlete’s control. But when there is choice, professional runners don’t make those decisions lightly. The competition calendar, contract status, financial stability, health insurance, child care, and other variables factor in.

For Aliphine Tuliamuk, the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials champion, the timing came down to circumstance and practicality. She had just signed with Brooks at the start of 2025 when she got pregnant with her second child. Although she was eager to race for her new sponsor, she realized that having a child as soon as possible might ultimately get her back to the starting line faster.

She had just undergone hamstring surgery and knew she wouldn’t be able to run for at least six to nine months. And at 37, she didn’t want to delay having a second child. Waiting until she was healthy, only to step away again, didn’t make sense, so she decided to do both at once. She now has a five-year-old and a five-month-old.

“It was still a hard decision to make,” she told Fast Women. “But I’m glad that things worked out the way they did. I cannot imagine a life without my kids right now.”

Emily Infeld, 36, faced a different calculation. After winning the U.S. 10,000m title last year, she had great momentum, but she was concerned that if she waited too long to have a child, she might face fertility struggles. She also didn’t know how long it would take to get pregnant, and the longer she waited, the more likely it was to affect her chances of making the 2028 Olympic team.

Infeld, who is due in August, had undergone fertility testing and was looking into freezing her eggs when she found out she was pregnant in December. At the time, she was in the middle of negotiating a sponsorship contract with Nike. Initially, she kept the news private due to concerns about miscarriage, but as soon as she was ready to share her news, she informed Nike, before her contract was finalized.

“In my head, I was like, ‘I’m sure that’s not the call they want to get,’” she said. “But they were really, really gracious and my sports marketing rep was thrilled for us.”

Whittni Morgan, 28, was running as well as ever when she found out she was pregnant. She was coming off a fourth-place finish in the 3,000m at the 2025 World Indoor Championships, but when her body felt off racing the 3,000m and 5,000m at Grand Slam Track’s inaugural event in Jamaica in April, she took a pregnancy test. It explained everything.

Morgan realized she was ready to become a mom during the Paris Olympic Games, and had been trying ever since. “I was literally on the starting line for the Olympic final, and I was like, ‘This is not everything,’” she said. “I wasn’t wishing I was anywhere else. I was so grateful to be at the Olympics, but it was just really cool to see what felt most important. Even in that moment, I knew there was more to life.”

For reigning USATF 20K champion Aubrey Frentheway, 26, things unfolded in a very different way. She knew she wanted to become a mother eventually, but didn’t expect it to happen any time soon. A couple weeks after racing the Chicago Marathon, she began experiencing severe cramping that was interfering with all aspects of her life. A nurse advised her to take a pregnancy test and told her that if it was positive, she should go to the ER, because odds were it was ectopic.

Frentheway was indeed pregnant, and a couple weeks later, she was shocked and thrilled to learn that the pregnancy was not ectopic. She was going to be a mom sooner than she expected.

Running through pregnancy—or not

Many devoted athletes imagine running right up until their due date, but for most, it doesn’t play out that way.

Like Tuliamuk, 2:19 marathoner and 2016 Olympian Betsy Saina, 37, intentionally had her second child while she was dealing with a running-related setback, to minimize her time away from the sport. Saina had knee surgery in December 2024 and roughly nine months later, she gave birth. Her recovery from the surgery meant that she was not able to do much running at all during her pregnancy. And even if she had been healthy, running would have been tough early on, because she dealt with severe nausea throughout her first trimester.

After she gave birth, Saina took another two months off from running. Now, nearly seven months postpartum, she’s doing well and hoping to run a fall marathon. “I was super excited to [return to running],” she said. “And my body’s very, very strong now.”

Frentheway, who is due in August, was already dealing with a hamstring injury before she became pregnant. Initially, when her cross training started feeling harder than usual, she thought it was a sign that she was out of shape. So she began pushing herself harder, which only made the cramping she was experiencing worse.

Once she realized she was pregnant, she backed off, but just as the cramping subsided, she began experiencing nausea, which lasted for months. By March, her hamstring had finally healed enough for her to try running, but now she’s dealing with pelvic pain.

“It is so powerful to see all these women running through pregnancy and doing races,” Frentheway said. “I want so badly to be one of those women who can race and show other women that they can do it while pregnant, but my body has just said, ‘Nope, that is not for you.’”

Frentheway has done some of her cross training with 2021 NCAA 1500m champion Anna Camp-Bennett, 28, whose first child is due in May. Camp-Bennett ran for the first 18 weeks of her pregnancy but admits she probably should have stopped at 16. She struggled with nausea through the first half of her pregnancy, and once that subsided, she developed pain in her pubic bone. But in her third trimester, she’s feeling better and focusing on cross training.

“This has been a good practice in not comparing myself to others and having the mental fortitude to be okay with what’s happening and know that however long it takes, I can come back,” Camp-Bennett said.

Twenty-nine-year-old Amy Davis-Green, a 2:28 marathoner for the Hansons-Brooks Original Distance Project, had her first child in December. During the first 15 weeks of her pregnancy, she ran six races and even picked up some prize money along the way. But she had to take weeks 26-33 off from running due to pain in her SI joint. She was able to do a little running after that, but in the final four weeks of her pregnancy, she stepped back again. Though she wished she was able to run more, she tried to see it as an opportunity.

“You don’t really get a natural break from competing, and I’ve been [at it] since high school,” she said. “So I tried to look at that period as a time to embrace things I wouldn’t normally have the ability to embrace.”

Tristin Colley, a 31-year-old 2:25 marathoner, gave birth to her first child two weeks ago, and her experience during pregnancy was on the opposite end of the spectrum. She was training for the Chicago Marathon when she found out she was pregnant, and she felt good enough to run 90- to 100-mile weeks and continue with workouts through her first trimester. From there, her training gradually decreased. When she spoke to Fast Women 37 weeks into her pregnancy, her runs were down to 3-5 miles and 8:45 pace felt like 7:00 pace used to.

The postpartum experience

Three days after giving birth, Colley posted in her Instagram stories, “No one warned me how hard the first nights home are 😭😭😭 JK you all did, but for real, what is this 😩😅”

It can be difficult to describe how life-altering becoming a mother is, and how overwhelming the early days and months can feel. Morgan, who is now four months postpartum, said she’s grateful for all of the professional runners who have proved that doing both is possible, otherwise she would have had her doubts.

“During the first few weeks and even occasionally now still, I’m like, ‘How are they doing it?’ Because it is a lot,” Morgan said. “I was like, ‘It is literally impossible to do what I need to do to be at the level I want to be (as a runner) and also be a mom.’ But now that I’m a few months out, I’m seeing that it’s possible.”

Elle St. Pierre is one runner many American women point to as proof of what’s possible. In 2024, one year after having her first child, she became the first U.S. woman to win the World Indoor 3,000m title. And nine months after having her second child, she won the 3,000m at the 2026 New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in 8:26.54. After having her first child, St. Pierre told Fast Women that she was surprised by how isolating the first month of motherhood was, even with a lot of support.

“Elle is someone we can all look to for hope that we can do it and be successful, while also trying to remember that it’s probably going to be a little bit different for everyone,” Morgan said.

Avoiding comparison is a recurring theme in conversations about the postpartum period. There’s a shared understanding that it’s hard. Beyond that, no two journeys look the same. Childbirth experiences and recovery vary widely, every newborn has its own set of needs, and every mother’s support system is different. And because social media often highlights only the best moments, most of what’s visible doesn’t reflect the daily reality.

Returning to running

When athletes are ready to return to running postpartum, even the pros don’t always know where to start. “It’s like a total rebuilding of your body,” said two-time Olympian and two-time mom, Molly Huddle, 41. “And then there’s also this uncertainty about how you come back to elite running and what the timeline is. So you’re kind of like, ‘I’m in a hurry, but I don’t even know what I’m doing.’”

Paris Olympian Marisa Howard, 33, has a three-year-old and an 8-month-old. She had a relatively smooth experience training during her first pregnancy. When running no longer felt like a good idea, she switched to uphill hikes—which mimicked the running position and got her heart rate up—and swimming. Her second pregnancy was tougher. A vaginal infection interfered with her training during her second trimester. But she was still able to return to running a little sooner the second time around, about five weeks postpartum.

Howard and many other pros emphasize the importance of working with a good pelvic floor physical therapist, and she had a small team of them. She worked remotely with one who understood the athletic component of what she was trying to accomplish, and she also worked with a local therapist who helped with aspects that needed to be addressed in person.

When Howard returned to running after her first pregnancy, she dealt with incontinence. “I think it’s very normal,” she said. “But I don’t think a lot of people talk about it.” But being more diligent with her pelvic floor PT exercises took care of the problem.

Davis-Green has had a tougher return. After 28 hours of labor, her baby’s heart rate was dropping with each contraction, so she ended up having a c-section. At first, she felt a little disappointed, but when she learned that the umbilical cord had been wrapped around her son’s neck three times, she only felt relief that her doctor made that call.

The c-section meant that she needed a longer recovery. “I think that as athletes, we’re like, ‘We can do anything,’ and we have this belief that this is like coming back from an injury and you’re just going to bounce back,” she said. “And that was difficult for me, how long it took to feel like myself.”

When Davis-Green was ready to return, she started by alternating running and walking, and gradually worked her way up to running six miles. But then she developed osteitis condensans ilii, hardening of the iliac bone that is more common among pregnant women. Four months postpartum, she was still unable to run, which was difficult because she had expected to be back to training with her teammates by then.

Tuliamuk hoped that by overlapping her pregnancy and her recovery from surgery, her hamstring would be pain-free by the time she gave birth. But nearly 16 months after her surgery and five months postpartum, her hamstring is still limiting her at times, and she still has some pregnancy-related lower abdominal discomfort when she does longer runs. When she spoke to Fast Women, she was in Boulder, Colorado, getting shockwave therapy to help break up the scar tissue in her hamstring, and she’s hopeful that it will make a significant difference.

She has been building her mileage as much as she can without setting herself back, because she knows she’s not going to get anywhere until her hamstring has fully healed.

“It’s very, very hard to be patient, especially because my contract is for two years and time is ticking,” she said. “If my hamstring doesn’t allow me to train at a high level, there’s really nothing I can do. When you go through the stages of grief, eventually you get to a place where you accept the way it is. If my body allows me, I would really love to race a marathon by the end of the year. If it doesn’t, I don’t have a choice, right? You can go crazy and it’s not going to help you. It helps knowing that I did not put my family life on hold. I literally have everything I ever hoped for, except for the fact that I’m not training for a marathon right now.”

Breastfeeding and child care challenges

Morgan ran up until she was 36 weeks pregnant, and then eased back into running when she felt ready, but she had to take a small step back due to some Achilles issues. Catching it quickly helped her avoid a bigger setback, and now she’s back in training. One of her biggest challenges has been maintaining her milk supply as she increases her volume and intensity.

“It’s something that I feel like people don’t talk about very much,” she said. “But breastfeeding is like a grind, and if your baby doesn’t latch perfectly right away, it’s kind of like a mental roller coaster.”

Huddle was surprised by the challenges of breastfeeding, too. “Breastfeeding has impacted me probably as much as pregnancy, which I wasn’t expecting,” she said. “You just have to be so nutritionally prepared and robust, and the incidence of stress fractures with elite athletes is so high. It’s work to run 100 miles a week and be on top of your fueling. You can’t just eat when you’re hungry, you have to eat [more often]. And as a new mom, it’s hard to keep up with that because you’re juggling all of these other needs.”

Another challenge is simply making training possible. Some athletes have spouses, family, or friends available to watch their children while they train, others need to hire help. Saina has taken a different approach and moved back to Kenya, where she grew up. There, she has multiple nannies, as well help with cooking and cleaning, which allows her to focus on running and bonding with her children. She plans to spend time in the U.S. periodically, but as long as she’s running professionally, she’ll remain in Kenya, where she has significantly more support.

It’s perhaps not a coincidence that Kenyan women lead the way when it comes to having babies and returning to racing at a world class level. Many of the world’s best runners are moms, and Tuliamuk pointed out on the Fast People podcast that many of them take a different approach during pregnancy, stepping away from training as soon as they start showing, and taking up to six months off after they give birth. “When they come back, they are super strong and they don’t have to worry about injuries,” she said.

Returning to racing

Getting back to racing as a parent presents a new set of logistical challenges. After having both of her children, Howard found that her endurance came back faster than her speed. She likes to ease into racing by trying something she doesn’t normally do, so she’s less likely to compare it to what she’s done in the past. In February, she planned to make her half marathon debut at the Mesa Half, but then her three-year-old got sick, and she had to pivot to running the Ventura Half a week later instead.

When she travels to races without her children, she has to think through the logistics of where and when she’s going to pump. At track meets, she tries to find a quiet spot to slip her portable pump under her shirt. “They’re pretty small, so I can still walk around and do whatever,” she said. And when she knows she’ll be away from a refrigerator or freezer for a long stretch, she’ll bring along ice to keep the milk cool.

There are more logistics to think about in nearly every stage of her life now, but she also feels that having kids has taken some of the pressure off her running. “I don’t have as much time to stress or be nervous, because my mind is preoccupied with my children,” she said. “That’s been a huge blessing, and I get to just go have fun with these races.”

Olympian Rachel Smith, 34, has a one-year-old and an almost three-year-old, and it has taken a village to support her racing over the past couple of years. Her parents have traveled to many of her races to provide child care, and sometimes she chooses races based on which ones will be easiest for them to get to.

When she raced the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile last weekend, event organizers helped by giving her two hotel rooms—one for her husband and their kids, and the other for her, so she could get a good night’s sleep.

The night before the 2024 USATF 15K Championships was nowhere near as restful. Her child care plans had fallen through, so her mother-in-law was flying in to help at the last minute. Smith barely slept as she spent much of the night nursing and tending to her then-10-month-old daughter. Before becoming a parent, she didn’t operate well on little sleep. But motherhood has given her a deeper sense of gratitude for the opportunity to race, and it has taught her that she always has more to give, even when she doesn’t think she does.

The next morning, she drew on that strength, overcame a sizable mid-race deficit, and kicked to win the national title.

“Some of it, too, is that your body just did the hardest thing possible by giving birth, so hitting pain in a race isn’t nearly as tough,” she said. “I told a friend, ‘This body got me to the Olympics, but the thing my body’s done that I’m most in awe of is that I grew a human. It’s a very common experience, but it’s also like the most extraordinary thing in the world.”

