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How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women

Maggie Mertens joins the show to talk about her book “Better, Faster, Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women”.

In a wide-ranging discussion, we tie in some of the exciting news on the female-side of the sport including the Lululemon FURTHER event back in March, Jasmin Paris’ finish at the Barkley Marathons, and Claire Bannwarth’s dominant multi-day performances across 2023 to discussions around the progress and the work to be done in academic, sporting, and other cultural institutions across society that play significant roles in making pastimes like running more accessible to and supportive of female athletes.

Finn Melanson [00:00:13]: Hello, fellow runners. I'm your host, Finn Melanson, and this is the Run to the Top podcast, the podcast dedicated to making you a better runner with each and every episode. We are created and produced by the expert team of coaches at runnersconnect.net where you can find the best running information on the Internet as well as training plans to fit every runner and every budget. Maggie Mertens joins the show to talk about her book Better, Faster, How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women. In a wide ranging discussion, we tie in some of the exciting recent news on the female side of the sport, including the Lululemon further event back in March, Jasmine Paris' historic finish at the 2024 Berkeley marathons, and Claire Banworth's dominant multi day performances across all of 2023, and we link all of these to discussions around the progress and the work to be done in academic, sporting, and other cultural institutions across society that play significant roles in making pastimes like running more accessible to and supportive of female athletes. I think you will really enjoy this conversation. Maggie, it is an absolute pleasure to have you on the Run to the Top podcast. How are you doing today?

Guest [00:01:34]: I'm good. Thanks so much for having me.

Finn Melanson [00:01:37]: It's a pleasure to have you here. And it's funny, as I was reading this book, there were a few other I'll call them landmark events that were were happening in in my world. The the first was I had a friend who participated in the Lululemon further event. Were you familiar with that?

Guest [00:01:54]: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Finn Melanson [00:01:55]: What were your thoughts?

Guest [00:01:57]: Oh, just, I mean, incredible. I just loved seeing it pop up, you know, on my Instagram, so many of the women that I follow were either doing it or, you know, posting about it and to see just this celebration of of women's endurance running was really exciting.

Finn Melanson [00:02:16]: Yeah. I have a friend based here in Salt Lake City, Leah Yingling, who ended up doing 400 miles over the 6 days, which was incredible. And it's actually I'm more involved in the trail running, ultra running side of the sport. And you do touch a bit on this in the book, which I found really cool that as the distance gets longer, there's a lot of emerging research out there that, I mean, women start to get better than men.

Guest [00:02:43]: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I think that's one of the things that made me realize that running was gonna be a really great frame for this book and the kind of, ideas that I really wanted to write about were, you know, that's a thing that we see regularly. Like, you you don't see an Olympic race between men and women, right, where where women are gonna are gonna beat men in in in short distance track or anything. But to see, you know, Jasmine Paris win the spine race outright to see these women who are who are beating men and and that it happens fairly regularly, you know? And I think as too as as ultras and, trail running have become a little bit more popular and more women are participating because that's been the other the other part of the inequality there right is, fewer women, of course, have been active really in those ultras, until more recently. So now that we do have more data, now that we've seen it a bit more, to be able to see that there's there's a space in running where we don't have to really, divide by gender in the same way is really interesting, I think.

Finn Melanson [00:03:59]: I think so too. And, you know, I'll I'll name drop a couple more. I love that you mentioned Claire Banworth. She's very much a fan favorite in our sport, had an incredible 2023. And her ability I think the most impressive thing was her ability to bounce. Like, she would do that, you know, as you know, she would do a 200, 300 mile race, and then, like, 2 weeks later, have already bounced back and was winning the next, you know, multi day event outright. It was incredible.

Guest [00:04:24]: Yeah. She was amazing, and that was really, you know, luck that I I came across Claire. I went to the to the spine race in 2023 in January and, because I knew I wanted to write about it. I had never seen an ultra race in real life and after knowing that I wanted to, write about Jasmine Paris's win because it was so such a huge landmark, I think for women runners, I wanted to go see what it why it was like like what is this race that she won and and to see it in real life is absolutely fascinating. I mean, just freezing cold and does not look fun. Like it looks just really crazy. And that and Claire was the first, woman in. And she happened to be, you know, just sort of hanging out.

