Maggie Mertens

“From foot-binding to corsets, patriarchal societies have found ways to immobilize women, but now, marathoners and Olympians are proving that women can run like the wind!” 

—Gloria Steinem 

More than a century ago, a woman ran in the very first modern Olympic marathon. She just did it without permission.

Despite women proving their abilities on the track time and again, men in the medical establishment, media, and athletic associations have fought to keep women (or at least white women) fragile—and sometimes literally tried to push them out of the race (see Kathrine Switzer, Boston Marathon, 1967). Before there were running shoes for women, they ran barefoot or in nursing 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 that said women simply collapsed if they ran a mere 800 meters, just two laps around the track. Still today, women face relentless attention to their physical bodies: Is she too strong, too masculine; is she even a woman?

“It is hard and frustrating—and ultimately inspiring—to read about how women have continually been dismissed throughout our sport’s history. This book shows and credits so many of them, who hurdled roadblocks and continued to fight for their place.”

—Kara Goucher,
Olympic runner and New York Times-bestselling author of The Longest Race

Mertens transports us from that first boundary-breaking marathon in Greece, 1896, which Stamata Revithi successfully finished, to the earliest “officially” sanctioned women’s races of the 20th century, to the most intense running a person can participate in today, the ultra-marathons like the infamous Spine Race, which had its record blown wide open in 2019 by a woman.

With spirited storytelling that captures their infectious determination and triumph, Better Faster Farther takes us inside the lives, the races, and the victories of the women who redefined society’s image of strength and power.