BETTER FASTER FARTHER

An award-winning sports journalist tells the story of how women broke into competitive running over the last century, getting faster and fiercer with every race and changing our understanding of gender and power in athletics and beyond.

The 2024 Olympics in Paris will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first time women were permitted to compete in an Olympic marathon - 88 years after the first modern men's Olympic marathon. 2024 also marks 88 years since the first woman ran in that very race. She just did it without permission. From the first boundary-breaking marathon in Greece, 1896, that Stamata Revithi successfully finished, to the earliest sanctioned women's races of the 20th century and into the present, this book shows how men fought to keep women (or at least white women) fragile. Women ran barefoot or in nursing shoes, since there were no women's running shoes. They ran without sports bras, which weren't invented until 1977, or competed disguised as men. They faced down quack science, doctors who put them on bedrest, and newspaper reports of women simply collapsing if they ran a mere 800 meters. Today, women still face relentless attention to their physical bodies: Is she too strong, too masculine, is she even a woman? These questions have consequences, as some women are now banned from competition due to outdated concepts of gender and biology. Better Faster Farther takes us inside the lives, the races, the victories of the women who changed society's perception of what women can do. With this empowering narrative, we are reminded that today, in spite of ongoing sexism in the running world, women continue to run, and win. The race has only just begun. Maggie Mertens is a writer, journalist, and editor. She has been nominated for the Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting. She earned a B.A. in English Literature and Italian Studies from Smith College, and an M.F.A. in Creative Nonfiction Writing from The New School.