Guest [00:05:14]: And and and I went over and talked to her. And then to be able to kind of, like, follow follow along. Yeah. What she did the rest of the year was shocking. Like and, you know, she's this sweet, you know, very petite woman who who talks to me and what she said that really blew my mind was like, oh, yeah, like, I love running, but I'm actually very slow. Like, I'm not, like, a fast runner. But I love running. And I just want to keep running.

Guest [00:05:42]: And I thought that was also really, it's kind of appealing, right, for what for people who maybe are turned off of of running road races because they're so, focused on time and focused on, like, this is this is what it's for. Right? It's to, like, show how fast you are. And, really, like, ultras are just such a different beast.

Finn Melanson [00:06:05]: Yeah. The last one I'll throw out to you. And I I was just it was like lightning striking. It was my 1st year I got to be a member of the media at the Barclay Marathons this year. So I I happened to be there as Jasmine Paris was sprinting up, the Big Cove Campground there, touching the gate, making history. I've seen a lot of I've seen a lot of sporting events. I I think it might have been the and recency bias set aside. It was probably one of the greatest sporting moments human moments I've ever witnessed.

Finn Melanson [00:06:32]: It was incredible. And that race, I'm sure as you found in your research, like, it's the part of the mystique around it and and part of the human interest around it is that, you know, there hadn't been a woman a female finisher for, you know, the whole entire history of the race, and there was all these, speculations and sort of, like, condemnations around, like, it's never gonna happen. Like, we've done the math. We've run the numbers. We've just looked at the data. It's not gonna happen. So for, Jasmine to supposedly defy science and and get it done was pretty cool.

Guest [00:07:06]: It was pretty great. It's pretty great. I mean, I do think a lot of that was kind of, like, not exactly science and a little bit more baby than we might wanna say. But I also think that's what really, brought Jasmine back. I did speak with her about about the Barclay. And she was she was kind of, she felt like, okay, this is like a thing I need to do. Like like, when I asked her if she was ever gonna do a spin race again, she's kind of no. I did that.

Guest [00:07:41]: You know? Like Yeah. And so she does seem to be the kind of person that's really driven by, like, you know, being told she's she can't do something. And that's really interesting because she also has this very, you know, quiet demeanor. Like, she doesn't seem like, oh, I'm just out here to, like, prove something about about women. But but she but she has just through her actions. Right? And, yeah. Oh, my gosh. I can't I'm very jealous you were there because those images of her crossing the finish line and just, like, immediately collapsing and so moving, especially because her at the end of the spiner, she looks like and like no big deal.

Guest [00:08:25]: You know, she barely looks flushed really. But yeah it's, she's an inspiration and the fact that you know I don't think most people didn't know what the spine race was or what the Barclay Marathons are, right, without her doing them and kind of like proving these things wrong. So, I think that's another exciting part of it is also bringing them to an audience of of more women runners.

Finn Melanson [00:08:55]: I think one of the things that I'm driving towards because, you know, I read the book, and one of the big takeaways for me was even until now, there's been a lot of forces, whether it's in medical institutions, educational institutions, sporting institutions, the culture. There's been a lot of forces working against women, both whether it's feeling comfortable in sport, even wanting to be in sport in the 1st place, to stay in sport, to be successful. Like, everything has been working against them. When you look at people like Jasmine Paris and you see this further event in Claire, Paula Radcliffe, like, how how important are these individual, like, single person moments for creating a lot of opportunity and change in the years to come? Like, how do you think about that?

Guest [00:09:41]: That's a good question. I mean, I do think that they're really important because, so many of the stories and ideas and, you know, even when we're told, like, the science, you know, quote, unquote, are are based on on myth and on falsehood, when it comes to women running and, and women in sport in general. And a lot of that is because you know, I you know, I think a lot about when I tell people about this book, one of the first things they often say, you know, is, they bring up Katherine Switzer in the Boston Marathon. And as you know because you read the book like there's Catherine was one one woman who ran the Boston Marathon, you know, there were actually many many women who ran the Boston Marathon before it was officially opened up to women. And, you know, what I think is so surprising is that it takes so much more than just that one woman doing something. Right? So I think especially, like, when we think about the marathon, like, Katherine Switzer ran, Bobby Gibb ran the year before her, many women ran after that, finally, Boston sanctioned women. But then, like, it took another 12 years before women were running a marathon in the Olympics. So you're up against so much.

Guest [00:11:24]: Right? And so one woman can do something, and maybe break it open but maybe not. Right? It takes, like, this confluence of events.

