Women's Running Stories

Alison Mariella Désir is a runner, mother, activist, community builder, and now author: her highly anticipated book Running While Black: Finding Freedom in a Sport that Wasn’t Built for Us is available today, October 18. Alison’s story is one of love and gratitude for running, and the power of this sport to create change. Hers is also a story of highlighting how the running world mirrors the racism and sexism of our larger culture and history. And her story is about making a path forward, creating space for change. In this episode, Alison tells her story completely in her own voice.

In this episode, Alison tells her running journey and touches on many of the topics that are featured in her book. Let this serve, then, as an inspiration to read her whole story in Running While Black, a book that will certainly become a best-seller and an important read for all runners, especially white runners.

On Women’s Running Stories, we often feature running journeys that highlight how running is about more than the simple act of putting one foot in front of the other. Alison's story is exceptional in this regard.

Her new book is the latest example of how Alison interweaves her running with her commitment to leave the world a better place than it was when she found it. Over the years, she has become a leader in the running world, with a clear, powerful voice. She has shown how running can be a vehicle to create change. She’s also working to create change within the running industry so that this sport can some day truly live up to the claim that it is open and welcoming to everyone.

Alison not only does the work herself, but also inspires and encourages and helps make space for other people doing the work to move the sport of running toward being a space where everyone feels not only welcome, but that they belong.

This episode is sponsored by The Feed, the largest online marketplace for your sports nutrition, offering the brands you know and love, from Skratch Labs, Clif Bar, to Maurten, plus their athlete customized supplements called Feed Formulas. In addition to supporting Strides Forward, this sponsorship supports Hear Her Sports and Keeping Track: together we are a collective of women-hosted podcasts focused on women in sports.

As part of this sponsorship, you can get $80 in credit at The Feed: just go to TheFeed.com/forward to claim your $80 in credit at The Feed.

Keep Up with Alison Mariella Désir

Alison’s website: http://alisonmdesir.com/

Alison on Instagram: @alisonmdesir

Links to Organizations Mentioned in this Episode

Harlem Run: http://www.harlemrun.com/about

Run 4 All Women: https://www.run4allwomen.com/

Meaning Through Movement: https://www.meaningthrumovement.com/

Running Industry Diversity Coalition: https://www.runningdiversity.com/

Take the Lead on Instagram: @woctakethelead

Ways to Connect and Engage with Women's Running Stories

Instagram: @womensrunningstories

Twitter: @WomenRunStories

Website: womensrunningstories.com

Email host Cherie: [email protected]

Women's Running Stories is a member of the Evergreen network: https://evergreenpodcasts.com/

We hear the story of Barbara Hannah Grufferman as she navigates menopause away from a glum-looking future, to a thriving today. Hear Barbara's personal journey of how she went from being a non-runner at 50 to a multi-time marathon and also ultra finisher, as well as a healthy aging advocate, author, and so much more.

As Barbara Hannah Grufferman approached her 50th birthday, she was feeling, as she describes it, the “umpies”: lumpy, grumpy, and frumpy. Her health wasn’t great: she’d spent her adult life putting the needs of everyone else ahead of herself: work, family, community. And now those choices were catching up to her. And, she’d just gone through menopause, which had had it’s own challenging impact. The spark and grit she’d had before seemed to be fading into the past.

Maybe this is what getting older and seeing the other side of menopause was all about? she thought.

And then, a pointed comment by her then young daughter and a well-timed Wall Street Journal article changed everything. Barbara, who’d never been a runner, set down a path of marathon running, health and wellness, and discovering how to age the very best she could.

Since that day, 15 years ago, Barbara has completed over a dozen marathons and one ultra, and there’s more to come. She also shares her wisdom and lived experience of achieving wellness and health after 50 with a growing number of woman in her work as an advocate for aging well. Barbara has written two books, writes a newsletter, has spoken in public on many occasions, and so much more. In a word, Barbara is vibrant.

Ways to follow Barbara Hannah Grufferman

Barbara’s website: barbarahannahgrufferman.com

Subscribe to Barbara’s Menopause Cheat Sheet

Follow Barbara on Instagram: @barbarahannahgrufferman

Follow Barbara on Twitter: @BGrufferman

The Coach Parry Running Through Menopause Training Program

The Coach Parry webinar, where we first "met" Barbara

We recommend the podcast Hear Her Sports: hearhersports.com

Ways to Connect and Engage with Women's Running Stories

Instagram: @womensrunningstories

Twitter: @WomenRunStories

Website: womensrunningstories.com

Email host Cherie: [email protected]

Women's Running Stories is a member of the Evergreen network: https://evergreenpodcasts.com/

To fully appreciate what it means to participate in the Boston Marathon, it’s important to reflect on what it takes to get here, all of what it takes. Running Boston isn’t only about completing the distance of 26.2 miles, nor is it only about the training to get you ready for this epic race: it's also about the efforts made to even get an entry. Because Boston is not a race you can just sign up for: you have to earn your entry. There are several ways that can happen and the process can be years in the making. Our nine runners earned their entries in a variety of ways, and we share the stories behind them all. For each and every one of us, getting a race number to this historic event is a victory all its own. Discover why.