(Part one in this series is available here.)

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Issue 403

Today’s feature is part one of a two-part story on pregnancy and professional running. I spoke with 12 pregnant or postpartum runners, two agents, and three other industry insiders, and it became clear in the process that all of the topics I wanted to cover wouldn’t fit into one article. I plan to send out part two—which looks more at the physical challenges of combining pregnancy and professional running—sometime this week, so expect an extra email from me.

Thanks to SOAR for supporting Fast Women this month

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To celebrate spring race season, SOAR is offering Fast Women readers the chance to win a Women’s ADV Race Set. Enter via the link here and, once you’ve signed up, you’ll also receive a unique 15% off code for your next order.

Brand support helps drive running’s baby boom, but challenges remain

Leading up to last September’s World Mountain and Trail Running Championships, Grayson Murphy was feeling run down. She suspected she was dealing with overtraining, but just to cover all of her bases, she took a pregnancy test. She was shocked to learn, four days before the race, that it was positive.

Murphy, a two-time World Mountain Running Champion, was hoping to have a strong showing in the 45K (28-mile) race at worlds. Her shoe contract was up for renegotiation at the end of the year, and a good result could strengthen her case. With the go-ahead from her doctor, she started the race. But four hours in, vomiting and cramping, she had to drop out.

The next five months were some of the most stressful of her life as she adjusted to the idea that she was going to be a mother, dealt with an injury that had flared up during the race, and waited to see if any shoe companies would offer her a contract that would make it possible for her to continue her career. As the breadwinner for her growing family, she couldn’t afford a pay cut.

Not long ago, a situation like this might have spelled the end of a career. But in professional running, things are shifting. The sport is in the midst of a baby boom, as more athletes choose to have children mid-career, helped in part by better support from their shoe sponsors.

But pregnancy and the postpartum period still come with significant challenges, including financial strain during athletes’ time away from competition, and the demands of returning to elite training and competition as mothers.

As companies assessed her value, Murphy, who is due May 20, had no way of knowing how her pregnancy factored into the conversations. But by March, she had good news: She had signed a multi-year deal with Salomon. In a podcast appearance at the time of the announcement, she expressed her appreciation that they did not devalue her because of her pregnancy. “It didn’t seem to faze them,” she told Fast Women. “They see it as a positive thing.”

Obvious progress

Nike supports a number of pregnant and postpartum runners, and several recent signings stand out because of their timing. In 2025, Rachel Smith, a 2021 Olympian, negotiated a contract with the brand while pregnant with her second child. In January, weeks after having her first child, 2024 Olympian Whittni Morgan announced that she had signed with the brand. And in February, reigning U.S. 10,000m champion Emily Infeld, whose first child is due in August, became a Nike athlete again, after spending one year with another brand.

Many pregnant and postpartum professional runners still enter contract negotiations with a great deal of uncertainty. And some have had experiences—like reduced and withdrawn offers—that make them question whether they are being passed over or undervalued because of their pregnancy. But an increasing number of them are finding that at many companies, attitudes have changed.

One need not go far back to remember a time when many shoe companies’ support of pregnant and postpartum runners was not as good. In 2019, in two New York Times opinion pieces, Alysia Montaño, Kara Goucher, and Allyson Felix spoke out against Nike, Asics, and other companies for failing to provide adequate maternity protections for professional athletes. It proved to be a watershed moment for the sport, as companies began creating or strengthening existing policies to better support pregnant and postpartum athletes.

Some of the current baby boom is tied to the fact that 2026 is the first year since 2020 without an outdoor global championship in track & field. But the increased structural support is also contributing. “Having children used to be seen as a career-ender,” Montaño told Fast Women. “And what we’re seeing now is that it isn’t a career-ender [when an athlete has] support.”

For pregnant and postpartum athletes, Nike now waives performance-related reductions over an 18-month period, covering eight months of pregnancy and 10 months postpartum. Tanya Hvizdak, Global GM of Nike Running, told Fast Women that codifying the policy for all of their athletes helps alleviate any fear they might be feeling about the future of their athletic career and “allows them to truly be the best version of themselves through the maternity period.”

Many of the athletes competing today are quick to credit those who paved the way for the sport’s progress. “My heart aches for what [Felix, Montaño, and Goucher] went through,” Smith said. “I also feel so much gratitude for them for creating such change for pregnant and postpartum women.”

Behind-the-scenes struggles

Not all companies have such consistent policies, though. One runner initially hid her pregnancy from her sponsor because her contract didn’t include maternity protections. When she finally let the company know she was expecting, they supported her as they do their other pregnant athletes. But the uncertainty created a lot of undue stress in the early months of her pregnancy.

Molly Huddle, a 28-time national champion, said many people assume that once shoe companies added maternity protections to athletes’ contracts, the issue was largely resolved. But she has recently heard from athletes who have had those protections removed during the renegotiation process. “Whether they stay in or not can depend on who’s sitting at the table—what agent, what athlete, and what person is at that shoe company,” she said.

Agent Ray Flynn told Fast Women that companies now see pregnancy as a plus in many ways. “There may be some contracts out there that don’t [include maternity protections], but all of the shoe companies are supporting their athletes during pregnancy now, and optically, it would be a very bad look for them if they didn’t. There is broad support now for top female athletes who have contractual agreements during the term of their pregnancy.”

Still, Huddle pointed out that there can be significant turnover in sports marketing roles at companies, so it’s important to have that support in writing, even if an athlete has a great relationship with individuals at a brand.

She also thinks brands often miss opportunities to collaborate with pregnant athletes, through content, appearances, or product testing, which could support marketing goals and ease the pressure some athletes feel to justify their contracts. “In my experience, you’re just kind of on the shelf until you return to racing,” she said.

Most of the smaller brand deals that runners have do not include maternity protections. That’s partly because these agreements are often shorter term and more social media-based than performance-based, and pregnancy doesn’t prevent athletes from fulfilling their contractual obligations. But one of those deals drew significant attention last month when Emma Bates alleged in an Instagram reel that her fueling company dropped her after she told them she was pregnant. The online backlash was swift.

The company, UCan, has disputed Bates’ account of the situation. But the moment highlighted how strongly running fans rally behind pregnant athletes and served as a reminder of what can happen when a brand is perceived to be unsupportive of pregnant and postpartum women.

Financial struggles persist

Shoe contracts generally guarantee athletes their base pay for a set period during pregnancy and postpartum. But stepping away from competition still has financial consequences. When athletes are not racing, they miss out on opportunities to earn prize money and appearance fees and hit performance-related bonuses built into their contracts. For some athletes, it’s a significant financial sacrifice that comes at a time when their expenses are going up.

And while things have gotten better for athletes who have shoe contracts, those improvements don’t benefit runners who are between deals. Anna Camp-Bennett, the 2021 NCAA 1500m champion, learned she was pregnant not long before she ran the final race of her 2025 season, September’s Fifth Avenue Mile.

Her contract with Adidas was up at the end of 2025, and though the brand had the option to extend it for an additional year, she learned in late December that they had declined to do so. Camp-Bennett is grateful for her time with Adidas and understanding of the decision they made. “I didn’t have a super great year last year,” she said. “I wish they would have taken my option year, but it’s totally okay that they didn’t. If I did think it was [because I was pregnant], I would be loud about it. But I think it was more performance-based.”

Camp-Bennett, whose first child is due on May 10, was initially told that there wasn’t much she could do about securing a contract with another brand until she was back to racing. “I sat with that for a while—that I wasn’t going to get something until 2027—and then I realized that actually I do have a little bit more control over my own life than I think, so maybe let’s start to try,” she said. “The worst [that could happen] is that I’d be in the same situation I’m in now.”

She’s hoping to secure a shoe contract before too long, and she plans to continue racing. She has a bit of a safety net thanks to Utah’s Run Elite Program (REP), which covers some of her athletic-related medical costs and travel expenses. “It makes it a lot easier when you’re not having to spend a ton of money to run,” she said. “So they’re huge in me being able to not stress too much about it.”

Tristin Colley, a 2:25 marathoner, also found herself facing financial uncertainty early in her pregnancy. She didn’t have a shoe contract, but her team, ZAP Endurance, served a similar function as a brand sponsorship, providing her with a base salary and a bonus structure. Colley was in the midst of her Chicago Marathon build when she found out she was pregnant, and she told her coaches right away, so they’d know she was no longer preparing for the race.

It turned out ZAP head coach Pete Rea had news of his own. After 25 years in business, ZAP was disbanding at the end of 2025. He had planned to tell the team after Chicago, but in light of Colley’s news, he moved the announcement up, so she and her husband, Andrew, who was also a member of the team, would have more time to come up with a backup plan.

“It was like finding out we’re pregnant, both of us losing our jobs, and then having to move, too—so three major life events happening at once,” she said. “And because I was in my first trimester, my hormones were crazy, and I was crying every day. But we’re slowly figuring it out.”

ZAP was the only thing keeping the Colleys in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, so they’ve since moved to Raleigh, where Colley has a lot of family support. They’re planning to continue running at the elite level, and they’re holding out hope that they can secure the financial support to make that possible. In the meantime, Colley earns some money through online coaching and has received physical therapy support and financial assistance from Run Raleigh as well as a maternity grant from the USATF Foundation. She’s not opposed to taking on additional work if it becomes necessary, but her daughter arrived on April 1, so she has her hands full at the moment.

Two weeks before giving birth, Colley described feeling pulled in two directions. “I’ve been careful to put the baby first in training, but I keep thinking I need to keep my fitness up so I can come back quickly, start making money again, and hopefully earn a good contract,” she said. “But I also want to do what’s best for the baby and what’s best for my body. I don’t want to jump into it too quick.”

Getting by as an unsponsored runner and mom

Over the past 20 years, the USATF Foundation has provided financial assistance to elite American track & field athletes. After identifying the need, the foundation also began awarding maternity grants in 2021 and has since distributed $85,000 to 21 women, including eight of the 12 athletes who spoke to Fast Women.

The foundation has played a key role in helping Olympian Marisa Howard stay in the sport. “They have largely funded my career for the last five years,” she said. “Had I not had their support, I would have had a much more difficult time doing this.”

Howard had a small sponsorship contract with Oiselle from 2015 to 2017, but she has never had a shoe contract. She previously worked as a school nurse, but she left that role in 2020. She and her husband now live off of his high school teaching income. Howard had her first child in May 2022 and two years later, she qualified to represent the U.S. in the steeplechase at the 2024 Olympic Games.

Seeing what she could do with two years to prepare for the 2024 Olympic Trials, Howard wondered what she could accomplish in three, so she planned to try for another baby soon after the Games. She learned she was pregnant in early September 2024, but later that month, about six weeks in, she sadly suffered a miscarriage.

Howard was able to earn health insurance through the USOPC for the last four months of 2024. She benefited from the organization’s policy—which was also changed after Montaño, Goucher, and Felix spoke out in 2019—that if an athlete becomes pregnant while on the insurance, they will receive the same level of support until one year after the pregnancy ends. Howard appreciated that the policy extended to miscarriage as well. But she learned she was pregnant again in November 2024, which reset the clock, and she’ll remain on the USOPC insurance through August 2026, when her daughter turns one.

Having her health care covered is a significant perk. Because pro runners tend to be independent contractors, most of them purchase their own insurance or get it through a spouse’s job.

Howard relies on her parents, in-laws, and the local YMCA for child care, which helps keep her costs low. And her husband takes over when he gets home from school in the afternoons. When she travels for races, she’ll stay with a friend, when possible. She also embraces opportunities to pace races at track meets, which helps her earn some cash or get some of her travel expenses covered.

Howard has found with both of her postpartum experiences that getting back into racing again can be expensive. In February, six months after having her second child, she ran 1:10:34 to win the Ventura Half Marathon. She paid her own way to the race, and that’s where the USATF Foundation funds have been helpful. Howard hopes to race July’s USATF Outdoor Championships, but because the meet is in New York City this year, she’s still assessing whether it’s a trip she can afford to make.

Even as an Olympian, making a living in the sport is far from guaranteed. And doing it with two children adds an extra degree of difficulty. “Most years I break even or I come out a little bit on top,” she said. “And I think if I can continue to do that, then I want to try to stay in the sport as long as I can.”

(Edit: Part two of this story is now available here.)

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At last, Emma Grace Hurley wins her first national title

In recent years, few athletes, if any, have earned more second- and third-place finishes at U.S. road championships than Emma Grace Hurley. But in the process, she has built herself into one of the best U.S. distance runners on any surface. On Sunday, everything finally came together for her as she kicked to win her first national title at the USATF 10 Mile Championships, hosted by the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile. The accomplishment was especially meaningful as it came against a high quality field.

Because the national championship was a race within a race, the field featured some excellent international runners as well. With just over a mile to go, Ethiopia’s Asayech Ayichew put in a surge and a pack of five became four as Karissa Schweizer, who was running her longest race yet, dropped off the back.

It was down to Ayichew, Uganda’s Joy Cheptoyek, Hurley, and Weini Kelati. With about 1K to go, Ayichew broke away, Cheptoyek dropped to second, and Kelati began to put distance on Hurley. It looked like they might finish in that order, but then Hurley came storming back on a small climb. With about 300m to go, she passed Kelati, and then, temporarily, Cheptoyek.

Ayichew, who finished fourth at world cross in January and has run 29:43 for 10K, won comfortably in 50:37. (When the lead pack hit 5K in 16:09, at 5:12/mile, it became pretty clear Taylor Roe’s event record of 49:53 from last year would be safe.) Cheptoyek, who was second at world cross and has run 30:03 for 10K, passed Hurley with less than 100m to go and took second in 50:41.

Hurley finished third overall and held off Kelati, 50:42 to 50:46. After getting gapped, Schweizer held herself together well in the last mile and took fifth in 50:55. Molly Born (seventh overall, 51:36) was the next American across the line, and I was impressed by Kassie Parker, who took eighth in 52:01.

I expected to see Ednah Kurgat among the leaders, but she dropped back before 10K and finished 12th in 52:18. Any number of factors could have been at play, but she’s only two weeks removed from running a 1:08:25 at the Prague Half Marathon.

The first thing Hurley said in her post-race interview was, “I’m really happy no one can make any more jokes about how I’m always second or third.” (Results)

Other News

• When Alicia Monson underwent meniscus surgery in 2024, her surgeon grafted tissue from her hamstring. Jonathan Gault reports that the good news is that her knee is doing well, but she’s had some problems with her hamstring. Her coach, Dathan Ritzenhein, told Gault that she is hoping to return to racing in late May or early June.

