Fast Women, May 20, 2019, Issue 20
Alysia Montaño (then Johnson) competes at the 2007 USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
The conversation continues on female athletes, pregnancy, and sponsorship
The New York Times piece on sponsorship for runners during pregnancy, released last Sunday and featuring the experiences of Alysia Montaño and Kara Goucher, sparked much conversation throughout the week. First, we heard more information from the author of the piece, Lindsay Crouse. She went on the Runners of NYC podcast and talked about how the piece came to be, why runners were so hesitant to speak out, and how long the idea had been in the works.
Crouse also published a follow-up piece, responding to readers’ comments and questions, and wrote a great Twitter thread that addressed more of the issues.
Because the Times piece primarily focused on Nike, Footwear News reported on what Nike’s competitors were doing. Under Armour, New Balance, and Asics reported that they honor the contracts of sponsored female athletes during their pregnancies and return to competition, and Under Armour and New Balance said they’ve never reduced contracts for female athletes. (I’m not sure if the article is meant to say female athletes or pregnant athletes, but it says the former.)
Montaño went on CBS This Morning and HLN to talk about her experience. Another former Nike athlete, Jo Pavey, spoke out, saying Nike had frozen her contract during her pregnancy.
Fast Women editor Sarah Lorge Butler tweeted that she would be interested in hearing from Deena Kastor and Sara Hall regarding how they were treated by Asics when they became mothers, and Kastor’s response, which included a mention of pink cookies, set off a debate. Montaño, Goucher, Goucher’s agent Shanna Burnette, and Kaitlin Goodman were among the people who expressed their disagreement with Kastor’s sentiments.
And mid-week, companies began acknowledging that treating a pregnant athlete well isn’t the same as guaranteeing in writing that she will be treated well. Nuun was the first company to announce that they would add a clause to contracts that formalizes their support of female athletes through pregnancy. Burton followed in making an announcement to this effect, and Brooks was the first shoe company to do so. Altra announced shortly after that they are in the process of amending all of their contracts to make their policies explicit.
Late Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Nike would be adding language to new contracts for women that would protect their pay during pregnancy. According to the article, the company adopted the policy last year but will formally write it into new endorsement deals going forward. While the company will not rewrite current contracts, they will reassure current athletes that they will receive the same treatment. It isn’t exactly the groundbreaking stance that I would have hoped to see, but it is something.
Oiselle founder and CEO Sally Bergesen pointed out, without saying these exact words, that Oiselle has been a leader in this regard all along, and that there are benefits to having women establish these policies in the first place.
And perhaps most important, now that Montaño and Goucher have talked about the issue, any athlete treated poorly going forward will likely have a much more attentive audience should she choose to speak out. Written policies aren’t necessarily going to stop companies from discriminating against women who have babies during their careers, but it’s a major step in the right direction.
The irony in all of this is that when professional runners have to juggle the same things that many of us do—children, sometimes jobs—they become more relatable to the masses. As Goucher tweeted, after coming back from pregnancy, “I was much more popular with media and fans because...wait for it...I was a MOM!”
Promising early-season performances at the USATF Distance Classic
At Thursday evening’s USATF Distance Classic, Rachel Schneider won the 5,000m in 15:06.71, which put her under the Olympic standard of 15:10.00 and was a new personal best. Aisha Praught-Leer finished just behind in 15:07.91, a new Jamaican record in her first track 5,000m as a pro. Both runners credited rabbits Emma Coburn, who stayed in the race through 4,000m, and Cory McGee (both Praught-Leer’s teammates) for setting them up for success.
Lauren Paquette finished third in a near-PR of 15:14.64, and Stephanie Bruce showed her range by running a 15:17.76, an incredible 27-second personal best. Both runners dipped under the World Championships standard of 15:22.00.
Nikki Hiltz continued her winning streak, taking the 1500m in 4:07.71, ahead of Karissa Schweizer (4:08.51). Kate Grace displayed a strong kick to win the 800m in 2:02.95. New pro Courtney Barnes, who was an All-American for Kansas, won the steeplechase in 9:59.82. RunnerSpace posted a number of interesting post-race interviews, and I enjoyed Kate Grace and Stephanie Bruce’s.
Germany’s Konstanze Klosterhalfen ran an 800m/1500m double of 2:07.60/4:09.16 and appeared to be well off her indoor form, which may be by design as she peaked for the European Indoor Championships and doesn’t need to peak again until the World Championships, which begin in late September.
