Women's Running Stories
Women's Running Stories features inspiring stories told by exceptional women runners about their running experiences. Hear about the many ways women are achieving excellence and changing their lives through the sport of running. Get motivated to reach your own running goals by women who are making it happen.
Episodes
In this, part 6 of this series, WRS host and producer Cherie Louise Turner shares how she set a new time milestone, getting 10 seconds closer to her goal of breaking 20 minutes in the 5k, and how this ushered in a time of focusing on training.
At the close of the previous episode, Cherie was addressing some 5k and racing burnout, but she also knew she was fit and ready for a great performance. So, she took advantage of a local flat...
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July 16, 2024 • 39 mins
Angelina Ellis is a professional steeplechaser for the Mission Run Dark Sky Distance team, and 2024 marks her first year running as a professional. And what an incredible year it's been.
Becoming a professional runner has been a dream for Ellis since she was in high school. But back then, that's what she thought it would always be: a dream.
Ellis did not have the kind of high school running career that screamed out, "Pro runner in...
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July 9, 2024 • 50 mins
Alison Mariella Désir is an athlete, mother, activist, public speaker, community builder, and now a hiker and mountain climber. Désir is well known for her groundbreaking book Running While Black: Finding Freedom in a Sport that Wasn’t Built for Us and for her work making space for and creating communities that center and welcome BIPOC athletes into the running and outdoor worlds.
Désir was first featured on WRS in October 2022, wh...
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July 2, 2024 • 58 mins
Elvin Kibet was born and raised in a small village in Kenya, not far from Iten, a town internationally recognized as a hotbed of elite running. Kibet's focus growing up, however, was school; she was determined to excel. And she did. But that wasn't enough to earn her the scholarship she wanted. There was, however, another way.
Kibet's two older sisters, Sylvia and Hilda, were both internationally competitive professional runners by...
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June 25, 2024 • 31 mins
UK-based runner Andrea came to running as an adult and discovered a joy in setting big goals for herself in the sport. The first goal: run 50 races. Once she'd met this goal, Andrea was looking for another project to fuel her running motivation. Andrea's young adult daughter had recently moved out on her own, and the two of them shared a love of running and of travel.
So this mother daughter team came up with their ideal running pr...
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June 18, 2024 • 42 mins
Katie Steele fell in love with sports at an early age. By the time she reached high school, that love had developed into a passion for competitive running.
But the fun of racing turned destructive as Steele progressed through the competitive world of top level collegiate racing in the US, the NCAA. Her experiences were further exacerbated by the involvement of now banned running coach Alberto Salazar, whose influence had a traumati...
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June 11, 2024 • 33 mins
Madie Boreman is a professional steeplechaser for Oiselle, and last year, 2023, in her very first season as a pro, she established herself as a racer to watch. Getting to this point, however, has been full of many ups and downs. In this episode Boreman shares the fascinating story of transitioning from collegiate racing to the professional ranks.
Boreman has had a talent and love of running and racing since childhood. In college, s...
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June 4, 2024 • 34 mins
Olympian and professional marathon runner for Asics Betsy Saina tells the story of how it all went down at the 2024 USATF 25k National Championships. Saina returned to this race as the reining champion.
Saina was born in Kenya and that is where she currently lives. She came to the US for college and had an incredible collegiate career racing for Iowa State University. Saina went on to become an Olympian racing for Kenya in the 10,0...
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In this episode, part 5 of this series, Cherie shares how she's getting away from being so reliant on the GPS watch and committing to learn how to run and pace by feel. This is, she continues to discover, a work in progress, especially when it comes to pacing.
Cherie also gets into addressing race anxiety and confidence and how these are challenges that take time to overcome. The journey is not linear. And she gets into how expecta...
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May 21, 2024 • 31 mins
Young professional runner Rachel McArthur shares how it all went down at the 2024 USATF 1-Mile National Championships, which took place Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Des Moines, IA.
But more than most race stories, this one is all that much more exciting because of what came before. In this episode, you'll hear it all.
A bit of background on MacArthur's running career, she was an exceptional high school runner, and she graduated in 2...
