Hello again!
It’s a very exciting time! At long last, the big day is almost here. I wanted to sneak into your inboxes one last time before the Olympic Trials this weekend. There’s been an enormous amount of great storytelling around the Trials this year, with a staggering number of stories coming out in the past few weeks. It’s impossible to keep up—which is a great problem to have. Not too long ago, it would have been very hard to imagine an overwhelming amount of coverage about women’s marathoning! I’m optimistic that all the attention that this cycle has brought to women’s distance running isn’t going anywhere.
Rather than attempt to give you any kind of comprehensive overview, here’s a selection of Trials-related coverage that I think is particularly worth your time. And please send me your favorites that I may have missed! (I’ll be back soon with a regular issue after the Trials. In the meantime, you can follow the Kick on Twitter and on Instagram for updates between sends.)
The value of an impossible dream
In case you somehow missed it, Lindsay Crouse wrote an excellent op-ed in the New York Times a few weeks ago—a version of that phrase may or may not appear in every issue of this newsletter—about her experience chasing the OTQ. Lindsay didn’t ultimately run the standard, but she writes beautifully about what she got out of the process, both in running and in life, and about how women’s running is evolving right now. There are too many great lines to quote, but here’s one: “It’s a new model of competitive female leadership: We’re seeing each other win and challenging ourselves to keep up. Last year, it even trickled down to me.” Shortly after that piece came out, I edited this followup from Fritz Huber at Outside, where he interviewed Lindsay about the story and about the Trials standards more generally.
It’s about time
Sasha Whittle, a runner and producer based in New York, was also chasing the standard this fall. (She ultimately ran 2:51 at CIM, in her marathon debut.) Along the way, she put together a unique audio project that chronicles her journey and her relationship with running more generally. Before you jump to the conclusion that it’s a podcast (it’s not!), here’s how Sasha describes it: “It's an intimate window into my life as I tried to qualify for Olympic Trials in my first marathon. It's messy, emotional, and not unlike a romantic comedy. At times, it sounds a lot like a wiretap on my life and relationships as we talk about the ups and downs of this style of life. At the end of the day, it's kind of an ode to the life of a distance runner.” You can check it out on Spotify here.
Why are American women faster than ever?
I loved this interactive treatment from the Times on hundreds of the amateur women in the field. This anecdote, about 30-year-old Starla Garcia, was one of my favorites: “She figured that was about as fast as she could go. Then she heard another runner, Carly Gill, who ran 2:42 in Berlin in September, on the “Ali on the Run” podcast, and thought: “Why am I selling myself short? Why can’t I believe in myself that much, too?” Such a great example of the power of following along with other women’s stories as they chase the same goal.
The field, by the numbers
The Atlanta Track Club did an amazing job compiling and presenting these qualifier stats. (And the athlete bios page!) Poke around here to see the data on qualifying times, home states, and more.
Straight down the middle
If you’re looking for a crash course in the top women racing this weekend, Erin Strout and the Women’s Running team have you covered. They’ve put together an impressive collection of interviews and short profiles of the top contenders in the field that you can check out here.
Quick hits
The NYC Distance Project’s road to Atlanta. The tale of Jenny Spangler and the 1996 Trials. On Megan Youngren, the first openly transgender athlete to compete at the marathon Trials. The complicated science of aid-station bottle service at the Trials. Three friends, one goal.
Drop me a line
I want to hear from you! Tell me about what you like here, what I missed, and what’s going on in your running life. (You can also follow the Kick on Twitter, and on Instagram.) Thanks for reading, and enjoy your miles.
Molly