Fast Women: A weekend of one-upmanship
This newsletter turns six.
Issue 335
The six-year update
If you’re here strictly for running news, keep scrolling. I’ve been waiting for the ideal time to do my annual update on the state of the newsletter, and I’ve realized it’s not going to come. So instead I’m doing it coming off a weekend that didn’t leave as much time as I would like for writing about running. (This section was easy to write in advance.)
I spent 13 hours going to Boston University to photograph the Terrier Classic on Friday, and six hours going to the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix on Sunday. That’s usually my prime newsletter writing time. I took an embarrassingly large number of photos on Friday, but fortunately nowhere near that many on Sunday. I’ll delete at least half of them, because even the world’s best runners do not look good during certain parts of their strides.
These weekends are always some of the toughest of the year, but it’s an excellent opportunity to stock up on images of athletes that I can use in this newsletter throughout the year.
The first issue of Fast Women went out to 213 people on January 7, 2019. My goal was to help busy people keep up with women’s competitive distance running—something I would have liked during the years that I paid less attention to the sport. I also hoped that this newsletter would help people learn about top athletes, become invested in their careers, and become fans. Along the way, I began thinking about the fact that you can love something and also want to see it improve. So sometimes this is also a space for me to comment on places where the sport has room to grow.
Fast Women recently turned six, and this, the 335th edition, went out to 10,791 subscribers. The open rate averaged around 72 percent last year, which I’m told is good.
Admittedly I have not done the best job of growing the newsletter over the past year. When I’m busy or overwhelmed, getting the newsletter out always takes priority, and things like promoting it tend to fall by the wayside. And I’d rather have a quality/engaged audience than a large one. Still, the number of subscribers climbs every week. Since I started doing static Instagram posts promoting the newsletter two weeks ago, the numbers have started going up a lot faster. (I think there are still a fair number of people who think Fast Women is just a social media account.)
In the six years I’ve been doing this, my enthusiasm about the work has fluctuated. Many weeks, I’m excited to do what I do. But there have also been weeks when I’ve been dealing with family emergencies and other challenges that have made writing a newsletter feel like the least important thing in the world. And when the country is on fire, both literally and figuratively, this feels like trivial work. But if nothing else, hopefully this newsletter can provide a distraction.
Despite the amount of uncertainty in the world right now, I’ve entered 2025 with a lot of enthusiasm for continuing to make Fast Women better. It’s probably silly that I held out so long, but I started using modern transcription tools only a couple months ago, and they save me hours. And it’s more fun writing newsletters that include information readers are unlikely to get anywhere else, so I’ve been challenging myself to find and include more of that recently.
My enthusiasm is also helped by the fact that for the past few months, I’ve magically been able to run consistently again. Long story short, I’ve dealt with all sorts of challenges the past few years (nothing secret, the details would just bore you). I began to believe that maybe I wasn’t the kind of runner who was actually going to be able to run without pain again. I tried everything and then I kind of gave up. But one day, the pain went away. I’ve almost always been someone who can be happy about other people’s running accomplishments even when I can’t run myself. But it’s more fun writing about running when I get to be the kind of runner who runs, too.
Someone recently asked me about longer term plans for Fast Women, and to be honest, I’m not looking far ahead. I do this because it fits into my life right now, and I enjoy the work most of the time. I plan to keep doing it as long as that continues, and as long as I can justify it from a financial standpoint. I have no idea how long that will be.
There are challenges, too. Financially speaking, 2024 wasn’t a great year for Fast Women. I hope I never give anyone the impression that I make a living doing this. That would be misleading. I think it’s possible, but it hasn’t happened for me yet. I put in well over full-time work on this newsletter, but I am unable to compensate myself accordingly. The most money I ever made working in this sport was during my last year at New York Road Runners, in 2005.
But I had incredible support from Fast Women readers last year. It still blows me away every time someone I don’t know contributes. (I’m grateful to those of you I do know, too!) And you all carried this newsletter last year. Thank you. When I say I couldn’t do this without you, I mean it.
Sponsor support was way down in 2024—only about 56 percent of what it was in 2022 and 2023. I didn’t start a newsletter because I was a good businessperson. I could probably use some help there. I’m thankful to the sponsors who did support this newsletter in 2024—Brooks, SOAR, Bombas, Topo Athletic, Runbuk, and Feisty. And PUMA supported Fast Women last month. (As you can see, I don’t have a February sponsor.) I work only with sponsors whose products I feel good promoting. I’ve always said I will stop writing a newsletter before I’ll compromise on that.
Social media is another challenge. Fast Women in its current form was a Twitter account before it was anything else, and that’s where I had my largest following. But the platform has changed so dramatically in recent years that I couldn’t rationalize staying there anymore, especially because I had so many people telling me they only kept their accounts so they could follow Fast Women. Moving over to Bluesky has not been good for business, going from 40,000+ followers to 2,500, but it has been good for my peace of mind.