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May 17, 2024 • 46 mins
This is a live recording from Sunday, April 14 at the Boston Marathon Expo. Once again, WRS host Cherie Turner teamed up with Julie Sapper and Lisa Levin from the Run Farther and Faster podcast to co-host an excellent panel. This year's panel was titled Making a Statement: Breaking Barriers in Women's Running, and it featured outstanding runners Alisa Harvey, Kelly Bruno, and Briana Boehmer.
Alisa Harvey is an elite-level competito...
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May 14, 2024 • 34 mins
Carmen Graves is a professional track racer sponsored by Oiselle, and she specializes in the uniquely challenging event of the steeplechase. Graves's unexpected discovery of excelling at this event and the exciting reality that she continues to improve as a steeplechaser at the age of 33 is what this story is all about.
Graves loves to run and race, and she is exceptional, but her journey has been punctuated with moments of frustra...
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In August 2020, marathon and ultra-distance trail runner Emily Halnon set out on an FKT (fastest known time). The goal: cover the 460 miles of the Pacific Coast Trail that traverses Oregon, from south to north, faster than any other human yet recorded. The purpose: to honor her mother, Andrea Halnon, who had been her inspiration and her biggest supporter.
Emily Halnon is also a writer, and this episode is being released on the publ...
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April 30, 2024 • 31 mins
Adidas professional runner Emily Durgin is back on the podcast! She shares how it all went down at the 2024 USATF 10-Mile National Championships, which took place April 7, 2024, in Washington, D.C.
This is a follow up to Durgin's last appearance on WRS, where she told the story of how the USATF Olympic Trails Marathon played out for her. While Durgin had a really strong showing at that race, she didn't walk away with her ultimate g...
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April 26, 2024 • 40 mins
Women's Running Stories is moving to Tuesdays; expect the next new episode Tuesday, April 30. This Friday episode is a re-air of a great story featuring running great Sally Kipyego. The episode first aired back in March 25, 2021, and it centers on Kipyego's return to competitive running after having her first child, and the journey to making the 2020 Olympic Marathon team.
Mentioned in this Episode:
Race Report: Emily Durgin + 20...
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April 19, 2024 • 68 mins
In 2016, elite ultra-distance trail runner and writer Katie Arnold experienced a traumatic river rafting accident that left her questioning whether or not she would ever be able to run again. This is the story of how Arnold healed after her accident and how that process helped her rediscover a pure joy of running and a magical return to racing. This happened over the period of time when Arnold was 46 to 48 years old.
This episode w...
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April 12, 2024 • 42 mins
In this episode, Emilia Benton focuses on how she discovered the approach to marathoning that earned her a Boston Marathon qualifying time, and then how it all went down at last year's Boston Marathon.
Benton is a well recognized journalist in the running world, with a particular focus on professional runners as well as runners and stories that have typically been underrepresented and overlooked by the media.
As a runner, a big foc...
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April 5, 2024 • 39 mins
Michelle Wheeler is an internationally competitive marathon and distance road racer. Last year saw Wheeler race marathons in Boston, Berlin, Sydney, London, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia, in addition to traveling throughout the US to shorter-distance races. And, this year, she'll also be returning to shorter distance racing on the track. Wheeler will be competing at the Paralympic Trials in the 800, 1500, and 5000, vying for ...
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March 29, 2024 • 32 mins
Jen Kanyugi is running her 20th consecutive Boston Marathon this year. Her journey to get to this point is about this one event, and so much more. In this time, Jen went from not running more than 20 minutes on the treadmill to being a steady presence at this, one of the most recognized and celebrated running events in the world.
In that time she became a mom, three times (she ran two of her Boston Marathons while pregnant). She le...
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March 25, 2024 • 33 mins
In this episode, part 4 of this series, Cherie tells the story of her return to formal training and workouts after recovering from an injury. And, back at it, Cherie returned to racing and experienced a frustrating bought of race anxiety. This set Cherie down a path to tackle this difficult barrier and think deeply about what this goal means to her and the importance of believing in abilities.
Cherie discusses the strategies she be...
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