• Gracie Morris and Addy Wiley headline the field for the USATF 1 Mile Road Championships, which will take place April 21 in Des Moines, Iowa. The top two finishers will qualify to represent the U.S. at the World Athletics Road Running Championships.

• This Athletics Weekly feature about Great Britain’s Calli Hauger-Thackery running and racing through pregnancy is behind a paywall, but if you have access, it’s a good read. And while I’m on the topic, I appreciate that Australia’s Jessica Stenson has a YouTube channel dedicated to the topic of pregnancy, motherhood, and marathon running.

• World Athletics announced that starting in 2030, they plan to host a standalone World Marathon Championships, instead of holding the event in conjunction with the World Athletics Championships. I want to hear more details, but on the surface, this sounds promising. There’s so much magic and money in the marathon, and right now World Athletics is missing out on a lot of that. I’m curious what, if anything, they plan to do to compete with the major marathons, who can offer substantial appearance fees. And I assume the competition calendar is going to be quite crowded in Olympic years, especially for U.S. athletes who have a Trials race. (I’m selfishly kind of hoping the men get the even years, but when the calendar is crowded, more athletes tend to get cool opportunities.)

• Former Arkansas star Sydney (Thorvaldson) Vaught has signed a pro contract with Nike.

• Great Britain’s Sarah Tait, a 9:18 steepler who spent a couple years at West Virginia University, has signed with On and joined OAC Oceania, and Susan Ejore-Sanders has officially joined the OAC Global team.

• I have a hard time following The Speed Project, so I appreciated this post about the group of women, all strangers going into the race, who broke the all-women’s record by nearly three hours.

• If I had read this Cynthia Erivo Q&A (Runner’s World) when it was published, I would have known sooner that Erika Kemp is coaching her leading up to the London Marathon. Brooks brought them together and I appreciate that they use their pro athletes in this way.

Additional Results

• Much was made of the 1500m showdown between Jessica Hull and Claudia Hollingsworth at the Australian Athletics Championships, and it was such a bummer of a race in the end as Hull went down hard in the homestretch. Hollingsworth went on to win and was initially DQed before being reinstated. You can watch the full race here and decide whether you think it was the right call. But there’s no question that Hollingsworth, 20, is going to be one to watch this season and beyond. Hull had planned to triple but she scratched from the 800m before returning to win the 5,000m in 15:13.21. Abbey Caldwell won the 800 in 1:58.57, and Hollingsworth took second in 1:58.91. Cara Feain-Ryan dominated the steeplechase, running 9:35.87. (Results)

• I think we’re seeing more and more that a lot of the top NCAA middle-distance and distance runners tend to congregate at the same meets, where they’re guaranteed good competition. So it was fun to see Oklahoma State’s Billah Jepkirui show up in the Arkansas Spring Invitational results. With a little pacing help from a teammate, she ran an NCAA-leading 4:04.59 1500m and won the race by 25 seconds. (Results)

• Ethiopia’s Shure Demise won the Paris Marathon in 2:18:34. With a little rabbiting help from Annie Rodenfels and others, Maggie Montoya finished ninth in a personal best of 2:27:04. According to her Instagram stories, that included a 40-second bathroom break. (Results)

• Ethiopia’s Mekides Shimeles won the Rotterdam Marathon in 2:18:56. Jackie Gaughan, the top U.S. runner (edit: in the elite field), finished 11th in 2:38:55. (Results) Edit: I originally missed Erika Fluehr in the results, and looking at that results link as well as World Athletics’ version of the results, I can see why. But she had an excellent run in the sub-elite field and was the fastest American of the day, running a chip time of 2:37:00, which is huge because she hit U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials qualifying time right on the dot. Her twin sister, who has already qualified for the Trials, joined her for the first 20 miles. This is a better results link, filter so you’re just looking at the “vrouwen.”

• Ethiopia’s Yeshi Kalayu Chekole won the Milan Marathon in 2:20:15. And thanks to this newsletter’s editor for pointing out that Ireland’s Christine Kennedy, 71, ran an impressive 3:39:17. (Results)

• Germany’s Domenika Mayer won the Hannover Marathon in 2:21:26. (Results)

• Canada’s Simone Plourde won the Carlsbad 5000 in 15:30. (Results)

• Allie Ostrander won Austin’s Capitol 10K in 32:45. (Results)

• Rachel Schilkowsky won the Scranton Half Marathon in 1:12:42. (Results)

• South Africa’s Gerda Steyn won the Two Oceans Marathon for the seventh time, running 3:27:43 for 56K. (Recap)

• Jennifer Lichter won the Gorge Waterfalls 50K in 4:08:02, Lauren Gregory won the 30K in 2:13:37, and Lotti Brinks won the 100K in 9:06:23. (Results)

• Sarah Morrison won the USATF 100K Championships in 7:17:02. Allison Mercer took second, and was the top masters finisher, in 7:30:53. Both qualified to represent the U.S. at the IAU 100K World Championships in September. (Results)

• I appreciate this Marathon des Sables recap from iRunfar. France’s Maryline Nakache dominated the seven-day, 168-mile stage race, winning with a cumulative time of 25:54:29. Racing far longer than she ever had before, Des Linden finished third in 30:16:32. Linden definitely had the best content team out there. (Results)

• Heather Jackson won the Desert RATS 100K in 9:45:12, and Sarah Carter won the 50K in 4:09:45. (Results)

• Hannah Allgood won the Lake Sonoma 50K in 4:19:36, and Great Britain’s Fiona Pascall won the 100K in 10:13:24. (Results)

Podcast Highlights

• Dom Scott was on C Tolle Run and I appreciated her vulnerability as she discussed her decision to step away from professional running but remain in the sport. I think runners of all speeds who have made a decision to stop trying to put their all into running PRs will be able to relate.

• I enjoyed getting a pre-Boston Marathon Emily Sisson update on the Ali on the Run Show. Sisson said that she tweaked her hamstring at the NYC Half, but she described it as a “tiny little setback,” so hopefully that was the last we’ll ever hear of it.

• Mary Kate Shea, who assembles the pro fields for the Boston Marathon, was on Good Game with Sarah Spain (starting around the 15:00 mark).

• On Women of Distance, trail runners EmKay Sullivan, Grayson Murphy, Mary Daniels, and Rachel Tomajczyk discussed pregnancy and motherhood in sport (a theme this week).

• It was good to get a post-surgery update from Keira D’Amato on Stupid Questions with Seth Hill. She said that she talked to six different surgeons before going ahead with the procedure. She drove out for an appointment with the sixth one in Vail, Colorado, and two days later, he was operating on her. She also had an Instagram post with a little bit of an update last week.

Additional Episodes: Amanda Vestri on Citius Mag | Jess McClain on the Marathon Handbook Podcast | Jenny Simpson on I’ll Have Another | Laura Thweatt on the Lactic Acid Podcast | Fiona O’Keeffe on RunWithAlliLive | Abby Shoemaker on Road to the Trials

Thanks again to SOAR for sponsoring this newsletter for the remainder of the month and make sure to enter the giveaway mentioned above! Thanks, also, to all of you who have helped keep Fast Women going with your support via Venmo or Patreon.

As mentioned at the top, hopefully you’ll be hearing from me again soon. I still need to write all of the second article, so the timing is TBD. Normally when I take on a project of this magnitude, I do the interviews over a longer span of time. But with this project, I tried to work as quickly as possible, because I didn’t want anyone’s status to change too much between when I spoke with them and when the articles came out.

I hope you all have the best week possible.

Alison

After a whirlwind college career, Maia Ramsden is forced to take a step back

When Maia Ramsden arrived at Harvard University in the fall of 2020, she had no plans to run professionally. She was a three-time New Zealand U20 champion with untapped potential. But with personal bests of 4:30 (1500m) and 2:10 (800m), she thought she would run in college and then go to law school or get a Ph.D.

But in the best possible way, things didn’t go to plan. Four years later, she graduated as a three-time NCAA champion, became the first Ivy League athlete to be named a finalist for The Bowerman, qualified for the 2024 Olympic Games, signed a professional contract with On, and joined the Boulder-based On Athletics Club.

But Ramsden hit her first major road block at the beginning of 2025. In her first season of professional running, she suffered an injury that ultimately required surgery, which she had in July of that year. After doing a lot of reflection during the recovery process, Ramsden, 24, decided to move back to the Boston area. She has resumed working with her college coach, Alex Gibby, and is hoping to return to racing soon, but she’s also keeping the big picture in mind.

A global upbringing

When Ramsden races internationally, she represents Aotearoa New Zealand, but because of her father’s work with the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she grew up on three different continents. She was born in New York (she has dual citizenship) and briefly spent some time in Boston before moving to Wellington, New Zealand, for her early elementary years. From ages 7 to 16, she lived in the Solomon Islands and Fiji.

It was in Suva, Fiji, that Ramsden discovered her love of running. She ran an 800m in PE class and her teacher, Fesaitu Mario, asked her if she wanted to come by the track after school. He was a javelin coach with an outside-the-box approach to training, rooted in a good understanding of physiology. One day a week, they’d play touch rugby, another they might do barefoot sprints on sandflats.

“He gave me so many mental skills but also a love of the sport,” Ramsden told Fast Women. “And he was always saying, ‘You’ve got time and there’s no rush here. As long as you’re having a good time doing what you’re doing, stick at it.’”

Ramsden’s family moved to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a city with a strong running culture, for the tail end of her high school career. Because she had had multiple coaches throughout high school, her training varied, but it all left room for growth. And when Ramsden wasn’t in season, she wasn’t necessarily running at all.

When she got to Harvard, the 40 miles per week she was initially assigned felt like a lot. “I’m pretty sure I told Gibby I was running 20 to 30 kilometers a week, and he thought I meant miles, so we had a little bit of a startup issue there,” she said.

Ramsden’s transition to all aspects of college life was unusual, because she arrived on campus in the middle of the pandemic. Classes were taught online, and only a small fraction of the student body was on campus. And though NCAA competition had resumed, the Ivy League did not allow conference schools to take part during the 2020-21 academic year. The setup allowed Ramsden to meet a lot of people who weren’t on the cross country or track & field teams, pursue some other interests, and gradually adjust to college running and academics.

During the spring semester, two of her teammates, seniors Abbe Goldstein and Tessa Medrano, arrived on campus and helped teach her more about being a college athlete. “I felt like this lucky little first year because these two older girls just took me under their wing, showed me what to do, and how to do it,” she said. “I think my transition to collegiate sport was much easier because first I got to figure out the training, and then in my sophomore year, I got to figure out how to do the racing piece.”

Ramsden was a quick study, and by the end of her sophomore year, she finished 10th in the 1500m final at the 2022 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships. That race was a turning point for her. “Gibby was like, ‘You can be on the podium. It’s up to you, you’ve just got to decide.’” Ramsden put in a great summer of training, and, when school resumed, running had moved a little higher up her priority list.

Her work paid off throughout the year, but no more so than when she kicked to a surprise win in the 1500m at the 2023 NCAA Outdoor Championships. The following fall, she signed an NIL deal with On, and in 2024, she swept the NCAA indoor mile and outdoor 1500m titles, anchored Harvard’s distance medley relay to a win at Penn Relays, finished 10th in the 1500m at world indoors, and became an Olympic 1500m semifinalist.

Going pro

Ramsden graduated in 2024 with a degree in History and Literature and gave up her remaining year of NCAA eligibility to sign a pro deal with On. She loved her first fall in Boulder. “The more experienced people on the team just scooped all of us newbies up,” she said. “Everyone was organizing social events, we were hanging out, and the team is so great.”

Then came the injury. Ramsden still managed to qualify for world indoors for the second year in a row. But while getting back into training in the spring, she tore her Achilles. Imaging showed that there was enough tendon damage that she would need surgery, and because she had a Haglund’s bone spur that was poking deep into her tendon, it needed to be removed.

Ramsden had remained remarkably healthy during her time in the NCAA. “I think it was a combination of good management and a lot of good luck,” she said. “But it also meant that I was really unprepared to be injured as a pro, because I’ve never had to figure out the mental skills to get through something like this or listen to my body in that way before.”

Dr. Amol Saxena, who has operated on many world class runners, performed the surgery in July 2025. Ramsden could have chosen a less invasive procedure with a shorter recovery time, but she wanted to take care of the problem for good. “If I was closer to what I thought the end of my career would be, maybe I would have chosen that option. But I made this decision because I want to do this until I’m like, I don’t know, 35.”

Following the surgery, Ramsden couldn’t put any weight on her leg for a month, and then she was in a boot for eight more weeks. Once she was able to travel, she went home to New Zealand, which gave her the opportunity to pause and take stock of how she was feeling.

“When I did that, there were actually some things about life—less so about running, because that wasn’t even in the picture at that point—that I realized I was really missing. Like friends and family, and my boyfriend, who lives in New York. I missed being close to the water, and the academic stuff that makes me feel really fulfilled. I could get that in Boulder, but it’s easier for me to gain library access in Boston.

“I missed the friction of city life, even though it makes things take a little longer. Like I love hopping on a bus or the T to get where I need to go. I only got my driver’s license when I knew I was moving to Colorado, so I’m a pretty anxious driver.”

Ramsden thought it over for a few months, and then started having conversations to determine if returning to Boston was possible. She made the move in early February, and remains sponsored by On. She arrived in Boston just in time to experience the worst of a rough New England winter. But because she was still cross training quite a bit at the time, she switched her workouts around to make training through it manageable.

Ramsden has been back to running on the ground since the final days of 2025, and she has built back gradually from there. She had gotten up to 50-60 miles per week plus workouts, until she experienced a small setback recently, but she’s still hoping to return to racing in May. Ramsden hasn’t ruled out racing at this summer’s Commonwealth Games, but she’s managing her expectations.

“Gibby keeps saying, ‘Don’t make a one-year problem a two-year problem.’ And he’s right. The overarching goal of this season is to start next season healthy and ready to train hard. And I have to keep reminding myself of that.”

Ramsden can find some silver linings in her injury. It’s made her more resilient and more grateful for her ability to run. And she appreciates the support she’s gotten from those around her. “I feel really grateful that no one in my circle has ever expressed doubt at my ability to get back to where I was and get better than that,” she said. “I have a lot of doubt about that, as anyone would. But no one around me has even let a crack of that show. And for me, that really works.”