University of Colorado redshirt junior Sage Hurta finished fifth in the 1500m in 4:09.37, lowering the PR she set last month by 0.11 seconds. Hurta’s performance is notable because it would have been an NCAA leader if she were running for CU this season. (Results)
Finally, I thought one of the most interesting and underreported aspects of the event was Montaño’s presence at the meet. Four days after she dominated headlines by speaking about her experiences with sponsorship and pregnancy, she served as a rabbit at this event. She looked great going through 400m in 58 seconds and 600m in approximately 1:30 before dropping out, and she later rabbitted the fast heat of the 1500m.
Montaño, a six-time U.S. outdoor champion in the 800m, earned her most recent title in 2015 and had her second child about 18 months ago. Though she posts a fair amount of training content on her Instagram page, including a recent tempo run while pushing a stroller when her child care fell through, I had been wondering about her future racing plans.
Alexa Efraimson runs 4:04 in Shanghai
At the Shanghai Diamond League meet on Saturday, 22-year-old Alexa Efraimson finished ninth in 4:04.53, a strong early-season performance and only about second slower than her personal best. Rababe Arafi of Morocco won the race in 4:01.15, and it was exciting to see how late in the race Efraimson was still in contention. You can watch the full race here.
Efraimson achieved the World Championship standard and was just off the Olympic standard of 4:04.20. She won the Drake Relays 1500m in frigid conditions three weeks earlier in 4:13.18. Before that, she ran 4:09.88 in finishing third at the Bryan Clay Invitational in mid April.
Emily Lipari, who just came down from altitude, had an off day and ran 4:19.94 in the 1500m. Mel Lawrence ran the steeplechase, which you can watch here, in 9:44.36. Kenya’s Beatrice Chepkoech won the race in 9:04.53. (Results)
The Eastern Track League has a productive first week
The Eastern Track League had the first two events of its inaugural season last week and a number of athletes produced fast times and/or personal bests. The ETL is using a wise model in that they’re using existing meets, which significantly lowers their costs and in turn helps the meets by attracting additional attention.
Each of the meets has scored events, which vary. On Monday at Swarthmore, the featured event was the 1500m, which Ajee’ Wilson won in 4:08.17, ahead of Elle Purrier in 4:08.49. (Results) On Friday, at the Georgia Meet of Champions, the featured event was the 800m, won by Agnes Abu in 2:01.86. Yolanda Ngarambe of the Atlanta Track Club and Sweden was second in 2:02.18, and Heather MacLean of New Balance Boston was third in 2:02.87, after setting a 1500m PR on Monday. (Results)
Allyson Felix uses her platform to make a difference
Allyson Felix testified before the House Ways & Means Committee last Thursday about her harrowing experience delivering her 5-month-old daughter, Camryn. She spoke about how black women in the U.S. are more than four times as likely to die from childbirth than white women are and discussed the role that racial bias plays. You can listen to her full testimony here, or read this recap from Women’s Running, if you prefer text. (She also posted an adorable video, no longer viewable, in her Instagram stories of her practicing her testimony for her daughter, while Camryn happily squealed in response.)
Felix was also on Julie Foudy’s podcast, Laughter Permitted, and I really liked what she had to say. At the 16:45 mark, she talks about feeling like she has to have it all together as a female athlete. She talks about the pressure of maximizing one’s marketability all of the time, and what she’s learned as she’s aged and become a mother. And listen on if you want to hear about the sneaker room in Felix’s house.
Other news
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I loved this Runner’s World article from Sarah Lorge Butler (and would say this even if she wasn’t editing this newsletter) about 48-year-old Perry Shoemaker, who recently became the second-oldest qualifier for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. It was really all the little details that got me, most having to do with her family’s support.
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LetsRun posted a link to this Mary Cain video last week, which gave it a boost of attention. It captures some great wisdom from Cain and a low point in her training, when she was struggling with an injury. Given the way we treat our young stars, and how certain voices can be hypercritical, I’m glad that this video didn’t get attention until she had already shown that she’s on her way back with a 21:49 four-miler last week. The link is to a good article from Runner’s World’s Hailey Middlebrook. Cain posted her own brief response to the video.
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Theresa Juva-Brown tells the story of Molly Bookmyer, who has dealt with two brain surgeries, a seizure while running on a treadmill, and her husband’s cancer diagnosis and treatment. But Bookmyer has gradually worked her way back, and she qualified for the Olympic Marathon Trials. Last weekend, she topped that feat by finishing third behind Emma Bates and Sara Hall at the USATF 25K Championships.
