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 focus of Benton’s has been marathons. She has run over a dozen of them, and for about a decade, her efforts focused on what many ambitious marathoners focus on: getting ..read more

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 her play on Team USA. Wheeler has been an athlete since childhood in a number of sports, including wheelchair racing. Her early focus was on the track, in sprinting ..read more

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 learned the joy of completing those 26.2 miles, and that it's so special she continues to want to do it, again and again, every year. She's learned the power of suppor ..read more

Liz Rock is a marathoner and community leader, focusing on women and diversity: "We [women] are so powerful and I wish we knew that more," she says. "We are powerful and we need to lead with that more often than not." Rock tells her running story with a focus on training for the 2024 Boston Marathon, and her journey is about so much more than putting in the miles. Rock's reasons for running Boston this year, her second Boston Marathon, are deeply embedded in her work as a community leader and her personal health and wellness journey. This will be Rock's fifth marathon, and her motivations and ..read more

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 been practicing to overcome race anxiety and big wins she's experienced by putting these strategies in place. She also identifies her next big challenge in this proces ..read more

Liz Rock is a marathoner and community leader, focusing on women and diversity: "We [women] are so powerful and I wish we knew that more," she says. "We are powerful and we need to lead with that more often than not." Rock tells her running story with a focus on training for the 2024 Boston Marathon, and her journey is about so much more than putting in the miles. Rock's reasons for running Boston this year, her second Boston Marathon, are deeply embedded in her work as a community leader and her personal health and wellness journey. This will be Rock's fifth marathon, and her motivations and ..read more

Liz Rock tells her running story with a focus on training for the 2024 Boston Marathon, and her story is about so much more than putting in the miles. Rock's reasons for running Boston this year, her second Boston Marathon, are deeply embedded in her work as a community leader and her personal health and wellness journey. This will be Rock's fifth marathon, and her motivations and approach are different this time than for marathons in the past. This year, Rock is running for community, and specifically for the Mile 21 Cheer Zone, which is organized by the TrailblazHers and the Pioneers Run Cre ..read more

Minnesota Distance Elite Team member and Puma professional marathoner and long-distance road racer Annie Frisbie shares how it all went down at the 2024 15k National Championships, which took place March 2, 2024, in Jacksonville, FL, at the Gate River Run. Frisbie had a great race at the 15k, for some interesting and special reasons. And she gets into it. And, this episode is a bit of a twofer because what happened at the 15k champs was directly influenced by the previous race on Frisbie's calendar, the 2024 US Olympic Trials Marathon. So, she covers that race as well. The marathon trials was ..read more

Professional middle distance track racer Rebecca Mehra shares her professional running story. It's been marked by great success, two years of disappointing hurdles, to now: coming into 2024 healthy and ready, with a new perspective, new coach, and new set of training partners. Rebecca Mehra is a professional middle distance track racer, sponsored by Oiselle. She specializes in the 800 and 1500 meter. For her collegiate career, Mehra raced for the legendary running powerhouse Stanford. A year after graduation, in 2018, she became a member of Oiselle's Littlewing Athletics Elite Team, coached by ..read more

Kelly Bruno has been an athlete since she was a child. Because of a birth defect on her right leg, she went through a below-the-knee amputation, and competes with a prosthetic. Competitive sports has played a fundamental role in her life and her development, and throughout, Bruno has been a role model in the para-athlete world, pushing the limits of what's possible. She's here to tell the story. Throughout her long athletic career, Bruno has excelled in distances from 100 meters to 100 miles, and she competed for years in the sport of triathlon. In her teen years she set world records as a spr ..read more