Finn Melanson [00:11:34]: One of the things I I wonder and I know social media gets a bad rap For a lot of reasons, it's warranted. But one of the positives I see about it is that it, of course, it allows information to spread a lot faster than it would otherwise. And so, theoretically, like, the rate of change could be faster if you're working on a particular problem. We've seen a lot of, like, really important, like, social issues solved for, I would say, in the last 2 decades in part because of social media helping out a ton. So that's what I was wondering too. Like, if you if you if, like, I just think about, like, the reach of Jasmine's story, for example, and how many people that influences versus like, I know in your book you talk about media coverage at certain events, like, you know, in the early 20th century. And it's like, there'd be photographers there. Maybe they'd get a photo, but it would take, like, you know, 10 days to get to, like, not even the general public, but, like, just, like, the core fans of the sport.

Finn Melanson [00:12:26]: So I just I'm I'm really curious about that information spread possibility too.

Guest [00:12:31]: Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's something that really fascinated me as well was, you know, obviously, there's a lot of there's a lot of newspaper coverage in the book, a lot of, like, archival work researching, you know, what it was really like for women in the early 20th century who were runners. And you're right like maybe there would be an article. You know, and if there was, you wouldn't necessarily see it unless you lived in that city and happened to read the paper that day. And maybe there was a picture, but probably not. And maybe most likely to one of the things that I really found in those early early 20th century, newspaper articles where these runners were almost never interviewed themselves. They were never like speaking.

Guest [00:13:23]: They were never quoted. So you know you had their stories also really being shown through the lens of these like male ideas about women's bodies and what they were capable of. Right? So So they were kind of presented as these almost freaks, you know, like, outliers or, like, this is so crazy that these women would run around the track, you know. And so I think you're absolutely right that, you know, as we've seen more and more and more women athletes speaking for themselves and putting their own stories out in the world, like, I think that makes a huge difference. I think that's some of the reason we're seeing, you know, so much more attention on women's basketball right now or something like that is that these people have platforms of their own and you're able to kind of see like, oh, they are just as interesting. They are just as talented. Like, it's not being filtered through this like sports media, which has been, you know, very traditionally male and very traditionally kind of skeptical of of women's abilities. Right?

Finn Melanson [00:14:30]: Are you after studying the history and and writing about the history of all this, are you generally an optimist about the direction that we're heading and the progress that's being made, or do you still feel like, like, a lot of vigilance is required and, like, there's still like like, the the the rate of change is not enough?

Guest [00:14:52]: It's a good question. All of the things. I think

Finn Melanson [00:14:59]: I some of the wins, for example.

Guest [00:15:01]: Yeah. I mean, I think most recently, you know I mean, I think what we're seeing, like, that there are women that know who Jasmine Paris is that are just kind of, like, normal moms who run, you know, like, just know who she is. Like, that is a huge thing. That's completely different than a 100 years ago. I also think we have, you know, really we're living through kind of a big turning point, I'd say, with women's sports. And that's, like, particularly, you know hopeful, but it's also like you know it brings up those questions of like when you see how long this has taken, when you look back at these stories and say, like, yeah. It took 20 years between when Bobby Gibran the Boston Marathon and the Olympics had a women's marathon. What does that mean now? Like, are we waiting 20 years before, like, you know, we see pay equity in women's sports and things like that? Like, is that gonna be another 2 generations of girls right now, you know, who I think what's so exciting is, like, this idea that for me, you know, particularly like when I was writing this book, one of the things that was so huge to me was thinking about Bobby Gibb in 1966 being told you are not physiologically capable of doing this.

Guest [00:16:38]: That is like my mom's childhood. Right? Like my mom was born in 1955. So my mom was basically grew up thinking that that like women were not physiologically capable of doing these things. I grew up playing soccer starting when I was 6 and doing track and doing cross country, you know? And that's just like a huge change. And even though I was told probably throughout my life that I was never going to be as good as a boy I still was encouraged to do it right and so like how these stories that we tell the deaf the different generations are changing like bit by bit I think and you can see that right in like the way that the little kids now are so excited to see sports. They're so excited to see women's sports. They don't really categorize it the same way.

Finn Melanson [00:17:30]: And I apologize because I I think I interrupted you earlier at the beginning of the question. But would you would you generally say, like, you kinda are more on the optimistic end of the spectrum, or are you are you still very concerned?

