RUNNING CONVERSATION LAUREN FLESHMAN
AFTER HER GLITTERING SUCCESS AS A SCHOOL AND COLLEGE RUNNER, Lauren Fleshman had what many would regard as a stellar professional career, becoming US 5000m champion twice and competing at the World Championships in 2003, 2005 and 2011, when she placed seventh in the 5000m final. She also enjoyed post-track success over 26.2, including a 16thplace finish at the 2011 New York Marathon. However, her professional years were dogged by injuries that she felt prevented her from reaching her full potential; and the timing cost her perhaps the ultimate dream of every runner. On Fleshman’s retirement in 2016, the New York Times described her as ‘most likely being the best American distance runner never to make an Olympic team’.
Fleshman believes hers is not a bad luck story, but the product of a sporting world that is out of sync with female physiology. Adding to her own experience, she spent time researching the science and sought to find a better way of working with female athletes as a coach. She has now shared both her knowledge and her story in a new book, Good For A Girl. Fleshman sat down with RW to explore some of the pitfalls and prejudices that female athletes at every level encounter, and give us a glimpse of a running world that is fairer to all.
RUNNER’S WORLD Could you give us an introduction to your running career and the experiences you share in Good For A Girl?
LAUREN FLESHMAN ‘I was one of the top high-school runners of all time in the US. Then I was recruited to Stanford University where I had a Hall of Fame career of five NCAA [National Collegiate Athletic Association] championship titles, 15 All-American honours, with three back-to-back outdoor 5K titles. Then I had a 13-year professional career that had a lot of ups and downs – I would say I didn’t fulfil the promise that my collegiate career and records projected. And that’s the basis of the story: where things go right and where things go wrong – and who we attribute those things to. There’s a tendency to attribute so many of the problems that female athletes face to the athletes themselves – and of course there is some personal responsibility – but there are also a lot of systemic problems that are the true root of many of the issues making up the roller coaster of the female-athlete career.’
RW So it was your personal experience that motivated you to write the book and highlight these issues?
LF ‘Definitely. Through high school and college I had a pretty storybook career. There are a lot of places where female athletes hit landmines pretty predictably. The first is during the period of breast development, when female athletes are dropping out of sports at three or four times the rate of male athletes. Then the menstrual cycle happen
