The Lane 9 Podcast

What if the most important thing you could do for your athletic performance had nothing to do with training?

Heather sits down with Courtney Stone, a licensed clinical social worker and athlete mental health therapist based in Los Angeles, to talk about the inner work that makes athletes more resilient — in and out of sport. Courtney works with athletes navigating eating disorders, body image concern...

What would change if we gave athletes a real framework for understanding REDs, before something went wrong?

That's the question driving Hannah Ballowe's entire career right now. Hannah is an elite middle-distance runner, PhD student at NC State, and women's health researcher whose dissertation is focused on creating and validating a REDs-specific screening tool. She's also a former Virginia Tech runner who...

What if the leaking, the urgency, the butt pain, and the pressure weren't just things you had to live with?

Heather sits down with Mbong Henry, a pelvic floor and orthopedic physical therapist based in Durham, North Carolina, to talk about the pelvic health symptoms that athletes — runners, weightlifters, CrossFitters, gymnasts, and everyone in between — are normalizing when they really don't h...

What does it look like to build something for almost a decade — not because you had a perfect plan, but because you kept showing up?

For the 100th episode of the Lane 9 podcast, host Heather Caplan, RDN, sits down with her co-founder Alexis Fairbanks to talk about where Lane 9 started, where the conversation around REDs and period health actually stands in 2026, and what they're still working on. Thi...

What do you actually eat when your body is healing — and you're not allowed to move?

That's the question Shira Evans, RD, CSSD, found herself living through after a significant cycling accident left her with a concussion, road rash, and a scapula broken in two places. As a sports dietitian who specializes in REDs and disordered eating in athletes, she knew exactly what to do nutritionally — but...

What does it look like to chase a goal and then permit yourself to let it breathe for a season?

Host Heather Caplan, RDN, is joined by her Lane 9 co-founder Alexis Fairbanks for an informal midsummer catch-up. They talk travel, food culture in Spain and Portugal, the very real struggle of treadmill running, women's sports they're following right now, and what Alexis is training for after deciding to take a...

"I have no doubt you could run that half-marathon, but I understand the hesitation."

That note from her physical therapist is what Host Heather Caplan, RDN, needed to hear, and this episode is her passing it along to you.

It's midsummer. Schedules are chaotic, training cycles are in-between, and sometimes the most useful thing a podcast can do is just pause and remind you: you've come further ...

What does it take to reach sub-3 with your period intact and your body well-fueled?

That's the question Coach Laura Filla can now answer from experience. After four years, ten marathons, low ferritin, grief, a coaching business, and two kids, Laura crossed the finish line at Bayshore 2026 in 2:58:43. Host Heather Caplan, RDN, sits down with Laura to talk through the whole arc: what changed, what didn't, an...

What does it actually take to diagnose REDs, and what happens after?

If you've ever wondered what's going on behind the scenes when a sports medicine physician suspects REDs, this episode is your inside look. Host Heather Caplan, RDN, sits down with Dr. Rosa Pasculli, a non-operative sports medicine physician based in Atlanta, to walk through the full medical picture: how REDs gets diagnosed, what labs act...

What does it actually take to build a girls' running program from three athletes to a full roster, and what does it cost the coach who gets it there?

That's at the heart of this conversation with Miran McCash: high school cross country and track head coach at Highline High School, and owner of ANA Run Coaching, an all-women adult running coaching business based in Seattle. Host Heather Caplan, RDN, and Mir...

What if we stopped treating sport like entertainment and started treating it like healthcare?

That's the question at the center of this conversation with Mary Cain: professional middle-distance runner, Stanford medical student, and New York Times Bestselling author of the new memoir This Is Not About Running. Host Heather Caplan, RDN, and Mary Cain talk about what it would actually take to change sports cu...

"Once I started doing more core work...prescribed to me by a pelvic floor DPT, and what everyone says you should be doing after pregnancy...I was feeling pain," shares Lane 9 Coach Becky Anthony, head coach and owner of Taylored Training Run. 

Becky shares her story with a rare injury, osteitis pubis, which she was diagnosed with around three months postpartum. She was working with a physical therapist (DPT) on a return to run...

"The [symtpoms] of under-fueling, and REDs, make it a lot harder to meet your [calorie] needs," shares dietitian KC Stockmon. "It's kind of this vicious cycle." 

We're here to talk about how many calories an athlete actually needs to be eating, WHY it's important to eat enough, and the symptoms of under-fueling. The problem is, under-fueling is so common in athletics that athletes are quick to dismiss their symptoms as just "p...

" I also learned the hard way. I did pay the price for several years. I had a lot of injuries, and I was in the stress fracture cycle for seven years. And that was a wake-up call. It really showed me you're not invincible and, and you're gonna have to really learn how to do this differently," shares longtime Lane 9 supporter and community member, Amy Sams. 

Amy reached out to Lane 9 last Fall seeking support from a dietitian i...

"It took me several injuries to really figure out...this is going to keep happening unless I do something big about it," shares coach and DPT Bethany Brausen, a member of the Lane 9 Membership and clinical directory. 

And we want to help young athletes figure those things out a lot sooner, so they have more fun training and competing, tap into their athletic potential, and/or find longevity in the spo...

"Being the best is not the end all be all. And can you have self-confidence [in sport] without being the best?" Dr. Savannah Landis, Lane 9 Clinician, asks us to consider how perfectionism shows up in our sport experiences, and how to nurture a sense of self in and outside of sport, for athletes at all ages. 

Dr. Savannah Landis is a licensed clinical and sports psychologist specializing in treating athletes with eating disord...

"I was honestly terrified of [pregnancy].  I feel like whenever I looked around in the sport, I didn't see it. And if someone did get pregnant, it seemed like they disappeared. And if they came back, it seemed like it was against all odds," Molly Huddle shares with the Lane 9 Podcast.

She is a 2x Olympian, has competed in six Olympic Trials throughout her career, and has run professionally with Saucony for...

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