Guest [00:17:42]: Both. I mean, I think I am optimistic. I love seeing mostly because listen, I love women athletes, and I think like other people are finally saying that they love women athletes and women's sports too, and that's been really exciting like even in the past 10 years of of writing about women's sports I've noticed such a huge change just in the way that like what people know and what people you know the perspective that they bring to the table when they go see women athletes doing something. And I will say too, though, you know, we live in a really in a really difficult time just in terms of gender politics because there's a lot of a lot of backlash still happening, you know? And I think, you know, we see that in in like the the the fear around transgender athletes, the fear around, you know, like, what are what what what is fair in women's sports and girls' sports? And, that makes me concerned.

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Finn Melanson [00:20:57]: Plus, use the code run to the top to get up to 40% off their 3 6 month subscriptions. I'm just reflecting on our sport, like, the world of, like, ultra trail running, and there's we have a ton of problems we have to work on. I mean, just look at, like, the overhead numbers of participation. Like, we have to there's a lot of work to be done. But one thing that excites me, and I I feel like it was a pretty natural development, is according to Walter.

Guest [00:21:29]: Like Mhmm.

Finn Melanson [00:21:29]: She is universally the most beloved athlete in our sport, and it's not even close. Like, you look you go down the ranks of female athletes, you go down the ranks of male athletes, etcetera. She her name recognition, not just in the sport but outside of it, I think is is the highest, and it's not even close. I think that's kinda cool.

Guest [00:21:46]: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, you have people like that. Right? And I think that's also proof of of, yeah, the rate of change. Right? And how I mean, also, like, within these like, I think it's part 2 of, like, that when we look within the sports themselves, like, there is a lot of good. Right a lot a lot of times there's the fear of the unknown and the and the kind of like keeping women in their place and making sure we have these strict you know, binary, categories often comes from kind of like the outside. You know? It's like when you talk to athletes, like, most of them are very, like, they're aware of, like, what bodies can do right and like how amazing they are and and that you know there's this huge spectrum of humanity and we should all kind of like be in awe of what we can all do. Right?

Finn Melanson [00:22:47]: Coming back to the Lululemon further event, one of the things that interested me about that was and you and you talk about a lot in the book. Like, for a long time, even really right until present day 2024, there's a massive information void for female identifying athletes. Right? Like, the literature out there has not caught up. I found it very interesting that, like, and I could be you know, you could correct me here. From what I understand, a lot of the push isn't coming from, like, public sector academia. Like, a private sector company like Lululemon had to create an event. There's a lot of marketing in it, but, like, one of the biggest premises is was starting to do research that is, like, female centered on how the body performs in an ultra endurance context. You know? I just I think that that's so cool.

Finn Melanson [00:23:34]: But maybe, tell the audience a bit just about, like, what the stakes are here and your your observations on why we have this problem that we do. And, yeah, just take it away.

Guest [00:23:47]: I mean, when it comes to research, like, sports science research in general has just always been very male focused and, you know, some of that is because a lot of medical research and and, physiological research, in general has has usually been male focused and that and that comes from, you know, just sort of how medicine didn't really look at women as as their own as their own thing, as their own category for a long time. It was sort of just assumed that, that we could, you know, treat women the same way, that we treated men, when it came to medicine but also, you know, when it comes to sports. And and I think what's, you know, we've we've gotten a lot better, in recent years and especially, given just how long it took for for, you know, girl athletes and and women athletes to become norm you know, normalized. Like, enough girls had to be runners for them to start doing those studies. So that's one of the things that I think is just like very fascinating, that I found was, you know, it wasn't just that like we had to change the ideological conversation in society about, you know, yes, women and girls are capable of doing this stuff. You know, these scientists and and researchers and, you know, doctors had to actually do research to prove because there was so much fear, around, like, whether we were hurting women and girls by allowing them to run. They had to do the research to, to disprove that. But some of that was good.

Guest [00:25:45]: Right? Because it did start to show, like, okay, we can we can do this. We're allowed. We're gonna allow this. We're gonna put these things in the Olympics. But also, you know, what what a lot of athletes and and doctors that I spoke to for the book, would say were, you know, we might have this research now that says, okay. You know, we're not gonna die if we run a marathon. We're not gonna, you know, lose our ability to have a baby if we run a marathon, which were all, you know, real fears at various points. But they don't necessarily have the information like like you're talking about.

