Women's Running Stories

Jasmine Santiago is a runner and podcaster: she's the host of Brown Girl Running, where she shares her own running story and interviews other BIPOC runners about their experiences. Santiago is one of the few BIPOC women to host a running podcast. But getting to this point has been a journey, with very steep ups and downs. In this episode, Santiago shares it all: the breaking point of trauma fueled...

Kassie Parker just finished one of the most successful NCAA DIII careers on record. On the indoor and outdoor track and in cross country, racing for Loras College, she set records, helped her team reach its first national title, and won numerous national titles herself. Parker graduated in May 2023 and immediately moved into her pro career. She ran her first post-collegiate pro-elite race at the U...

Sgt. Ednah Kurgat tells how it all went down at the recent USATF 6km National Championships in Canton, OH, July 15. Krugat runs as a member of the US Army's WCAP (World Class Athlete Program) and has primarily focused on cross-country and distance track racing, with a particular focus on the 10,000-meter. In January 2023, she won the USATF Cross-Country National Championships; this earned Kurgat h...

Liz Derstine is a musician, runner, writer, and as of 2020, a long-distance hiker. On July 7, 2020, she embarked on the life-altering adventure of through-hiking the 2,193-mile Appalachian Trail, as quickly as possible. Now, having had several years to reflect on this epic journey, Derstine tells her whole AT story: from what inspired her to want to hike the entirety of this daunting trail, to how...

This is a special bonus episode swap with the excellent woman hosted, women's sports podcast Hear Her Sports. Every other Thursday, Hear Her Sports host Elizabeth Emery brings you long-form interviews with women athletes and women in the sports world. Elizabeth is an excellent interviewer and her conversations are always engaging and informative. I love the way she brings listeners into the world...

Sika Henry is a professional triathlete, as well as a marathon and ultra runner. She is the first African American woman to earn her pro card in triathlon, which she did in 2021. And, in 2020, she ran a sub-3-hour marathon which added her name to The List, which accounts for all of the American-born Black women who have broken 3 hours in the marathon. There are currently 30 women on The List. Sika...

Christine Yu is a lifelong athlete and a runner, though it took time before she used either of those terms to identify herself. Yu is also a writer, and she focuses on the intersection of sports science and women athletes. These dual passions recently culminated in the much anticipated book Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes . This is ultimately the focus of Yu's story for t...

Nell Rojas is one of the best marathon racers in the U.S. having placed top American at both the 2021 and 2022 Boston Marathon. In this episode she shares how it all went down at the 2023 USATF 25k National Championships, which took place just one month after the 2023 Boston Marathon. But of course, there's so much more to the story than just one race. The 25k race, as it would turn out, was not t...

Professional runner Vanessa Fraser has raced at the highest levels of her sport, but then found herself in a prolonged phase where things just weren't clicking. So she decided to switch things up–a lot. Which is why Vanessa, along with her coach Shalane Flanagan, decided to put the 100 x 1-mile Nike San Francisco Women's Miler Club World Record Relay attempt on her racing calendar. The event takes...

After a month's long hiatus in 2022 due to a sacral stress fracture—the first major injury of her long running career—Alexina, Alex, Teubel is back and racing better than ever. Teubel has focused on the 3000-meter steeplechase for several years, earning her way into the 2021 Olympic Trails finals. But now she's refocusing on the 1500 and its close cousin, the mile. The USATF One-Mile Road National...

In this, part 2/2, Nicole Pinto shares her running journey from giving birth to completing a half-marathon nine months later. Part 1 of this story features Nicole sharing the journey of how she trained for and ran the Boston Marathon while pregnant with her daughter, who was born in February 2022. We are excited to follow up on Nicole's postpartum journey in this episode. We first featured Nicole...

This is a special live recording of the Podium Pioneers Panel, which took place at the 2023 Boston Marathon Expo live stage. Women's Running Stories host Cherie Turner once again teamed up with Lisa Levins and Julie Sapper of the Run Farther and Faster podcast to co-cost a live Boston Marathon event. This year we welcomed three women who helped form the foundation of marathoning; they have each al...