Living an ocean away from much of her family isn’t easy, but being back in Boston allows her to see her sister, who is a first-year student at Tufts, once a week for dinner, and she and her boyfriend can meet up at her grandparents’ house which is in the middle.

Ramsden took a six-month academic break after graduating from Harvard, but she’s already back in school. Thanks to a scholarship from High Performance Sport New Zealand, she’s working toward a master’s in Pacific Studies through the University of Auckland. And after missing her high school graduation due to the pandemic and her college graduation due to a track meet, Ramsden is going to do her best to make it to her graduation ceremony, when the time comes.

Though she’s no longer part of a team, between her former teammates and some of the local pros, Ramsden has found plenty of people to train with in Boston. In recent weeks, she’s run with 2021 Olympian Heather MacLean quite a bit. “I hope she knows… I was in college in 2021 and I was like, ‘This woman is one of my heroes.’ Now I’m getting to share miles with her and that is so cool. And I did a workout a couple weeks ago with Sophia [Gorriaran]. Last time I worked out with her, she was so young, now she’s like a completely new runner, which is just cool to see. I’ve been loving the collaborative nature of Boston running. I think people here are really excited to make things work to line up with one another.”

Jane Hedengren and Pamela Kosgei both dip under the collegiate 10,000m record

When I saw that BYU’s Jane Hedengren and New Mexico’s Pamela Kosgei were entered in the 10,000m at the Stanford Invitational, I figured I’d be writing about another collegiate record this week. No matter that Hedengren had never raced a 10,000m before. Kosgei and Hedengren had already proved themselves to be among the NCAA’s best ever in the 5,000m, and excelled in the 6K in cross country. And if you’re a distance specialist, racing a 10,000m is a pretty similar skill.

The meet was surprisingly not livestreamed, so everything I know about the race comes from looking at the splits. (Update: Thanks to Bob in the comments for pointing out that there’s a low quality video shot from the stands here.) About six runners hit the mile together, right around 5:00, but on the next lap, it became a two-woman race. Hedengren led at 17 of the 25 lap splits, but it’s good to see Kosgei helped out a bit, too. And I imagine Kosgei being in the lead with 800m and 400m to go helped Hedengren find another gear.

Hedengren used a 66.11-second final lap to win in 30:46.80, and Kosgei took second in 30:49.99. Both dipped under Parker Valby’s collegiate record of 30:50.43, from 2024. Valby was a pretty dominant collegiate runner two years ago, so this is just further evidence of how quickly the standards are rising in the NCAA. Hedengren’s performance also places her seventh on the U.S. all-time list. After running her first 5K in about 15:33, she covered the last 5K of the race in roughly 15:13.

Behind the lead duo, 10 more women broke 32:30, led by Eastern Kentucky’s Edna Chelulei, who ran 31:33.57 for third.

BYU had a stellar meet overall as Taylor Lovell PRed by 36 seconds (!) to win the 5,000m in 15:15.46, Carmen Alder took the 1500m in 4:08.56, and Raygan Dimond won the steeplechase in 9:55.03. And one day after taking second in the 1500m (4:09.29), Stanford’s Mena Scatchard won the 800m in 2:00.50. (All results)

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Other News and Links

• Tristin Colley gave birth to her first child on April 1, which also happens to be her husband’s birthday. Colley, a 2:25 marathoner, was previously supported by ZAP Endurance, but about a week after she found out she was pregnant, she and her husband, Andrew, who also ran for ZAP, learned that the team would be shutting down. They have since moved to Raleigh and are hoping to secure shoe sponsorships soon. (And I think if we’ve seen anything recently, it’s that running fans and consumers like to see brands support pregnant and postpartum women. Kudos to Run Raleigh and the USATF Foundation for providing Colley with a little support during this time.)

• Providence College announced that Catarina Rocha will take over as the school’s head women’s cross country coach, and Sinead Delahunty Evans will be the head women’s track coach when Ray Treacy retires in June. Tim Brock has been named the director of the program and the men’s XC/track head coach.

• Natosha Rogers and Megan Sailor are among those who have withdrawn from the Boston Marathon field recently. And Gabi Rooker also announced her withdrawal from the race on Saturday, saying that her fitness is coming around, but not fast enough for her to be ready in time.

• Abbey Cooper said in an Instagram post that after 11 years as a sponsored athlete, she has paused serious training and competing. And she’s now living in Lincoln, Nebraska.

• I learned from Keely Hodgkinson’s latest YouTube video that she has a ring for every global medal she has earned. “At some point, I’m not going to have enough fingers for my rings,” she said.

• The race is just getting started, but I been enjoying Des Linden’s Marathon des Sables updates.

• Mark Coogan posted an Instagram story on Saturday with a video of Roisin Willis training with the New Balance Boston team. Nothing has been announced yet though.

• Italy’s Gaia Sabbatini, a 3:59 1500m runner, has joined the M11 Track Club, and I appreciate the effort the team puts into its announcements.

• World and Olympic medalist Liz McColgan posted a warning about skin cancer after she had two lesions surgically removed from her face. I think people tend to be more serious about sun protection these days than they were when she was a young athlete, but it’s a good reminder to people of all ages.

Additional Results

• Kenya’s Agnes Ngetich already holds the world record in the 10K with a 28:46, and on Saturday, she produced her second sub-29 performance, winning France’s Urban Trail de Lille 10K in 28:58. According to this race report, she hit 5K in about 14:14, which is flying. It’s nice to see her rebound nicely after she suffered from hypothermia at the NYC Half. Ethiopia’s Marta Alemayo ran almost as fast in the accompanying 5K, which she won in 14:15. Alemayo was a few days shy of her 18th birthday, which is incredible, but it’s hard to know whether to trust the ages of young Ethiopian stars given the country’s recent history of age manipulation issues. But at any age, that’s fast. (Results)

• South Carolina’s Salma Elbadra won the 800m at the Florida Relays in 2:00.62. (Results)

• Indiana’s Veronica Hargrave won the 800m at the Battle on the Bayou, hosted by LSU, in 2:02.08. (Results)

• Paris Peoples won the 600m at the Miramar Invitational, running 1:23.45. (Results)

• Great Britain’s Clare Elms set a world best for the 60-64 age group on Saturday, running 17:45 at the Top Flight 5K. According to Athletics Weekly, she’s the oldest woman ever to break 18 minutes in the 5K. (Results)

Podcast Highlights

• Emma Bates’ appearance on the Ali on the Run Show had to be the most listened to podcast episode in running last week. I appreciated hearing her discuss the challenges of combining family planning and professional running, and how her hemochromatosis diagnosis complicated things. As for parting ways with UCan, her account differs from theirs in that she did not mention there ever being an offer in November. (She accused them of posting “false timelines and flat out lies.”) Both parties agree that there was discussion of a different deal that Bates would have been on board with in December, but they disagree about whether it was a firm offer. Without being in the meetings, it’s impossible to say whether UCan’s decision to ultimately offer Bates less had to do with Bates’ pregnancy, the company’s finances, or something else. But hopefully all of this has served as a reminder to companies about the importance of clear communication, considering the optics of their decisions, and parting with athletes on good terms, whenever possible. “I don’t want to write off UCan as a company, I don’t think they deserve that.” Bates said. “I think if they don’t learn and change and grow from this, then it’s an issue.” (The timing of this article from Runner’s World, about runners discovering they can take gels while giving birth, made me laugh.)

• On a related note, I appreciated Kara Goucher and Des Linden’s discussion of what it means to be dropped by a sponsor, and other aspects of the business side of running, on Nobody Asked Us. That part starts around the 25:30 mark.

• I thought Alexa (Efraimson) Gusman and Maddie Alm’s discussion of the importance of fueling for performance on The Fueling Forward Podcast was excellent. If you’re well informed about REDs, and you’ve heard their stories before, you might not learn much. But a lot of people could benefit from hearing what they have to say, and their voices are so important in counteracting the growing amount of irresponsible messaging that’s out there.

• It was good to hear how Jess McClain got through wrongturn-gate and how her Boston Marathon prep is going on Ali on the Run. And I also enjoyed hearing from two others who are getting ready for Boston: Susanna Sullivan on Citius Mag and Australia’s Izzi Batt-Doyle on Run With It.

Additional Episodes: Megan Connelly discussed qualifying for the Olympic Marathon Trials on Getting Chicked (I think the line “I was stuck at 3:07 for five years” might inspire some people.) | I enjoyed learning more about Sanu Jallow-Lockhart’s journey from The Gambia to Arkansas on The Hog Pod with Bo Mattingly | I appreciated hearing Great Britain’s Jessica Warner-Judd discuss her medical journey on Podium Athletics | Rebecca Schmitt talked about going from 2:55 in the marathon to 2:28 on Road to the Trials | Grayson Murphy on For the Long Run | Abby Hall on Running Long | Sophie Seward on Conversation Pace with FRE | Sylvie Abel on Women of Distance

Upcoming

Sunday’s USATF 10 Mile Championships, hosted by the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile, has attracted a stellar field. Weini Kelati headlines, and she’ll be up against Emma Grace Hurley, Karissa Schweizer (running her longest race yet), Ednah Kurgat, Katie Izzo, Molly Born, and others. The race includes some excellent international runners as well, and it will be interesting to see how the overall race affects the U.S. championship race. I expect Uganda’s Joy Cheptoyek, who is coming off a runner-up finish at the World Athletics Cross Country Championships in January, and Ethiopia’s Asayech Ayichew, who was fourth in the same race, to lead the way.

The pro women start at 7:18 a.m. ET and the race will stream live on USATF TV.

Because most of the racing for the week wrapped up on Saturday, I spent most of my Sunday working on a project for next Monday’s newsletter. April is going to be a big month, and I am so grateful to everyone who is making this content possible with your support via Venmo or Patreon.

I hope you all have a good week.

Alison

Karissa Schweizer discusses her latest chapter

Two-time Olympian Karissa Schweizer recently announced that after more than seven years with the Bowerman Track Club (which became the Swoosh TC Eugene hub in 2025) she has moved on. She’s now based in Portland, Oregon, and she’s being coached remotely by University of North Carolina coach Chris Miltenberg.

In January, Schweizer, 29, finished 17th at the World Cross Country Championships, and on March 22, she ran 24:56 to take second at the Shamrock Shuffle 8K in Chicago. It was her first professional road race longer than one mile. She spoke to Fast Women on March 26. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

It was fun to see you racing on the roads. What did you think of the experience, and what was it like racing with men for the first time?
It was fun. It was definitely different, and that’s kind of why we chose the Shamrock Shuffle, because it’s a very low key race, and a chance to test the waters a bit. Some of the guys went out really hard, kind of died, and came back again. There was no rhythm to it, and it was good for me to experience that.

I wanted to go with them, but the plan was to stay controlled in the beginning and then build with 2K or 3K to go. I’m not one that likes to race that way, I love to just full send all the time. But my boyfriend (Kellen Manley) ran with me and helped put a pace cap on me for the first 5K, and then I was left to just rip it. That was a fun way to race, because I felt good. But it made me realize road racing is so different. You can go out [hard] and it doesn’t affect you the same way it does on the track. You kind of see people die a little more gracefully on the road.

Did it make you want to do more road racing?
Definitely. You have crowds the whole way, chaotic energy throughout the race, which I really like, and I like just pressing from the gun.

I’m sometimes a little surprised when top U.S. athletes pass up opportunities to win prize money on the roads, but I assume there’s a good reason. What kept you on the track until now?
I feel like the track just kind of consumes you without you even realizing it. Especially with the (Olympic and World Championship qualifying) standards being so difficult these days, it’s kind of like you have one opportunity to get the 10K standard, and you have a couple opportunities to get the 5K standard. So when you’re gearing up for that, and then you’re peaking at USAs and then peaking again at Worlds or the Olympics, it doesn’t really feel like there’s room for anything else.

I’ve also been injured a lot these past three years, so that doesn’t help. I think I probably would have stepped into a half marathon or some kind of road race before now, if I wasn’t injured all the time in the winter. It always felt like there was a rush to get fitness for track season. With this being an off year, I wanted to test the waters and do something I never really do.

And how long have you been healthy now?
It’s been a year and a couple months now, which is the longest runway that I’ve had in over five years, I think. So I’m very excited about it and I feel really good.

What have you learned about how to stay healthy?
I’ve definitely made some changes. On January 1, 2025, I found out I had a femoral stress fracture in almost the same location as the year before. That was a wake-up call that made me realize I needed to dial things back, up the fueling and cross training, and figure out what was going on.

I think I kind of got back into things a little too quickly after the Olympics, so I took time last year to just build fitness and strength and now I’m up to the highest mileage [that I’ve done] consistently, and I feel really good about it.

That must have been so defeating to have it happen again.
It was. The first time it happened, in May 2024 (leading up to the Olympic Trials), I definitely raced on something that I shouldn’t have raced on. The second time, I knew something was wrong and we caught it very early, which helped a ton.

Do you think you were dealing with a REDs type of situation, or something else?
I think I was training too much and not consuming enough for the volume I was putting in. I never felt like I was in a big hole or really deficient, it just caught up to me quickly. But I think the biggest thing I did wrong was that in 2024, I got very fit off of cross training, I made the Olympic team, started intense training, ran the Fifth Avenue Mile, and then took a very short break.

It was my first time ending the season on my own terms in a while. In the past, my seasons ended because my calf blew up or I needed Achilles surgery. So I thought I could just take a break and then get back into things. But I didn’t cycle down and get unfit, or take enough of a break.

You mentioned backing off mileage previously. Have there been changes to your training that make it easier to handle the higher mileage now?
I feel like my intensity in workouts was quite high the past three years. Now it’s not quite as intense, and I’m getting more volume. And I’ve noticed that on my easy days, I’m able to run a little bit quicker and feel better. I think when you aren’t tired, your running form cleans up and you are at less risk for injury.

I imagine this ties into the coaching change you announced last week. When did you start working with Chris Miltenberg and how did you decide that would be the best fit?
I actually didn’t start working with him until after my indoor 5K on February 14. I was struggling to figure out what I wanted to do next. I was certain I wanted to be back in Portland, so I made that move in October. I was being coached remotely by Jerry (Schumacher), and Alex Ostberg, the team’s assistant coach, helped me a ton. He knew I was feeling a little lost with things and kind of took me under his wing. He helped me gear up for cross country and then figure out what my next steps would be.