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This first-person piece by BYU All-American Erica Birk-Jarvis, who is the mother of a 16-month-old son, provides an inside look at her story and is also a testament to the role a good coach can play in an athlete’s success. Before Coach Diljeet Taylor’s arrival at BYU, Birk-Jarvis had been struggling, but Taylor’s energy and enthusiasm was infectious and helped Birk-Jarvis want to run fast again. She got faster...and then she got pregnant. The way that Taylor, who is also a mother, supported Birk-Jarvis throughout her pregnancy and recovery and then helped her come back better than ever before is a strong case for why the NCAA could use more good female coaches.
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Stephanie Bruce doesn’t enter this LetsRun podcast until 73 minutes in, and I recommend listening from there. It includes many informative details about her past. She talked about thinking maybe her best years were behind her, but realizing she was wrong and you can change your narrative at any point in your life and your career. This is good advice both within the sport and outside of it. She joked, “I’m going to get kicked off the team soon if I don’t run [a 2:26 marathon] or better, because that’s what my training partners do on a bad day now.” The podcast was recorded and released before she ran her track 5,000m last Thursday and she predicted that she could run about 15:20...and then she went out and ran 15:17. At the very end, she told this story (from 2004, which ends with an anonymous donor stepping in) and discussed how it left her with a lasting desire to help others.
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More from Runner’s World about Joan Benoit Samuelson getting her own bobblehead and throwing out the first pitch at a Portland Sea Dogs game. A tweet from Chris Nickinson inspired me to check, but if you want one, despite the fact that it’s really kind of an insulting interpretation of what she looks like, there are a handful for sale on eBay.
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Alexi Pappas reports that she’s moved to Los Angeles with the hope that living at sea level, with trips to altitude (instead of the other way around) will keep her healthier.
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The Natasha Hastings Foundation is offering a new scholarship for girls who have qualified for New Balance Outdoor Nationals (the high school national championship for track & field) and could use financial help in getting to the event.
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If you’ve been here for a while, you know I think too many people are overly obsessed with what professional runners eat. But I did appreciate Esther Atkins saying, “I don’t really have a cheat day because there aren’t really any rules for me to cheat on,” in this article about what she eats. And she pointed out that despite what the headline says, she is not a dietitian.
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This was an interesting article about Tatyana McFadden from SELF. She talked about the fact that we need to accommodate disability better and discuss it more.
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In this video from last month, former professional 800m runner Nick Symmonds discusses the top three ways professional runners make money. We’re already aware of the three ways—shoe contracts, prize money, and appearance fees—but he included some interesting details of appearance fees and how much one can expect to earn, at least on the track. He also discussed why no one knows how much anyone else is making.
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I appreciated this blog entry from 2:43 marathoner Kelsey Hodges titled How I stopped worrying and learned to love the blowup. I particularly liked this passage, “The point is not to show off your discipline and prediction skills, to always negative split. The point of racing, part of the reason I fell in love with it, is to push yourself, to find out what you can make your body do on that day, in that race, and to sometimes surprise yourself along the way.” I’ve seen many of both types of runners. To broadly generalize, lots of high schoolers need to work on blowing up less and many adult runners could stand to take more risks. Except less so in the marathon.
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Abby Loveys, who will attend Princeton next year, broke a 36-year-old New Jersey high school state record in the 3200m last week, running 10:10.24. The most impressive part, as you can see in the highlight video that accompanies this article, is that she had another runner right with her up until the last lap. Julia Trethaway, a junior, finished second in 10:20.52.
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This is a frank account of 2017 World Marathon Champion Rose Chelimo’s decision to represent Bahrain in international competition, because it’s so difficult to make championship teams for Kenya due to the country’s distance running depth. Chelimo said that she still lives in Kenya, and she visits Bahrain occasionally.
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Amanda Loudin wrote about HOKA NAZ Elite and their recent string of successes that have been years in the making.
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Tierney Wolfgram ran the Twin Cities Marathon in 2:40:03 last fall and qualified for the Olympic Trials at age 15. In March, the Minnesota high school sophomore transferred to a new high school, and as a result, must sit out from varsity competition for one year. She was recently in the headlines again for accidentally running in a varsity race due to some confusion about her eligibility. Her school was reprimanded but there will be no additional punishment. Wolfgram will have to run JV races through next fall, but she could return to varsity competition for her new school during her junior track season. Wolfgram and her family have understandably declined media requests from national news outlets, so I haven’t heard anything about her longer term plans, but it will be interesting to see if she turns up at the Olympic Marathon Trials next February.