This episode is part of our Roads to Boston 2021 series, where we are following the journeys of 9 women from around the world to the 125th Boston Marathon, which takes places October 11, 2021.

The last Boston Marathon took place April 2019. And finally, this legendary event is back, in person. For every participant who gets an entry to Boston, it's a victory all its own: you can't just sign up for Boston, you have to earn your way in. Get an inside look at what goes in to getting to the finish line of the 125th Boston Marathon. Whether Boston is in your future or your running interests take a different shape, join us to energize your own aspirations.

In episode 1, we met the 9 women of this series and learned about how they got started in this sport. We're in the midst of discovering why we all started marathoning. In episode 2, we learned about Patty's and Amanda's journeys to running marathons, which is inextricably linked to the Boston Marathon; in that episode we also learned about the Boston course. In episode 3, we featured the marathoning stories of Rochelle, Marija, Zarah, and Jonna, and episode 4 explored why Yao, Nicole, and Cherie run marathons. And, in our last episode checked in on what living the marathon life looks like for all nine runners.

Stay tuned for our next episode where we check in with the runners one final time before the race.

Join us on the journey, to energize your own running goals!

The runners featured

Rochelle Solomon, Randolph, MA, USA; hospital and healthcare compliance officer; Boston first-timer

Patty Hung, Orinda, CA, USA; retired high school math teacher turned pediatric nurse; 34 Bostons run

Yao (Yaowapa) Hoisungwarn, Bangkok, Thailand; singing teacher; Boston first-timer

Marija Desivojević, Belgrade, Serbia; mathematician; Boston first-timer

Nicole Spaulding Pinto, Los Angeles, CA, USA; cardiovascular perfusionist; Boston first-timer

Zarah Hofer, lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada; nutritionist; Boston first-timer

Amanda Watters, Ashland, MA, USA; editor, K-12 science curriculum development, 15 Bostons run

Jonna Maas, Spicer, MN, USA; medical doctor, Boston first-timer

Cherie Louise Turner, Somerville, MA, USA; podcaster, writer, editor; 1 Boston run

Ways to Connect and Engage with Women's Running Stories

Instagram: @womensrunningstories

Twitter: @WomenRunStories

Website: womensrunningstories.com

Email host Cherie: [email protected]

Women's Running Stories is a member of the Evergreen network: https://evergreenpodcasts.com/

The story behind becoming 2023 USATF Masters Track and Field Athlete of the Year.

Masters 60+ track and field athlete Sue McDonald has been a competitive athlete most of her life. And she's been a competitor in a wide variety of events: she'd started out her collegiate career as a heptathlete and has since continued to enjoy working at multiple disciplines, as well as trying new events (like the steeple!).

So in 2022, when Sue was looking ahead at entering the 60+ masters age bracket, she didn't have just one event she was aiming to rewrite the records books in, she targeted several. In the end, Sue set 9 world records in the W60-64 category: indoors 800 and 1500; outdoors 400, 800, 300H, 1500, and Mile, as well as the Steeplechase and the Heptathlon.

For her stellar achievements, Sue McDonald was named the 2023 USATF Masters Track and Field Athlete of Year.

This is the story of what it took for Sue to be ready for a record-setting year. She left no area unconsidered: nutrition, mental prep, coaching, strength, lifestyle, physical training. And she gets into it all. This is what it took her to become a champion, many times over, and raise the bar for masters athletes.

Ways to Keep Up with Sue McDonald

Instagram: @suemcdonaldfitness

Website: SueMcDonaldFitness.com

Ways to Connect and Engage with Women's Running Stories

Instagram: @womensrunningstories

Twitter: @WomenRunStories

Website: womensrunningstories.com

Email host Cherie: [email protected]

Women's Running Stories is a member of the Evergreen network: https://evergreenpodcasts.com/

Women's Running Stories is proud to be featured as one of the top 20 Women's Running podcasts by Feedspot: https://blog.feedspot.com/womens_running_podcasts/

Women's Running Stories is proud to be featured as #4 on the GoodPods top Running podcasts list

This story follows the journey of runner Megan Flanagan through relative energy deficiency in sport, RED-s, to health and developing a community of awareness and support, Strong Runner Chicks.

Megan started linking thinness with performance at a young age. Body commentary, prevalent ideals of what a winning distance runner should look, and the desire to be competitive led Megan down the path toward RED-s: she was amenorrhoeic (had stopped menstruating) by the time she was graduating high school. Her journey demonstrates the numerous challenges young women athletes face to get the health support and education they need to navigate away from the seriously harmful syndrome of RED-s.

This story follows Megan’s journey through her early days of discovering her love of being an athlete, to her frustrations and struggles with RED-s through her NCAA Division I career, and on to how she’s created and found strength in community and taken hold of her own health. Megan is the founder of Strong Runner Chicks, a community to support and uplift women runners.

Ways to follow Megan Flanagan

Follow Megan on Instagram: @meginspire

Follow Strong Runner Chicks on Instagram: @strongrunchicks

Learn about Strong Runner Chicks on their website

Ways to Connect and Engage with Women's Running Stories

Instagram: @womensrunningstories

Twitter: @WomenRunStories

Website: womensrunningstories.com

Email host Cherie: [email protected]

Women's Running Stories is a member of the Evergreen network: https://evergreenpodcasts.com/