Alex had been coached by Milt, and Emily Infeld, who is also in Portland now, is being coached by him. I had a really good conversation with him in the fall, but I didn’t want to rush anything, so I just kind of sat with that and really tried to think it through and talk to people. I just felt like his philosophy was such a good fit and he really believes in me.

When you moved to Portland, did you know you were leaving (the team formerly known as) Bowerman? Or was the move more about knowing you needed to be in Portland and figuring the rest out later?
That was definitely a difficult decision for me, because I’ve had so much success under Bowerman. I still have a very good relationship with everyone there. I think Jerry’s a very good coach. I was just really struggling—last year was the first time I [was healthy but] didn’t make a team. And I wasn’t even close. (She finished sixth in both the 5,000m and 10,000m at the 2025 USATF Outdoor Championships and did not qualify for the World Championships.)

That was a good wake-up call for me, because I also wasn’t happy. I’ve had seasons where I didn’t finish very well, but at least I was happy with other things in life. So hitting that double whammy, I felt like something needed to change. My boyfriend was living in Portland because he works at Nike, and I have a lot of friends there. I moved not really knowing how it was going to work out, because I felt very reliant on the group setting. But I took myself out of the comfort zone and everything fell into place after that.

I’ve barely done any workouts by myself, which has been amazing. I’ve been able to line up with Emily a bunch, my boyfriend has worked out with me a bunch, and a lot of people in my friend group ran in college, so some of them will pop in and out of workouts with me. I’ve also linked up with Sinclaire (Johnson). And Milt has been great and easy to communicate with.

Were you in a long distance relationship the entire time you were in Eugene?
Yes, he was in Portland the whole time, and we would just flip flop every weekend, so a lot of time on I-5, and that was getting pretty exhausting.

Is it easier to have a social life in Portland?
It’s funny because I was like I’m going to have such a big social life in Portland compared to Eugene. And I do. I’m doing things like going to a Blazers game or getting dinner with friends who aren’t on the team. But it feels like my life has slowed down a lot since being in Portland, and I think that’s because I’m not doing a two-hour trip every other weekend. I think that was adding a lot of unnecessary stress, and I didn’t realize how much until I was done with it.

One last Bowerman/Swoosh TC question. When all of your former teammates gradually moved on, what made you decide it was still the right place for you? And was it ever hard being the one who stayed?
Yeah, it definitely was. But I kind of felt clouded in a way because of my injuries. I had two Achilles surgeries between 2021 and 2023 and our PT was with me through the first surgery and I really wanted to do that (2024) Olympic build with her after my second surgery. I didn’t really feel like I had another option, and then in 2024, I had a lot of success.

But 2025 was an eye-opening year. Being a pro runner is such a cool job and I just felt like I wasn’t appreciating it the way I should.

And have you felt a change since moving?
Yeah, I feel way better about things. I was also getting pretty anxious leading into some workouts and I [felt like] every workout had to go perfectly, I had to be in this group to have success, and I had to be [coached by] Jerry to have success. I took a step back and realized that the true person having the success is myself and I’m the driver of this. I think just being able to have a little more control in my career has lit this new fire under me. I’m by no means taking any step back by moving to Portland and not working with the team. My goals are all the same, if not higher. I’m just doing it a little bit differently.

And just to be clear, even though you’re no longer with the Swoosh TC Eugene hub, you’ll remain a Nike athlete, correct?
Yes. They were great throughout the whole process. I feel like they really just wanted me to find a situation I was happy with.

You touched on this a little, but what has been different about the training?
It’s subtle tweaks here and there. It kind of reminds me of how I was coached in college, which I really loved. It’s a little more focus on really dialing in the strength work, having more pace variations [based] on how you feel throughout the workout, and having hard [efforts] , but having them very scheduled. I feel like I was kind of overachieving in the past, by no fault of anyone else. I like to go very hard in workouts, and I kind of needed to be held back a bit.

Is Milt able to do that from afar? Or are you doing a good job of doing it for yourself?
It’s been good because I have a little bit more of a range, and the paces are a little bit more conservative in general. That way, if I go a tiny bit harder, it’s not [a big deal]. I have also been adding in a little bit more double threshold work, and that forces you to dial it back a little bit, because if you have two workouts in one day, you do not want to go too hard on the first one. I’m still learning, obviously, but that’s been a good cap for me.

It’s wild to me that because 2019 was your first full year of professional running, other than 2020, this is the first off year (with no global outdoor championship) that you’ve had in your professional career.
Yeah, and I would not count 2020 as an off year for me. We called it the Bowerman Olympics and that was such a hard year on my body. I ran my 5K PB that year, and we were doing all these Covid races.

So do things feel lighter in an off year?
I wouldn’t say it feels lighter, but it feels like there’s room to try new things, like dipping into a road race, and I’ve really been enjoying that. It’s also a really good time for me to be taking on some new training and just being able to give myself some grace. A lot of times you switch training and it’s immediately into World year or Olympic year, and if you don’t make [the team], you’re immediately blaming yourself. But there’s time for an adjustment period this year.

Without asking you to spoil any surprises, can you say anything about where we might expect to see you this year, or what kinds of things are exciting you racing-wise, as you get to experiment more?
I’ll do another road race here soon, which is going to be my longest distance so far—longer than a 10K. I’m very excited about that.

And do you hate being asked about the marathon? Is that something you want to do while you’re still a pro?
I’m definitely getting pushed into it by a lot of people. When I first got asked about that as a pro, I was like, of course, I’m definitely doing the marathon. But once I saw firsthand what the marathoners did in training, I was like I don’t think I want to do that. But what I love about the marathon is that you can be successful with so many different approaches, and it’s cool to see the [various] paths. So yeah, it’s something that has been exciting me, but I want to do a half or something a bit longer to get a taste before I decide to go for it. But I’ll definitely run a marathon professionally at some point.

I also wanted to ask about a completely different chapter of your running career. In doing some research prior to our conversation, I read that you never won a state cross country title and you only won one track title. Is that true?
Yes, I won one state title as a freshman in high school and honestly, I only won it because Shelby (Houlihan) was supposed to be in that race and decided to run a 400m instead.

You were 155th at the NCAA Cross Country Championships your freshman year, you didn’t qualify as a sophomore, and then you won the whole thing your junior year. How did you get from point A to point B?
Unlike a lot of high schoolers these days, I had zero knowledge of anyone else’s training and I didn’t even add up what my weekly mileage was. So I was pretty undertrained in high school, and I just had a lot of fun with it. We had a pretty good team, though, and won some state titles. Individually, there was always a big star and I was always getting seconds and thirds.

The coach that recruited me to the University of Missouri left, so I was kind of taking a gamble on the new coach, but he ended up being so perfect for me. He [considered] what I did during high school and built me up so slowly. My freshman year, even just making it to nationals was a big accomplishment. And then my sophomore year was difficult—just typical college fluctuations and I got sick at the wrong time—but during the track season, I was building momentum.

My junior year (at the NCAA Cross Country Championships), my coach had so much belief in me and I had a very good team surrounding me. I toed that line having no business winning the race, but my coach was like the weather’s terrible, really anything can happen. Just stick your nose in it. I came away with the win and pretty much shocked everyone. And from there, I just reached a whole new level.

I love that and I hope that people who undertrain in high school will continue to have lots of good opportunities to develop during college.
I hope so. It’s been hard to see the landscape shifting so much, because there’s just a lot of unknowns with how much intensity in high school will affect your college and pro career.

The bar in terms of what’s competitive at the top of the sport has also been moving rapidly the entire time you’ve been a pro. I assume a lot of that is because of super shoes, but there are other factors as well. What has that been like?
The shoes are great—they help you recover a bit more and push your body a little bit more. Because we were introduced to super shoes pretty early, we [had a lot to learn] about how to use them. The training they allow you to do can take a toll on your body eventually, and [can lead to] different injuries. I’m starting to realize that so many people are getting the same injuries that I got.

It obviously existed before then, but I don’t think I had heard of Haglund’s surgery until Gwen Jorgensen got it. And these days, I can’t stop hearing about it.
So many people have had it, and it’s the worst injury. I would never wish it on anyone—it’s just like constant pain.

You were the guinea pigs. Are you now more strategic about when you wear super shoes?
When you wear them, but also your strength program. Now there’s a lot of emphasis on calf strengthening, but that’s something none of us were doing. The shoes help give you perfect form. If you don’t have that already, it can take a big toll on your muscles and everything else. But strength training seems to help a lot.

Another popular tool these days is bicarb. You’ve mentioned having a rough time with it. Are you still not a bicarb user?
Unfortunately I’m not. I wish I could be, but I’ve just had a couple very bad experiences with my stomach. It’s more like bicarb doesn’t want me. On the way to the [USATF 1 Mile Road Championships] in Des Moines last year, I was puking out the side of the car. That was when I was like okay, this is too risky for me.

Reading some of the older stories about you, it’s clear how much of a role your grandfather has played in your running career. Is he still involved?
Yeah, he’s been so great. Both of my grandparents are. Travel is a little bit more difficult for them now, so they watch on television most of the time, but I’m always calling him the night before races. In high school and college, it was more about getting reassurance from him. Now we chat more about what’s going on and how he’s going to watch, and he wishes me good luck. It’s such a special bond that we’ve created throughout the years and I truly feel like he was my first coach.

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USATF gets special permission to race seven women at the world road running championships

USATF announced last week that following an unfortunate series of events at the U.S.’s selection race, World Athletics will allow seven U.S. athletes to race the half marathon at the World Athletics Road Running Championships in September. The team spots will be offered to the first three athletes who were led off course at the USATF Half Marathon Championships—Jess McClain, Emma Grace Hurley, and Ednah Kurgat—as well as the top three runners across the finish line: Molly Born, Carrie Ellwood (also led off course), and Annie Rodenfels. The seventh spot will go to an athlete with the highest world ranking as of May 5.

The solution is about as good as anyone could have hoped for once the lead vehicles made the wrong turn. I’m honestly a little surprised World Athletics went for it, because it wasn’t their mess to clean up, and it does give the U.S. an unfair advantage. But I’m thankful they did. (In their press release, World Athletics noted that USATF is one of their leading member federations, so while I like to believe that other countries would have received the same treatment, I don’t know.)

There are several caveats here. In order to minimize the advantages that the U.S. will have, only four athletes will be eligible to contribute to the team scoring, and the scorers must be designated in advance. The non-scoring runners will wear different uniforms and won’t be allowed to form a pack with the scoring athletes. (I’m curious how they plan to enforce that.) The non-scorers will be able to earn world ranking points, and if they finish in a spot that would have earned them prize money, USATF will pay them the corresponding amount.

To me, the most interesting line in USATF’s press release is the one that says, “The scorers will be determined with input from the athletes once the final team is known and all athletes have accepted their place on the team.” If USATF has ever relied on athlete input to select a team, I’m not aware of it. Perhaps I’m reading way too much into it, but that made me wonder if USATF is counting on Born, Ellwood, and Rodenfels insisting that the McClain, Hurley, and Kurgat have dibs on the scoring spots.

Up to this point, for understandable reasons (like avoiding lawsuits), USATF has gone to great lengths to stick to its published selection criteria as much as possible. If they were to designate McClain/Hurley/Kurgat as the scorers, they could be accused of not following their own selection criteria. But if the athletes make the decision, well, that’s out of USATF’s hands.

I was glad to see all of the athletes involved respond favorably to the announcement; they have been champs throughout all of this. And I hope that it can all be resolved amicably from here. It really is a best case scenario given the unfortunate circumstances. And there will certainly be more eyes on this U.S. team in September than there otherwise would have been.

Emma Bates and UCan have differing accounts of how their partnership ended

Emma Bates posted an Instagram reel last week that began, “So, since my fueling company dropped me after telling them I was pregnant, I have been trying a bunch of new gels.” With that one sentence, without even naming the company, she undid a lot of the goodwill that UCan has built up in recent years through their support of female professional runners. Very quickly, Front Office Sports, The Athletic (subscription required), and others were on the story. People all over social media were outraged, and they let UCan know it.

In a message to Fast Women, UCan said that Bates’ agreement expired at the end of 2025, and in September 2025, they determined that they needed to rework all of their 2026 contracts. (Keira D’Amato said in a post last week that she is no longer with UCan either.) UCan maintains that in November, before they knew of Bates’ pregnancy, they offered her a revised agreement for 2026, which included a lower rate and “reduced deliverables.” They provided a more detailed timeline of events, which is available here.

In December, it sounds like there was some discussion around whether UCan could offer Bates a deal she would be happier with. It was also around this time that UCan learned of her pregnancy. But they say there were “no firm and final offers that both sides agreed to at this stage.” I suspect this is the stage at the root of their disagreement. Ultimately, in January 2026, they say they offered her an annual partnership that matched what they proposed in November 2025, and she turned it down.

Bates hasn’t said anything further about the matter thus far, but she’ll be on the Ali on the Run Show tomorrow. As Sarah Lorge Butler pointed out to me last week, this is one of those rare situations where the athlete potentially has more power than the brand. I don’t know how much this has set UCan back, but I imagine they would have been better off had they just extended Bates’ 2025 agreement for another year.

Before Bates’ post on Tuesday, I was working on a related story. It won’t be ready for a little while, but much more to come.

Other News

• Sifan Hassan has withdrawn from the London Marathon due to an Achilles injury.

• Claire Green announced that she has signed a pro deal with Tracksmith.

• Elle St. Pierre missed World Indoors due to a “personal family matter,” and last week, she shared that she recently received devastating news about her father’s health.

• The London Marathon is looking into holding a two-day event in 2027, which would allow 100,000 runners to take part in the race. The women’s and men’s elite races would be on separate days, which could be fun.

• Last week, there were a lot of headlines about the IOC banning trans women from the Olympics. While that’s technically true, since the IOC began allowing trans competitors at the Olympics in 2004, only one trans woman has taken part (in 2021). The real headline is that the IOC will begin requiring everyone who wants to compete in the women’s category at the Olympics to undergo sex testing, following track & field’s lead. Many experts have said that using the SRY gene test to determine sex is problematic, including the person who discovered the gene, but they’re going ahead with it anyway. All athletes in the women’s category will be affected by this, but especially those who learn through this testing that they aren’t considered to be women in the eyes of the IOC. We’ve been here before, but the pool of people who are affected by this just got much larger, so it will be interesting to see if and how athletes from other sports push back on the policy. Some relevant resources I’ve appreciated this past week: Reo Eveleth, host of the Tested podcast, has a newsletter that’s helpful in times like these. Eveleth and Julie Kliegman were on Burn It All Down, and a number of experts were on The End of Sport. Chris Mosier’s Instagram updates are also informative.