Guest [00:26:25]: Like, what are there certain things that, like, women's bodies need, you know, during an ultra that maybe men's bodies don't or, you know, that, would provide an advantage. Like, have we reached the top? We don't we don't know. And, you know, obviously, in humanity, we see that there are these we're kind of consistently getting better. But when women started doing running events, you know, they got better at much faster intervals. And so there there is this idea that, like, okay, if we still don't know how to maximize and, like, biohack to the best of our abilities, like, these these running events. And for for runners, then then do we really know what the ceiling is on on what women can achieve? And do we really know that, like, these performance gaps are gonna stay exactly the way that they are? And I think that's really fascinating. You know? And, but, like, you're right. Like, I don't know.

Guest [00:27:35]: Sports medicine is its own thing, right? It it does have a lot of like private money and and and interesting components because you really do need that like you need interest from people who can fund and like in sports, like, that's often, like, these big brands. And so that's kind of, like, I think part of, like, the problem.

Finn Melanson [00:27:58]: Well, there there were to to your point, there were there were 2 parts of the book that really left an impression on me. One was your point that, like, even before you get into, like, designing research protocol and thinking about the scientific method and stuff, what assumptions are these scientists bringing to the table before they even get into, like, research around, like, genomics and biomedical stuff and exercise science? That was interesting. And then the story around Paula Radcliffe. Right? Like, she runs 215 in the marathon, and then she gets pregnant. And, like, this is, what, 15, 20 years ago, so not that long ago. But that is, like, she's in medically an unknown territory. Like, they there's no precedent for that in the research. That's I just found that, like, mind blowing.

Guest [00:28:40]: Yeah. It is. Right? Like, it's just wild when we sit down and think, like, how much has changed in just 15, 20 years. And that's, that's one of the big ones is is is childbirth, right, and how women athletes were really told up until not that long ago that, like, you have a baby. Your career is over. Like, you're not getting your body back. You're not going to get your speed back. We don't know whether you can train while you're pregnant.

Guest [00:29:11]: Like, because it's it just seemed so risky. And and some of that, you know, I think does come back to this idea that, like, just ideologically, like, women were seen as potential mothers right and like the most important thing was that they retain this ability to have babies and and we could never do anything that might that might harm them and I think that's what's like so such a huge shift again like you said about about seeing stories that can change things is seeing these women who have now like maintained their ability to be professional athletes and elite athletes while Becoming mothers and, like, going through that. And I mean, like, the whole, Nike experience of dropping their pregnant athletes. That didn't happen that long ago. Right. And that was all part of it. Was that it maybe it was that we didn't have the information. But we also just like, made the assumption that that these women were not coming back the way that they to the form that they had before they had children.

Finn Melanson [00:30:25]: It's wild. Yeah. This is a little this is a little bit off topic, but even just going into other areas of professionalism, like, I I've had teacher friends, female teacher friends who, like, in their job interviews, the administrator will ask, you know, I see you're pregnant. How are you gonna how are you gonna be able to do both of these jobs simultaneously? That's such an you know, you would never see a a male, candidate forced to reckon with that question. Like, okay. How are you gonna be a dad and, you know, do your job at the school here at the same time? Just it's just wild.

Guest [00:30:58]: Exactly. Exactly. Right. And I think that's one of the things that I wanted to get across in this book is that there there are connections, right, between the ways that we assume that certain jobs are for or not for women and the way that we have assumed for so long that certain sports are for or not for women and that like these ideas don't just live in one place right when we when we see them especially in sports which is something that we idolize and we and we put on our TVs and we like put at the center of our universes for many of us like those those ideas really do trickle down and and and remain in effect.

Finn Melanson [00:31:42]: I don't wanna give away too much of the book, so maybe the last thing I'd like to talk about, I'm gonna paraphrase a quote from the book that I think speaks to sort of, like, how early a lot of these norms around participation in athletics get ingrained in us. And the quote is, lessons of difference are especially potent when they're taught in our schools, Lessons learned in our own bodies at the time when we're figuring out our places in the world remain deeply ingrained. Talk about that and just, like, how that influences long term trajectory and participation in sport.

Guest [00:32:14]: Oh, absolutely. I'm really glad you you read that part. You know, this is one of the things that I really I really tried to dig into deeply was this idea that our schools are really segregated. Our schools are very segregated in this country by, obviously by race. Like we still have a lot of issues with that in in our country but also by gender and I think we don't think about that as much. And I'm not talking about like women's colleges and boys schools and things like that. But, you know, that there are moments within our school day where we really, segregate boys and girls. And mostly that happens in gym class and in after school sports.