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The USATF Foundation offers Elite Athlete Development Grants, and the application deadline is May 31.
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Lindsay Flanagan was the guest on the Stryd podcast last week (her sister Kaylee interviewed her). She spoke in detail about how she achieved her ninth-place finish at the Boston Marathon this year. She discussed learning that taking down time and doing less structured training following a marathon helps her stay healthy, and she provided a good deal of information about her path through the sport.
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I came across this video from the 1984 U.S. women’s Olympic Marathon Trials last week, and it’s awesome.
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This article about two-time Olympic gold medalist Angelo Taylor continuing to coach despite being arrested twice for child molestation in 2005 was published on Thursday. The article stated that USATF had been aware of his arrests since at least April 26, but on the day the article came out, USATF provisionally suspended him.
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North Carolina high school senior Angelica Rock has cystic fibrosis, which requires her to do seven hours of therapy and take 170 pills each week, yet she’s still run 2:24 in the 800m and 5:19 in the 1600m.
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When marathoner, ultramarathoner, and triathlete Kate Pallardy, who ran 2:38 at this year’s Boston Marathon, decided to take up running, she dove in head first with a 50 miler. In this episode of the Run to the Top podcast, she talked about being bullied as a kid, how it affected her for many years, and the role running played in her decision to rewrite her story. She included some incredible details of her intense triathlon training pre-kids, and her creative ways of fitting in training post-kids.
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Athletics South Africa announced that they would appeal the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s decision regarding Caster Semenya and other DSD athletes competing in women’s track and field. The appeal will be heard at the Swiss Federal Tribunal. Semenya, of course, is not the only athlete affected by the decision. Kenya’s Margaret Wambui said last week that she’s afraid the ruling will end her career, which confirms that all three of the 800m medalists from the 2016 Olympic Games (Semenya, Francine Niyonsaba, and Wambui) have naturally occurring differences that would subject them to the IAAF’s new rules, should they be upheld. Regardless of which way the decision goes, it will have a tremendous impact on the women’s 800 meters at the international level going forward.
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The joy on Val Curtis’ face as she qualified for the Olympic Marathon Trials at the Fargo Marathon was just awesome.
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Linden and True announced that they are now Linden x Two. Des and Ryan Linden will operate the coffee business going forward, and Sarah and Ben True will no longer be involved.
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It’s cool that there is a collegiate trail running national championship (the NCAA is not involved), and what an excellent way to funnel new talent onto the trails. Over the weekend, Ellen Issac, who is a physical therapy student at Walsh University, claimed the title.
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A feature on Kylie Pearse, 26, who qualified for the Olympic Marathon Trials at the New Jersey Marathon last month
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Deena Kastor was the guest on Tina Muir’s podcast last week. Kastor mentioned that heading into the 2018 Boston Marathon, she was thinking that tough conditions were so advantageous to her that she might even win the race. In reality, she was pulled off the course—which she does not remember—due to hypothermia. She also said that her daughter, Piper, asked her after the Tokyo Marathon if she ever wins races. Oh, Piper, if you only knew…
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I enjoyed reading this Q&A with Libby James, 82, who holds a number of American age-group records in distance events. Like many women, she took up running to preserve her mental health after having four children, but she did it in 1971, at age 35, well ahead of the curve.
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Runner’s World’s Hailey Middlebrook profiled New York City’s Leigh Anne Sharek, an Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier who works as a forensic scientist.
Something that made me laugh, smile, or cry last week
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Thanks for reading. If you have any thoughts, corrections, or additions, please send them my way by responding to this message. I’m finding that not everything I’d like to include fits here, and I put some of that overflow content on Twitter.
Alison
P.S. If you’re interested in supporting this newsletter, which would help make it more sustainable in the longer term, I’ve started a Patreon page. I have no plans to charge for the newsletter or even create subscriber-only content at this point. I feel that the sport has already become overly expensive and inaccessible, and I don’t want to contribute to that. But if you’re in a position where you can afford to make a contribution, and you’re inclined to do so, I appreciate every bit of support. (Patreon puts $5/month as the default donation, but you can choose any dollar amount.) I’m also interested in pursuing sponsorship opportunities down the road, so if you are interested in becoming a sponsor or have any suggestions, please let me know!
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