Results Highlights

• Ethiopia’s Likina Amebaw won the Berlin Half Marathon in 1:05:07. (Results)

• Kenya’s Caroline Gitonga won the Prague Half Marathon in 1:06:16, and Ednah Kurgat, the lone American in the field, took fifth in a personal best of 1:08:25. (Results)

• Australia’s Claudia Hollingsworth edged out Great Britain’s Georgia Hunter Bell to win the 1500m at the Maurie Plant Meet, 4:01.30 to 4:01.52. Hunter Bell was only six days removed from winning 1500m gold at world indoors. Australia’s Rose Davies won the 3,000m in 8:45.13. (Results)

• Shelby Houlihan won the 10,000m at The TEN in 30:50.10, which ranks her 10th on the U.S. all-time list. Houlihan set out at American record pace but didn’t stay on it for long. She had already slowed by 5K, which she hit in about 15:15, and she hung on from there. Jess McClain broke away from the chase pack and took second in 31:15.49. With no championship 10,000m races to qualify for this year, this event didn’t attract quite as much depth this time around. Gabbi Jennings won the 1500m in 4:07.69. (Results)

• Kenya’s Everlyn Kemboi won the Cooper River Bridge Run 10K in 31:15, Katie Izzo took second (31:27), and Annie Frisbie was third in (31:37). (Results)

• Elly Henes won a very wet 5,000m at Raleigh Relays in 15:14.28. Heat eight of the 5,000m was interrupted by lightning 3,400m in, and the affected athletes got a second chance to race a full 5,000m the following morning. Florida’s Hilda Olemomoi (32:03.59) and Judy Chepkoech (32:04.01) went 1-2 in the 10,000m. McKenna Keegan won the 1500m in 4:08.29, and Ohio State’s Aniya Mosley, the top collegian, took second in 4:08.54. (Results)

• Sunday was a big day for 2028 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials qualifiers at the MicrOTQ marathon at New York’s Rockland Lake State Park. Canada’s Dayna Pidhoresky won the race in 2:31:09. Behind her, 11 women earned Trials qualifiers: Jessica Donohue (2:34:40), Annabel Stafford (2:35:07), Brooke Starn (2:35:22), Hanna O’Connor (2:35:32), Brooke Wildermuth (2:35:48), Brittany Alvarez (2:35:58), Kelsie Vicknair (2:36:02), Maura Lemon (2:36:02), Megan Connolly (2:36:03), Ainsley Pressl (2:36:12), and Hannah Rowe (2:36:25). This brings the total number of athletes who have hit the women’s standard to 123 so far. And with the Trials still two years away and the half marathon qualifying window not open yet, I imagine we’re going to end up with a larger field than originally expected. Joanna Stephens ran 2:37:03 and just missed qualifying. (Results | Video of some of the qualifiers finishing)

• Abbe Goldstein won the 7K race at the Saucony Love Run Philly outright, running 23:37. (Results)

Podcast Highlights

• I’m biased, but I really enjoyed hearing from former NYRR president and CEO (and my former boss) Mary Wittenberg on NYRR’s Set the Pace. She comes on around the 9:00 mark. (And speaking of NYRR, this is an interesting Runner’s World article about local runners struggling to get into their races.)

• Emily Venters was on The Endurance Lab Podcast, and it was interesting to hear her say Ed Eyestone’s training might need some tweaking to be the right fit for her.

• Emma Grace Hurley, who is running the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile on April 12, was on the Blossom Banter podcast.

• I recently featured Lindsey Butler here. For a little more from her in audio form, she was on I’ll Have Another.

• Gabi Rooker was on both The Running Explained Podcast and The Lane 9 Podcast. And while I was searching for the former, I also found and listened to Erika Kemp on Running Explained (which is from February).

Additional Episodes: Anna Gibson on Hurdle | Katie Izzo on RunWithAlliLive | Jane Maus, who recently won the Black Canyon 50K, on Trail Society

I know, this was another long one. You’ve already accomplished a lot this week if you’ve made it this far. Nice work :)

I am incredibly grateful to everyone who has supported Fast Women via Venmo or Patreon. This newsletter would not be possible without you. I hope all of you have the best week possible.

Alison

Georgia Hunter Bell’s patience and pacing pays off in the 1500m

Great Britain’s Georgia Hunter Bell, 32, showed a lot of promise as a young runner, but in 2017, after a rough experience in the NCAA, she quit running and began a career in cybersecurity. It wasn’t until five years later that she got the itch to try competing at a high level again. As recently as two years ago, she was having to beg meet directors to let her into races. Then she won Olympic bronze in the 1500m in 2024, and silver in the 800m at the World Outdoor Championships in 2025. And on Sunday, she became a world champion.

The 1500m final at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Toruń, Poland, was an interesting one as Ethiopia’s Birke Haylom jumped out to the front around 200 meters into the race, ran a 30-second lap, and quickly gapped the field. Haylom hit 800m in 2:05.30, with a three-second lead. But over the last three laps, the chase pack, led by Hunter Bell, began to reel her in. And with 150m to go, the lead group caught and dropped Haylom.

Catching Haylom was like a group project, and Hunter Bell was rewarded for her patience and her initiative in leading the charge. No one could hang with Hunter Bell as she ran a 29.34-second final 200m to win the race in 3:58.53. Australia’s Jessica Hull bounced back impressively after running the 1500m prelims on Friday and earning bronze in the 3,000m on Saturday. She finished second in an Oceanian record of 3:59.45.

Nikki Hiltz was fifth at the bell and had their work cut out for them on the final lap. They easily caught Haylom, but running down France’s Agathe Guillemot, an excellent kicker, was a bigger challenge. In the final strides, Hiltz willed themself onto the podium, edging out Guillemot for bronze, 3:59.68 to 3:59.71. “I have a really good last 50m,” they said after the race. “But I think I even have a really good last 10m.”

Though Guillemot narrowly missed out on the podium, she still came away with a national record. Haylom hung on to take fifth in 4:01.34.

Team USA has earned a fair number of world indoor medals in the 800m (nine) and 3,000m (11), but 1500m medals have been harder to come by over the years. In 2024 Hiltz earned silver in the 1500m and Emily Mackay earned bronze. But before that, the only U.S. athlete to medal on the women’s side was Regina Jacobs, who won gold in 1995 and 2003. (And then she tested positive for a designer steroid in 2003 and was banned the following year.)

Running in her first global championship on the track, Gracie Morris had a strong showing. In the first round, she ended up in a heat with the eventual gold and silver medalist, but she held her own, stuck right on them, and advanced to the final, where she finished seventh in 4:03.75. Until now, she hasn’t been able to get into a lot of the top races, so she lacked international experience, but she’s learning quickly. (Results | 1500m replay)

Keely Hodgkinson leaves no doubt in the 800m, Addy Wiley earns bronze

The 800m final was a one-woman race for first and a three-woman race for the remaining two medals. Great Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson led wire-to-wire to win her first world indoor title in a championship record of 1:55.30.

Audrey Werro pulled away from Addy Wiley and Ethiopia’s Nigist Getachew over the final 150m to earn silver in a Swiss record of 1:56.64. And Wiley moved by Getachew with about 120m to go and held on to finish third in 1:58.36, running her second personal best in two days.

Hodgkinson is such an accomplished runner that it’s hard to believe she had never won a world title before, indoors or out. Thanks to injuries, this was her first time even making it to the starting line at world indoors. Despite that, she came into the meet as the heaviest favorite in all of the middle-distance/distance events. Carrying that much pressure can be tough, but at 24, she handles it like a veteran. She hit 200m in 27.26, 400m in 56.95 (29.69 split), 600m in 1:26.46 (29.51), and then picked up the pace to cover the final 200m in 28.84 seconds.

Last year at world indoors, Werro finished fourth, missing out on the medals by 0.01 seconds. This time, there was no doubt that she belonged on the podium. All three 800m medalists are young, but Werro, who was five days shy of her 22nd birthday, is the youngest.

And Wiley, 22, has long shown incredible promise, but this was the first time everything came together for her both at USAs to earn a spot on the team, and again in the rounds to earn a spot in the final. At USAs, she lowered her PR to 1:59.43. In the semifinals, she broke it again, running 1:58.75, and one day later, she shaved off another 0.39 seconds. She joins Ajee’ Wilson (2016, 2018, and 2022), Chanelle Price (2014), Erica Moore (2012), Alysia Montaño (2010) and Joetta Clark (1993, 1997) as the sixth U.S. woman to earn an 800m medal at world indoors.

Hodgkinson had to hold off on fully celebrating her win as she returned to the track less than an hour later to anchor Great Britain’s 4x400m relay team. She split 50.10 seconds and helped the team to a fifth-place finish.

A week after falling in the prelims and failing to advance to the NCAA final, Penn State’s Hayley Kitching ran two excellent rounds to make it to the final, where she finished fifth in 2:00.50. The 21-year-old handled the disappointment of NCAAs with such class and then made the most of her opportunity in Toruń.

Valery Tobias’ world indoor experience was a bit like Kitching’s NCAA experience. She ran what appeared to be a strong race to finish second in her first-round heat, but then she found out she was DQed for stepping on the lane line more than once. I saw the results before I saw the race, and I wondered if she cut in too soon or made a blatant mistake. But the DQ wasn’t apparent to most people until after the fact. This is the level of error we’re talking about here.

She did not gain a major advantage, but officials need to draw the line somewhere, and she unfortunately ended up on the wrong side of it. Hopefully she can now channel any frustration into an excellent outdoor season. (Results | Replay of 800m final)

Nadia Battocletti wins her first global title, Emily Mackay earns 3,000m silver

Italy’s Nadia Battocletti, 25, has proven in recent years that she’s an excellent championship performer. In 2024, she earned an Olympic silver medal in the 10,000m, and at last September’s World Outdoor Championships, she won silver in the 10,000m and bronze in the 5,000m. On Saturday in Poland, Battocletti finally had her opportunity to stand atop the podium on a global stage.

The first 12 laps of the 3,000m included a lot of jostling, as no one wanted to set a quick pace. All 15 competitors wanted to be in a good position, and there are only so many available. Four minutes into the race, Spain’s Marta Garcia was encroaching on Jessica Hull’s space. The Australian tried to hold her ground but lost her balance in the process. She put out a hand, and it looked like she pushed Ethiopia’s Freweyni Hailu down, but watching the replay, it seems the fall had more to do with their feet tangling.

Garcia was ultimately disqualified for starting the chain reaction. Hailu went down hard, but thanks to the relatively slow pace, she was able to work her way back up to the pack. But when it came time to kick, she didn’t have her usual gears. The fall robbed her of a fair shot at seeing what she could do here, and the sport is just really cruel like that sometimes. Hailu came in as a two-time champion, having won the 1500m in 2024 and the 3,000m in 2025, so she was a strong medal favorite.

The racing really began with about 700m to go, when the three eventual medalists moved to the front. Hull went to the lead with 300m to go, but Battocletti overtook her with just over 100m remaining. No one could match Battocletti’s finishing speed, and she won in 8:57.64. Mackay caught Hull in the homestretch and they had a close battle to the finish, with Mackay getting the edge, 8:58.12 to 8:58.18. Battocletti covered her final 200m in 28.54 seconds and her last 400m in 57.0.

Though Battocletti’s win seemed foreseeable from afar, she said afterward that due to her recent circumstances, she wasn’t expecting this result. “I surprised myself especially because I finished Ramadan just two days ago,” she said. “I also recently finished my exams, so it was a difficult time for me. I knew I was in good shape but I was still surprised when I crossed the finish line.”

Ethiopia’s Aleshign Baweke took fourth in 9:00.26, and Turkey’s Silan Ayyildiz (fifth, 9:02.11) ran down Hailu (sixth, 9:02.41) in the homestretch. I was impressed by Ayyildiz, who finished higher at world indoors than she did in any individual event at the NCAA Indoor Championships one week earlier. And at NCAAs, she had a tough schedule, running the 800m leg of the winning DMR, two rounds of the mile, and the 3,000m final. The other NCAA runner in this race, Sweden’s Vera Sjöberg, also had a strong showing, finishing seventh in 9:03.57.

Margot Appleton finished 14th in 9:12.57 and gained important international championship racing experience.

Mackay already had a 1500m bronze from world indoors in 2024, and she was pleased to move up the podium this time out. U.S. women winning distance medals in outdoor global championships is still relatively rare, but they have a nice streak going in the 3,000 at world indoors. A woman from the U.S. has now medaled in the 3,000m at the last four editions of the meet, with Elle St. Pierre earning gold in 2024 and silver in 2022 and Shelby Houlihan earning silver in 2025. (Results | Race highlights)

Other World Indoor Notes

• Ethiopia tried to send 10 athletes to compete in Poland, but only six of them made it, due to visa troubles. Tsige Duguma, the 2024 world indoor 800m champion, was among those unable to travel. Also left home were Saron Berhe and Haregeweyn Kalayu, both scheduled to run in the women’s 1500m, and one male 1500m runner. The Athletic has a little more (subscription required). Freweyni Hailu’s bad luck in the 3,000m was certainly a factor, but this was an uncharacteristically poor championship for the athletes who did compete, as Ethiopia earned no medals.

• Sunday was a great day for both the M11 Track Club and Great Britain. In a 30-minute span, M11 teammates Georgia Hunter Bell and Keely Hodgkinson won gold, and they celebrated with Molly Caudery, who won gold in the pole vault.

• With Emily Mackay’s silver and Nikki Hiltz and Addy Wiley’s bronze medals, this was the first time ever that the U.S. has medaled in the 800m, 1500m, and 3,000m at a world indoor championship on the women’s side.

• After winning the 800m at the NCAA Indoor Championships for Clemson less than a week earlier, Kenya’s Gladys Chepngetich struggled at worlds. She finished fifth of five in her first-round 800m heat, running 2:02.23. She explained to Jonathan Gault that after NCAAs, which were in Arkansas, she had to travel to Washington, DC, to get her visa. The process was delayed, so she spent two days there, missed her original flight to Poland, and arrived only the night before her race.