Patty Hung, a retired teacher who now works as a pediatric nurse, never set out to run more consecutive Boston Marathons than any other woman. But that's the position she finds herself today. On April 17, 2023, when Patty crosses the finish line at the marathon, she will have completed her 37th consecutive Boston Marathon, more than any other woman in the history of the event. She'll break the rec...

In this race report, get the inside story on how the Cherry Blossom 10-mile USATF national championship played out from the perspective of elite amateur racer Amber Zimmerman. Amber, who races for the Tracksmith amateur support program, has been in this sport for a long, long time. But as she herself has said on many occasions, she feels like up through her college career, she was performing at a...

Dani Moreno is a professional mountain runner with Adidas Terrex, and she is one of the best in the world. Her specialty has been sub ultra distances, which our distances of a marathon or shorter. A traditional marathon is 26.2 miles or 42.2 kilometers. Among Dani's many outstanding accomplishments, last year she placed 3rd at the highly prestigious 50-kilometer/31-mile OCC; this is part of the UT...

Molly Huddle is already a legend in the running world, and her story continues to develop. She's a two-time Olympian, multi-time national champion, and American record setter. In addition, she is a strong voice in the women's running space, as a writer and podcaster: she's published many articles, co-wrote the book How She Did It: Stories, Advice, and Secrets to Success from Fifty Legendary Distan...

Emma Grace Hurley is a young professional runner with the Atlanta Track Club. She is relatively new to racing longer distances on the road, having raced her first road races as a pro last year. In this race report, Emma Grace gives us some background on her racing career, as well as the inside scoop on how things went down at the 2023 USATF 15k National Championships, which were held on March 6 at...

In this special collaboration with Hear Her Sports, we talk to Jae Gruenke, a Feldenkrais practitioner and running form expert, and founder of The Balance Runner.   Both Cherie Turner (host of Women’s Running Stories, WRS) and Elizabeth Emery (host of Hear Her Sports) have experience working with Jae, especially in her online running form camp. But Feldenkrais and Jae’s approach to running form wo...

Erika Kemp will be racing 26.2 miles for the first time ever at the 2023 Boston Marathon on April 17. As one of the top professional distance road racers in the United States today, Erika has had a lot of success. But she's also gone through some significant challenges. Through it all she's gained wisdom, which she brings to her training, racing, and career choices. Erika began racing in high scho...

Lauren Hagans (formerly Paquette), a professional distance runner and member of the HOKA NAZ Elite team, takes us inside the 2023 USATF Half Marathon National Championships. Her bold decision and gutsy racing earned Hagans a close second place, her first podium finish at a national championship. Hagans has a long racing career and has been a top competitor at many distances. The half-marathon is t...

Sara Mae Berman started running and paving the way for other women's distance runners in the 1960s and 1970s. She is best known these days for winning the Boston Marathon three times: 1969, 1970, 1971. In those years, women weren't officially allowed to run marathons in the United States. However, there was that six year period between 1966 and 1971 when women ran Boston unofficially. It all start...

Lindsey Cortes is a runner and dietician who specializes in helping women athletes overcome the challenges of disordered eating and negative body image through her business Rise Up Nutrition. She brings both professional knowledge and her own personal experiences with body image and nutritional challenges to her business practice. Here, Lindsey shares the personal details of how she's navigated he...

We're excited to bring you a something a little different and let you know about another women-hosted podcast that features women runners. Please enjoy this episode from the podcast Starting Line 1928, which features in-depth interviews with women running pioneers. The episode we chose features ultra legend Bjorg Austrheim-Smith, who is best known for winning the historic Western States 100-mile E...

Professional runner Maegan Krifchin wanted to make the 2022 NYC Marathon an epic day. A native of Long Island, the Atlanta Track Club runner visualized bettering her 2:30 PR (2021 Chicago Marathon) while also breaking the 2:30 barrier, cracking the top 10, and shining her brightest on November 6. That did not happen, and it was heartbreaking. But it led Meagan on a marathon adventure that would se...

Well into her 30s, Tiffany Gayle Chenault didn't have any interest in running, even when she said yes to a friend who asked her to run a 5-mile event near her home in Boston, Massachusetts. But during that run, she felt something, a renewed sense of being alive that had gone quiet since the passing of her mother a few years earlier. That aliveness led to a whole new path for Chenault, whose profes...