Women's Running Stories

This is a special live recording of a conversation I hosted about running culture in Boston: past, present, and future, from UYN Sports Boston, featuring runners and community leaders Carissa McKinney, with the Natives Run Advisory Committee; Kim Chisholm, Executive Director of the 26.2 Foundation; and Rochelle Solomon, Co-Founder of the Black Unicorn Marathoners.

This episode features Allison Yamamoto, who tells the story of her experiences with and recovery from Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, more commonly referred to as REDS or RED-s. Allison experienced the slippery slope of doing what she thought would benefit her performance as a runner, only to discover that she’d adopted habits that were counterproductive to that goal. This is all too common in running, especially for women. REDS, in short, is the result of not fueling enough at the right times to keep up with energy output. And this leads to all sorts of health issues. Here, Allison shares her journey into running, through experiencing REDS, how she healed herself, and where this has all landed her today.

This episode features Maddie Barrett, a runner, coach, and mom. Here she tells the story of navigating events that were not in her plans: recently, Maddie underwent and has recovered from a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction. She is now back to running and training, and she’s learned a lot through this journey, including that she’s stronger than she previously believed.

This special episode features a conversation with Verna NezBegay Volker, founder and Executive Director of Native Women Run. Based in Minnesota, Verna is an ultra runner, leader, and community builder. We sat down to talk about how running is political, and always has been.

This tremendous episode features Lisa Jackson, runner and author of the hugely popular running book, Your Pace or Mine. Here, her story centers on the terminal cancer journey she experienced with her late husband, Graham, and how running became her salvation, and is once again a joy. Jackson tells this story in much greater detail in her just released new book Still Running After All These Tears.

This episode features Caryn Honig, who tells her running and athletic story which, at its core, is about finding purpose through life’s challenges. Caryn is someone who goes all in, with drive and passion. That’s resulted in great accomplishments as well as great difficulties, and here she shares it all.