• I appreciated this part of Jessica Hull’s post race quotes after the 3,000m: “If there is a race for medals anywhere in the world, I will be there!”

• After the second round of the 800m, Addy Wiley answered a question about her training setup that seemed to suggest that she’s now coached by her mother, or self coached. But when asked for clarification after the final, she gave a response that didn’t fully clear things up.

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Emma Grace Hurley sets an American 8K record in Chicago

After a frustrating experience at the USATF Half Marathon Championships, Emma Grace Hurley bounced back with a fantastic run at Sunday’s Shamrock Shuffle in Chicago. In cold and windy conditions, she ran 24:29 and shaved seven seconds off of Deena Kastor’s 21-year-old American 8K record, set at the same race in 2005. Kastor was on hand to watch her record go down and celebrate with Hurley.

Hurley set out at a blazing pace, hitting 5K in 15:07, which is significantly faster than her PR, and she held on to average 4:56/mile for 8K. Her 5K split bodes well for her chances at the USATF 5K Championships, which she plans to race on May 2 in Indianapolis.

The race attracted a deep field, with Karissa Schweizer taking second in 24:56 and Courtney Frerichs finishing third in 26:08. Apparently this was Schweizer’s first road race ever longer than one mile. She announced last week that she has left the Bowerman Track Club/Swoosh TC Eugene hub, she’s moved back to Portland, and she’s being coached by UNC coach Chris Miltenberg. She’s been training with her partner, Kellen Manley, and Emily Infeld, who is also coached by Miltenberg. (Results)

Other News and Podcast Highlights

• I initially missed this amusing moment from the NYC Half. Hellen Obiri was running on Agnes Ngetich’s right shoulder when her hand or watch briefly got caught in Ngetich’s hair. The clip is viewable here.

• South Africa’s Dom Scott announced that after 10 years of running professionally for Adidas, she’s moving on to a new chapter with her running.

• Nell Rojas announced that she has signed with Altra.

• I received a comment and an email from people who were unhappy with aspects of what I wrote about Fotyen Tesfay’s marathon debut last week. I stand by everything I was trying to say, but when I looked back, I don’t think I did the best job with the wording or backing up my points in the rush of last Sunday. (It was an unexpected news item on a busy weekend.) So I apologize for that. My preferred way to cover such things is to write something, and then sleep on it and see if it makes sense the next day. But that wasn’t possible. One person told me I wrote that Tesfay was probably not doping. I definitely did not write that, because I don’t believe that. But that’s a good sign my wording was not clear. (And this is not me saying she is doping. I don’t know.) I think unprecedented performances need to be viewed with a certain level of skepticism given the history of our sport. It’s just that jumping straight to “she’s obviously doping,” based solely on the time, makes me uncomfortable. And I think we’re going to miss celebrating some clean women’s accomplishments if that becomes the standard mode of operation, especially because women’s distance performances have been improving at a mind-blowing rate across all levels of the sport. I appreciated Jonathan Gault’s piece for LetsRun, which provides more context about Tesfay’s career and training setup. It proves nothing either way, but it’s good background. And I was interested to hear on the Podium Athletics podcast that the commentary team covering the race didn’t even know about the record attempt.

• Earlier this month, Abby Shoemaker, 26, qualified for the 2028 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials less than seven years after her mother, Perry Shoemaker, qualified for the 2020 Trials, at age 48. Sarah Lorge Butler wrote about them for Runner’s World.

• I haven’t yet had a chance to read it, but I was interested to hear that Alisa Harvey, a long time star of the sport who represented the U.S. at many world championships, recently published a book called All My Trials. The promotional copy makes it sound like she overcame a lot along the way, and I’m looking forward to checking it out.

• David Monti wrote about Megan Keith’s strong half marathon debut at the NYC Half. Keith, 23, who represents Scotland, finished third in 1:07:13.

• There weren’t enough relevant podcasts last week for them to get their own section, but Kellyn Taylor talked about her strong run at the LA Marathon, becoming a firefighter, and being unsponsored on I’ll Have Another. And she said she’d still like to break her 2:24:29 marathon PR. Emily Venters was on NYRR’s Set the Pace podcast with former NFL player Justin Britt, because she is coaching him. Venters, who had a rough marathon debut in Chicago, said she’ll probably do another marathon this summer. And Jadyn Keeler, of the University of North Dakota, was on the Athletics Ontario Running Podcast.

Additional Results

• Anna Oeser won Trials of Miles’ Project 13.1 at New York’s Rockland Lake State Park, running a PR of 1:10:35. The race attracted a deep field, with Canadians Elissa Legault (1:11:25) and Florence Caron (1:11:49) taking second and third and 12 athletes breaking 74 minutes. (Results)

• Tessa Barrett won the DC Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon by more than five minutes, running 1:12:16.

• Former University of Virginia standout Jenny Schilling won the Shamrock Run Fest 8K in Portland, Oregon, running 26:03. Her prize? Thirteen cases of beer. (Results)

• Sophie King won the Shamrock 8K in Virginia Beach, running 27:13. Anna Benedettini won the half marathon in 1:14:11. (Results)

• Courtney Dauwalter was planning to run the Tenerife Bluetrail 110K in the Canary Islands on Friday, but a storm canceled the race. She made a quick pivot and got herself to Spain in time for Saturday’s Chianti 120K, which she won (11:31:55) after a great battle with Norway’s Yngvild Kaspersen (second, 11:33:34) and Rachel Entrekin (third, 11:38:13). (Results | Race recap from iRunFar)

• Michelle Rohl, 60, and Great Britain’s Clare Elms, 62, have waged quite the back-and-forth over the 60-64 age-group world records during the indoor season. Rohl set the 3,000m record in December, Elms lowered it in January, and Rohl reclaimed it earlier this month. And things have gone similarly in the mile. Rohl ran 5:26.65 at the end of January to break the record, and Elms lowered it to 5:25.07 11 days later. And on Friday, Rohl reclaimed it, running 5:23.98 at the NYRR Night at the Races Champs. And given that it’s tough to find indoor races this time of year, it appears that Rohl will keep these records for a little while. (Results)

Assuming I didn’t mess up the count somewhere along the way, this is the 400th issue of Fast Women. I probably should have done something special to mark the occasion, but the timing didn’t work out. I’m excited about my next project, though, and I’ve already started interviews for that, so much more to come. Thanks to everyone who’s been part of this for any length of time, and I am endlessly grateful to everyone who has provided financial support via Venmo or Patreon to help keep it going.

I hope you all have a good week.

Alison

Jane Hedengren becomes first freshman to win NCAA 3,000m/5,000m double

Top high school runners often win their races by leading wire to wire, but it’s rare that the same strategy translates well to NCAA racing. But BYU freshman Jane Hedengren is so good, and her pacing was so methodical, that she pulled it off over the weekend, winning the 5,000m/3,000m double at the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

The level of competition is rising so quickly in the NCAA that just when we think we’ve seen something that will be hard to top, another athlete comes through and pulls it off. Two years ago, Parker Valby ruled the NCAA distance events, winning five national titles in one academic year. Last year, Alabama’s Doris Lemngole took over and won three titles. After she won another cross country title in November, it looked like Lemngole’s reign might continue, but Hedengren, 19, had other plans.

On Friday, Hedengren gradually pulled away from Lemngole and New Mexico’s Pamela Kosgei over the final three laps of the 5,000m and won her first national title in 15:00.12. And on Saturday, Hedengren led the 3,000m from the gun, pulled away over the final kilometer, earned her second national title, and broke Valby’s two-year-old meet record, running 8:36.61. While others have won the double, Hedengren was the first true freshman to do so.

In the 5,000m, I was impressed by Hedengren’s closing speed. Thus far, she hasn’t been known for her kick, but she put the hurt on everyone around her, running 33.14, 31.81, and 32.62 for her final three laps.

The race started slowly and Hedengren did initially try just chilling in the pack, but less than two minutes in, she had had enough. She moved to the front—a good strategy as far as staying out of traffic and running the shortest distance—but didn’t start ratcheting down the pace until about a mile in. Her splits were a work of art, and though it might not have been visible watching the race, her competitors undoubtedly felt her gradually squeeze down the pace.

Lemngole ran a really solid race, finishing second in 15:03.42, but she didn’t look like herself at all. Shortly after the race, I posted on Bluesky saying there had to be a story there, because while she has continued to run well, she has been lacking some of her usual gears since the Millrose Games. The following day, we got a little bit of the story when Lemngole scratched from the 3,000m final. The commentators said she had been battling a tendon issue in her foot since Millrose.

I don’t want to take anything away from Hedengren’s performance, because she beat everyone in the NCAA, including Lemngole, but it felt like we didn’t get to see a true Hedengren vs. Lemngole matchup here. I don’t know what caused Lemngole’s injury, but she’s due for a break. She ran so well last spring and summer that her track season stretched until September 17, when she finished fifth in the steeplechase at the world championships. By then, the cross country season was already underway. Whatever she is dealing with, I hope that she can now take the time to take care of it.

The other All-American finishers in this race were Kosgei (third, 15:07.76), Florida’s Hilda Olemomoi (fourth, 15:14.51), Florida’s Judy Chepkoech (fifth, 15:14.58), Eastern Kentucky’s Edna Chelulei (sixth, 15:15.10), West Virginia’s Joy Naukot (seventh, 15:19.63), and Arkansas’ Sydney Vaught (eighth, 15:21.43). Ten out of the 16 qualifiers were Kenyan, a dramatic increase compared to last year’s field, which had three. This year’s race had four U.S. athletes, compared to eight last year. And the other two were Canadian.

The 3,000m was a little less dramatic than the 5,000m, as it seemed pretty clear early on how it was going to play out, especially without Lemngole in the field. While Hedengren ran the 5,000m like a progression run, her 3,000m splits were more even. She split 34-point for the first 13 laps, and 33.81 and 33.16 for her last two.

It was fun to watch Liberty’s Allie Zealand move into second place with four laps to go and briefly look like she might have it in her to start chasing Hedengren down. Twenty-four years earlier, on the same track, her mother, Heather (Sagan) Zealand won the NCAA mile title. That would have been a fun storyline, but finishing fifth on the track where her mother, who now coaches her, won is also pretty cool.

Kosgei was the best of the rest, taking second in 8:43.86. The other All-American finishers were New Mexico’s Marion Jepngetich (third, 8:44.00), Iowa State’s Betty Kipkore (fourth, 8:44.28), Zealand (fifth, 8:45.12), North Carolina’s Vera Sjoberg (sixth, 8:48.70), South Carolina’s Salma Elbadra (seventh, 8:49.49), and Oklahoma State’s Billah Jepkirui (eighth, 8:50.16).

Only three runners (Jepngetich, Zealand, and BYU’s Jenna Hutchins) ran the 3,000m fresh; the other 12 were doubling back from the mile, 5,000m, and/or the distance medley relay. The 3,000m qualifiers were a little more internationally balanced, with six runners from the U.S., six from Kenya, and one each from Sweden, Morocco, Canada, and Turkey. (5,000m results, 3,000m results, 5,000m replay, 3,000m replay)

Experience pays off as Wilma Nielsen repeats as NCAA mile champion

I think a number of athletes will play back the NCAA indoor mile final in their minds and wish they had done something different. No one wanted to lead, so the field went through 800m in 2:30. The race didn’t really get going until 400m to go. Defending champion Wilma Nielsen of Oregon showed her experience by running in or near the lead, in lane one, for most of the race. And a combination of good positioning and good finishing speed helped her repeat as champion, in 4:40.06. She covered the last 400m in 58.68 seconds and became the first woman to earn back-to-back titles in this event since Suzy Favor did so in 1990.

Washington State’s Rosemary Longisa edged out NC State freshman Sadie Engelhardt by 0.008 seconds to take second. Both ran 4:40.21. Longisa, who doesn’t have a lot of indoor championship racing experience, appeared to be one of the fittest runners in the field, but her tactics left something to be desired. She ran so much of the race in lane two that with 500m to go, commentator Dwight Stones, joked that she had already run a mile. She still had enough in her to summon a kick on the last lap. She led at the top of the homestretch, but tied up in the final strides, which allowed Nielsen to go by her.

No one closed faster than Engelhardt, who ran her last 400m in 58.64 seconds. But she was caught up in the pack when the kicking began, and she ran out of room to reel in the lead duo. Like last year, Nielsen is now off to represent Sweden at this weekend’s World Indoor Championships. This year, she’ll race the 1500m, and she’ll be joined in Poland by Longisa, who will represent Kenya in the 800m.

The other athletes to earn All-America honors here were Oklahoma State’s Billah Jepkirui (fourth, 4:40.70), BYU’s Riley Chamberlain (fifth, 4:40.80), Oregon’s Silan Ayyildiz (sixth, 4:41.06), NAU’s Hayley Burns (seventh, 4:41.30), and Oregon’s Juliet Cherubet (eighth, 4:41.51). (Mile results | Mile replay)

In the 800m, Gladys Chepngetich earns her first NCAA title

In last year’s NCAA indoor 800m final, Clemson’s Gladys Chepngetich finished eighth of eight runners, earning what was, until this past weekend, her highest finish at an NCAA championship. That race was won by UNC’s Makayla Paige, who led wire to wire after not winning the ACC title two weeks earlier.

I don’t know if Chepngetich had last year’s race in mind, but she employed a similar strategy on Saturday, leading from the start, but setting a reasonable pace that she could close off of. Her splits—28.01, 58.85 (30.82 lap), 1:29.88 (31.05), and 2:00.01 (30.13)—were eerily similar to Paige’s of last year. Though the three athletes behind her challenged her, Chepngetich closed well enough to hold all of them off and win her first NCAA title in 2:00.01, despite not having won the ACC title two weeks ago. Her shocked reaction as she crossed the finish line was one of the best of the weekend.

Making the most of their home track advantage, Arkansas’ Sanu Jallow-Lockhart (2:00.54) and Analisse Batista (2:00.57) went 2-3 and scored 14 points that helped secure their team’s fourth-place finish. (Thanks to other sports, in the NCAA, the top four teams make the podium.) I’ve been impressed by Batista this season. She had a breakthrough performance in the 800m at the SEC Indoor Championships last year, where she took third. But she has kept improving this season, and is now running at that level more consistently.