Guest [00:33:01]: And, if you're a young child, you're you're you're taking that in. Right? And if the message you're receiving, whether implicitly or explicitly, is that, you know, as a girl, you're gonna do something else at PE class. Like, you might play softball instead of learning how to play tackle football, for instance. And that's going to ingrain in your in your mind, right, that like, oh, my body is not capable of this thing that the boys are doing at the same time. Or if you're told like okay elementary school track practice first for instance you know something very low stakes And yet, like, you're still splitting into boys and girls races. Like, what does that say that those girls who actually might be faster than those boys at that time aren't getting the opportunity to see that their bodies are capable of the same things as boys are? So I think when we when we think about that and then at an even higher level, you know that continues and one of the things that that really stands out is of course college sports and the way that we at our educational institutions say that, like, okay, these football teams get all of the funding and all of the attention even if, you know, our women's basketball team or our women's cross country team is really, really good. You know, you're gonna be kind of seen as lesser than, and that plays out in all kinds of ways, which, you know, is technically illegal under title 9, but it's very, very common.

Finn Melanson [00:34:50]: The the world being gender segregated is something I I haven't thought about a lot, but that's really interesting. And it it reminds me so in college, I I went to a school, UMass Amherst, and then right down the road was Mount Holyoke and Smith, both, you know, female only schools. Do you think that that's a good thing, or do you think that, like, those schools are creating, like, a limited world view and that they should be, like, opened up? What are your thoughts there?

Guest [00:35:15]: In I went to Smith. I didn't know you knew that. That's so funny. Oh,

Finn Melanson [00:35:19]: yeah. No. I love Northampton and Amherst. A great area.

Guest [00:35:23]: Yes. No. I think well, I think that's actually one of the reasons that that I'm so interested in in gender and in seeing things, like, beyond a binary as having had the opportunity to go to a school that was women you know, a historical women's college. And being in that kind of environment, it's almost like the opposite of what you might assume, like bad assumption that like, okay, we're limiting ourselves. It's almost like you're able to remove the limits, because you don't have this other part of the binary. Right? So you're so it's just removed. Like, then everyone has to, like, fill in what they might, you know, have previously limited themselves because boys or men were taking up those roles. You know what I mean? So that's what one of the things that I think is really beautiful and amazing about single sex environments.

Guest [00:36:26]: And and I think that that's also something that plays out in in women's sports a lot, actually, is these teams where, you know, you're able to see women that are that are going beyond, you know, traditional female roles. At the same time, you know, I think that's complex and I and and I hope that that's kind of what the book gets across to is that, you know, gender is really complicated and it's not just like a a one answer And, you know, I think sometimes people think that, you know, when we're advocating for more equality, sometimes, you know, people wanna make it a simple a simple answer. Right? Like, okay, just get rid of get rid of gender segregation in sports. Well, nobody said that. Right? Like, we actually maybe we could just, like, think more more expansively and, like, expand the ideas of of that we have. But, yeah, I do think that there's great opportunities for for thinking about gender in all of those different contexts.

Finn Melanson [00:37:34]: Well, Maggie, it's been an absolute pleasure to chat with you. I learned a lot from the book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The title is Better, Faster, Farther, How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women. We will link to it in the show notes of this episode. It goes live, I believe, in mid June. So we're recording in late April, so a few weeks from now. Great book.

Finn Melanson [00:37:53]: Check it out. And this has been awesome. Thank you so much. And do you have any final thoughts or calls to action that you wanna leave listeners with before we go?

Guest [00:38:02]: No. Thank you so much for having me. I mean, I think my only call to action is check out the book and, and support women athletes.

Finn Melanson [00:38:25]: Thanks for listening to the Run to the Top I'm your host, Finn Melanson. As always, our mission here is to help you become a better runner with every episode. Please consider connecting with me on Instagram at wasatchfing and the rest of our team at Runners Connect. Also consider supporting our show for free with a rating on the Spotify and Apple Podcast players. And lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content, behind the scenes experiences with our guests, and premier access to contests and giveaways, then subscribe to our newsletter by going to newsletter by going to runnersconnect.netback/podcast. Until next time. Happy trading.

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