Stanford’s Juliette Whittaker put up a good fight and finished a close fourth in 2:00.68. The other All-Americans in the race were Kentucky’s Vanice Kerubo Nyagisera (fifth, 2:01.14), Minnesota’s Zoie Dundon (sixth, 2:01.42), Paige (seventh, 2:02.64), and Harvard’s Sophia Gorriaran (eighth, 2:03.03).

This was another event where it felt like we missed a key showdown. It’s impossible to say how Penn State’s Hayley Kitching would have fared in the final, but it was a shame that we didn’t get to find out. In her prelim, she was running in the middle of the pack when she went down hard on the third lap and lost about two seconds. She got up and fought back impressively, running the fastest final lap of anyone in the field by far. But she couldn’t reel everyone in and missed making the final by 0.45 seconds.

The broadcast didn’t provide a great view of what happened, but there was a protest, presumably from Kitching’s team, and it was denied. Kitching came into the meet as the second seed, behind Chepngetich, and ran the most impressive prelim by far, even if it wasn’t enough to get her to the final. I thought she handled the situation maturely on Instagram, where she wrote in a story, “Hey that’s track. You win some, you lose some.” Fortunately her indoor season is not over, as she’ll represent Australia at Worlds this weekend. (800m results | 800m replay)

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Oregon wins its first DMR title since 2019

With the middle-distance strength Oregon has, it’s surprising they hadn’t won the NCAA Indoor distance medley relay title since 2019, but a schedule change this year helped. Juliet Cherubet (1200m, 3:19.35), Lakely Doht-Barron (400m, 55.20), Silan Ayyildiz (800m, 2:04.42), and Wilma Nielsen (1600m, 4:29.81) teamed up on Friday night and brought the trophy back to Eugene.

Cherubet, Ayylildiz, and Nielsen all ran the mile prelims (and made the final) three hours earlier. In recent years, all of the NCAA indoor women’s events have been held back-to-back in one session. But this year, they’ve returned to alternating men’s and women’s events, which gave them a little more rest and made the double more doable.

Cherubet and Iowa State’s Makayla Clark handed off first and second on the 1200m leg, and Iowa State’s Jenna James built a solid lead for her team on the 400m leg. By the end of the 800m leg, BYU, Oregon, Iowa State, and Washington had separated themselves from the rest of the field, but their lack of urgency at the start of the anchor leg meant that five other teams moved back into contention, and with a lap to go, the race could have gone any number of ways.

Oregon’s Nielsen did enough to hold off a challenge from South Carolina’s Salma Elbadra, and they won 10:48.76 to 10:49.69. Elbadra’s 4:26.50 anchor leg was the fastest of the day. Iowa State took third (10:50.17), and Florida was fourth (10:50.21). The following day, Oregon’s milers went 1-6-8 in the final. (DMR results | DMR replay)

The kids are amazing, but we still don’t have enough people looking out for them

In addition to it being NCAA championship weekend for all three divisions, it was also national championship weekend for high school athletes. It felt like every time I opened Instagram, I saw posts about young athletes setting records or achieving major milestones. And maybe it’s a symptom of middle age, but my main thought when I see these posts is that I hope they’ve achieved their success in a sustainable way and that the adults around them know what they’re doing and have their best interests in mind.

When I first started following the sport decades ago, I took most of the coverage I consumed at face value. But it didn’t take long for me to start hearing stories about athletes who had accomplished incredible things, but at great personal cost. The Foot Locker finalist who was too injured to run at all in college, or the NCAA champion who was battling an eating disorder or sports-related mental health struggles. I saw a lot of it firsthand as a college athlete, and then even more as a coach. And now, I don’t seek out these types of stories for this newsletter, but I find that they are hard to avoid. Over the years, so many stories have emerged, including some that involve emotional and sexual abuse by coaches, or more subtle manipulation. And for every story I know, I’m sure there are many more that have never been told publicly.

While I’ve seen some progress over the time that I’ve followed the sport, it hasn’t come quickly enough. As I mentioned when I wrote about related topics last fall, new pressures have emerged, and there are more incentives than ever for young athletes to rush their progress. And these problems are present in various forms across all sports, with adults either not knowing any better, getting too caught up in young athletes’ success to see the problems, or being willing to overlook them because the athlete is continuing to perform well.

I think there are a lot of adults doing great work to help young runners, but I still don’t think there’s anywhere near enough widespread education or concern about helping young athletes pursue the sport in a way that’s healthy. Most parents of talented young runners have never been in that position before, and they have no blueprint to follow, and the same is true for a lot of high school coaches. College coaches should know better, but athletes’ success, however it is obtained, reflects well on them in the eyes of many, and it’s easy to get caught up in that and overlook the problems.

I’ve heard people argue that if a high school kid wants to burn bright at that level and then never again, that’s their prerogative. And yes, sure, if that’s truly what they want. But I think it’s hard to have to know that for sure so early in life. I mostly follow high school running so I won’t be surprised by who’s running well at the college level. And I follow college running because I think it’s one of the most exciting parts of the sport, but I’m not just interested in who’s winning. If recent history has shown us anything, it’s that anyone who makes it to the NCAA championships, and quite a few of those who don’t, could be the stars of the future.

There are a lot of incentives to be as fast as possible as soon as possible. But the best coaches in the sport are the ones who know how to guide athletes with their entire careers in mind. And sometimes, graduating healthy, with one’s love of running intact, room to grow in one’s training, and maybe a little bit of unfinished business can be just as valuable for an athlete as being the best at the high school or NCAA level. Maybe not in the eyes of the shoe companies doling out contracts, but in predicting long-term success.

How fast is a woman allowed to run, if she wants to avoid being accused of cheating?

I woke up Sunday morning to the news that Ethiopia’s Fotyen Tesfay, 28, had run 2:10:51, the second-fastest marathon of all time, to win the Barcelona Marathon in her debut at the distance. I reposted the news, and it didn’t take long for the accusations of doping to start rolling in. It made me wonder what time would have been acceptable here if she wanted to avoid them. A 2:14? A 2:16?

I agree that the news was surprising. I am used to learning that someone won a marathon in 2:16-2:22 while I was sleeping. But I wasn’t expecting such a fast time in Barcelona. I should have paid better attention, though, because apparently this was a world record attempt from the start. Tesfay followed two male pacers through halfway in 1:05:03, not far off pace to break Ruth Chepngetich’s world record of 2:09:56. She slowed slightly in the second half, running a still-amazing 1:05:48. Kenya’s Joan Jepkosgei Kiplimo finished nearly eight minutes back, running 2:18:40 for second.

“My plan was to attack the world record but today there was a lot of wind, I was not able to push in the last part of the race,” Tesfay said through an interpreter on the race broadcast. “Today I did not succeed, but in the next marathon I would like to try for the world record.”

I get that a 2:10 marathon, especially in one’s debut, is going to raise eyebrows. But if women are capable of running that fast without doping, Tesfay, the third-fastest half marathoner of all time, with a 1:03:21 personal best, was a good candidate to pull it off. And the fact that running fans haven’t heard of her is on them, frankly, because she has an impressive resume. I don’t know if any athlete I’ve written about in today’s newsletter is clean, but unless there’s solid evidence to the contrary, my default setting is to start by giving them the benefit of the doubt. Because I think it’s irresponsible for fans or members of the media to appoint themselves the arbiter of what’s real and what isn’t.

We tend to see these kinds of accusations more with women’s performances, which is ironic because men are the ones out there literally running faster than any human has before. And we tend to see them more in the marathon, too. I suspect that’s because people don’t understand quite as well what times mean at other distances.

In Chepngetich’s case, the doping allegations turned out to be true, and she’s now serving a three-year ban. But because her positive test didn’t come until five months after her world record, the record stands. Doping has robbed so many people of big moments in the sport, and it can be difficult to catch cheaters. But assuming athletes are doping, without solid evidence, isn’t the way to combat that. (Race recap | Results)

Agnes Ngetich inadvertently rabbits Hellen Obiri to an event record at the NYC Half

The top competitors at the NYC Half often start off conservatively, before gradually picking up the pace throughout the race. Not this year. Kenya’s Agnes Ngetich, a first-timer at this race, threw caution to the wind and led through 5K in a blazing 15:15. Given Ngetich’s resume, Kenyans Hellen Obiri and Sharon Lokedi and Ethiopia’s Fentaye Belayneh took her challenge seriously and went with her.

By 10K, Ngetich and Obiri had pulled away, but before 15K, Ngetich began to struggle. She faded quickly, which left Obiri alone, with a big lead, at the front of the race. Obiri slowed throughout, but the early pace was catching up to Lokedi, her closest competitor, too. With 5K splits of 15:15, 15:35, 16:01, and 16:11, Obiri hung on to win the race in 1:06:33 and take 31 seconds off of the event record that Lokedi set last year. Lokedi finished second in 1:07:10.

Great Britain’s Megan Keith, who had never raced longer than 10K, let the leaders go in early in the race. Her conservative strategy paid off as she ran a more evenly paced race and finished an impressive third in 1:07:13. Diane Van Es of the Netherlands, who also started aggressively, finished fourth in 1:08:21, and Belayneh faded but hung on to take fifth in 1:08:22.

U.S. runners finished sixth through 10th, with Emily Sisson (1:09:06) leading the way, followed by Amanda Vestri (seventh, 1:09:22), Annie Frisbie (eighth, 1:09:25), Susanna Sullivan (ninth, 1:09:38), and Emily Venters (10th, 1:09:46).

Ngetich stayed in the race but faded to 13th, running 1:10:25. Her manager told Race Results Weekly that she suffered from hypothermia. Given how far she was from the finish when she started struggling, that must have been really tough. Great Britain’s Eden Rainbow-Cooper dominated the wheelchair race, winning in 54:27. (Live results | Broadcast replay | Complete results, which include some incredible age-group performances)

Other News and Links

• When USATF announced the team for the World Athletics Indoor Championships on Friday, Elle St. Pierre’s name was missing. St. Pierre’s agent, Ray Flynn, told LetsRun’s Jonathan Gault that she will be skipping the event due to a “personal family matter.” I hope everything is okay. St. Pierre’s decision created a big opportunity for her New Balance Boston teammate, Margot Appleton. Appleton, a first-year pro, finished third in the 3,000m at USAs and will go in St. Pierre’s place. The entry lists for World Indoors are now available here and the schedule of events is here. The meet will air on Peacock.

• I was glad to see a Sarah Lorge Butler Runner’s World byline again as she provided an update on Emily Infeld, who recently announced that she is pregnant, and she is back to running professionally for Nike.

• I originally missed this, but Sarah Wassner Flynn wrote a good piece for Outside Run about legendary ultrarunner Ann Trason, who has rheumatoid arthritis, but still managed to cover 100 miles at Across the Years earlier this year.

• Speaking of brands signing pregnant athletes, Grayson Murphy announced last week that she has signed with Salomon, and I appreciated her talking about the signing and some of the less glamorous aspects of pregnancy on The Sub Hub Podcast. (For more, she was also on The Freetrail Podcast.)

• And speaking of Salomon, they have also signed Sweden’s Tove Alexandersson, who dominated the short trail world championships last year.

• Kaela Edwards wrote in an Instagram post that after nearly eight years with the brand, she is no longer sponsored by Adidas.

Additional Results

• Erika Kemp won the New Bedford Half Marathon in 1:11:36, and Jackie Gaughan took second in 1:12:59. (Results)

• Great Britain’s Naomi Robinson (3:13:39) and Katrina Ballantyne (3:17:24) went 1-2 at the IAU 50K World Championships, held in New Delhi, India. The event was originally scheduled for December 7 but was postponed due to poor air quality. Even with the delay, the Air Quality Index was 178 at the start, which is considered to be unhealthy. Melissa Tanner led the U.S. team, finishing 11th in 3:33:49. (Results)

• At the NCAA Division II Indoor Championships, Hillsdale’s Allison Kuzma won the 5,000m in 15:58.47, Adams State’s Ava O’Connor won the mile in 4:44.04, her teammate, Lieke Hoogsteen, won the 800m in 2:04.23, Lee University’s Aria Hawkins won the 3,000m in 9:18.46, and CSU-Pueblo’s Jadyn Herron, Gabrielle Dunich, Charlotte Young, and Helen Braybrook combined to win the DMR in 11:08.20. (Results)

• At the NCAA Division III Indoor Championships, Vassar’s Haley Schoenegge won the mile in 4:42.69, Calvin’s Sophie Bull won the 3,000m in 9:32.19, MIT’s Rujuta Sane won the 5,000m in 16:45.22, Washington University’s Kate Delia won the 800m in 2:07.69, and her teammates, Lauren Raley, Kylie Spytek, Kalena Riemer, and Lucinda Laughlin won the DMR in 11:29.59. (Results)

Podcast Highlights

• I appreciated getting a pre-World Indoors update from Nikki Hiltz on Fast People. I thought high school kids might appreciate hearing that Hiltz said they are less nervous when they line up to race now than they were competing at their state meet during high school. And I will watch my first season of Survivor if Hiltz ever fulfills their goal of making it onto the show.

• It was also good to get a post-USAs update from Emily Mackay on I’ll Have Another. She pointed out that she never won a state title in high school, so winning a U.S. title means a lot to her.

• Molly Seidel has a talent for finding a way to say different things on all the podcasts she’s on. She’s done a lot of interviews recently, but I still learned new things from her appearance on The Shakeout Podcast.

Additional Episodes: Maggi Congdon was recently on the USATF Journey to Gold Zone Podcast (which is only available in select podcast players) | Jordan (Hasay) Hogan talked childbirth and the early months of parenting on C Tolle Run | Macy McRowe, a 2:36 marathoner, discussed the unconventional training that earned her an Olympic Trials qualifier on Road to the Trials | Lynn Blackstone, one of “the six who sat” in protest at the 1972 New York City Marathon, was on Starting Line 1928

I realize each one of these newsletters tends to be a novel, so I really appreciate those of you who care enough about the sport and what I have to say to make it to the end. I don’t know what I expected when I started writing these newsletters seven years ago, but thanks to those of you who have come along for the ride. I’ve been putting my start-of-the-year state-of-this-newsletter update off for weeks, because it never feels like the right time and I’m still not sure I know what to say about this bizarre and difficult past year. But I’ll get to it one of these days.

The World Athletics Council meets this week, so hopefully we’ll know at least a little more about the status of the U.S. half marathon team for the World Athletics Road Running Championships soon.

I know I say this almost every week, but I truly hope each one of you has the best week possible, and best of luck dealing with any challenges that lie ahead.

Alison