When it became clear in 2022 or 2023 that Twitter was headed in a bad direction, I decided to put more effort into updating the Fast Women Instagram account. That decision hasn’t aged well. While Instagram has been a good tool for promoting this newsletter, all things Meta are feeling more problematic by the day. I have no plans to leave Instagram at the moment, because too much of the running world is centered there, but this has really driven home the drawbacks of building one’s following in a place controlled by others.
Despite the challenges, I am feeling optimistic about the future of this newsletter and I’m thinking about the ways in which Fast Women can grow. If you find value in this newsletter and have the means, I would be so grateful if you would consider making a contribution via Venmo (@fastwomen), which is better for one-time payments, or Patreon, which is better for recurring monthly contributions. Any amount at all helps.
And if you’ve already contributed to Fast Women recently, THANK YOU. (And please don’t feel compelled to contribute again now!) I am so appreciative of your support. If you enjoy this newsletter but would rather support it in other ways, opening it, reading it, and buying things from our sponsors helps, as does spreading the word about its existence.
Thank you all for everything. It’s an honor to have the opportunity to do this work, and there would be no Fast Women without you.
Nikki Hiltz, Elise Cranny light up the BU indoor track
The last time I saw Nikki Hiltz race in person was very early on in their pro career. At the time, they got about as much attention as anyone else in the field. But since then, they’ve come out as trans/nonbinary, won a World Championship medal, become an Olympian, and been outspoken on a variety of issues. In the process, they’ve built quite a following. They’ve become the kind of person who can tell their followers where they’re racing, and people who otherwise might not go to a track meet show up to watch them run.
It was really fun to witness the phenomenon in person at Friday’s Terrier Classic, hosted by Boston University. It’s been a really tough couple of weeks in this country, and the attacks on trans rights have been brutal. So it was particularly moving to watch Hiltz bring down the house with a fantastic race in the 3,000m, an event they don’t run often. The race was exciting, but the crowd’s reaction to it, and Hiltz, nearly brought me to tears. (I watched a little of the FloTrack replay and the energy doesn’t come across there at all.)
Australia’s Linden Hall followed rabbit Abbe Goldstein through 1400m before taking over the pacing. Hall began to open up a gap soon after, but Hiltz gradually closed it up, drew even with Hall with a lap to go, and then took off. Hiltz covered their last lap in 29.64 seconds and won in 8:32.52, which at the time placed them seventh on the U.S. all-time list indoors. (Now they’re eighth.) Hall finished second in a personal best of 8:35.17.
Behind them, Stanford’s Amy Bunnage ran 8:43.82 and Providence College’s Kimberley May ran 8:44.73, which places them sixth and seventh on the NCAA all-time list. Bunnage broke PattiSue Plumer’s school record from 1983—kudos to Plumer for running a time that held up this far into the super shoe era.
Elise Cranny also produced a big performance and got an enthusiastic reaction from the crowd, winning the mile in a facility record of 4:20.83, which moved her to fourth on the U.S. all-time list indoors. Gabbi Jennings did an admirable job of hanging with Cranny for about three-quarters of the race, but in the end it was all Cranny. Jennings finished second in a personal best of 4:25.32. And BYU’s Riley Chamberlain had a big race to become the fifth-fastest NCAA athlete of all time, running 4:26.19 for third. Given how much talent the NCAA has at the moment, I will be a little surprised if Katelyn Tuohy’s collegiate record of 4:24.26 doesn’t fall this season. It would take the right race, but I think a handful of athletes would have a shot at it.
Goldstein, whose 3,000m rabbiting came later in the meet, had a breakthrough performance in the mile, finishing fourth in 4:28.61 and earning her tree in the Fast Forest with her first sub-4:30 run.
The crowds had thinned out a bit by the time the 5,000m rolled around, but those who stuck around got to witness a parade of strong performances. Whittni Morgan led the way with a 14:48.41 win, shaving five seconds off the outdoor personal best she ran at the Paris Olympic Games. She also dipped under the World Championship standard of 14:50.00. Ella Donaghu took more than seven seconds off her outdoor personal best and finished second in 14:50.89. She just missed the world standard, but clearly her move to Provo, Utah, to train under coach Diljeet Taylor is paying off.
Taylor-coached athletes earned four of the top six spots, but they were broken up by Bailey Hertenstein of the Union Athletics Club, who finished third in 14:56.33, 14 seconds faster than her outdoor PR. BYU’s Lexy Halladay-Lowry had to take time off from running to heal the injury she suffered at the end of the cross country season, but she picked up right where she left off, finishing fourth in 14:57.63 and becoming just the fourth NCAA athlete to break 15:00 (but the third this season).
Annie Rodenfels, who is self coached and unsponsored at the moment, ran a personal best of 15:00.64. And Canada’s Simone Plourde, who is also part of the Utah crew, finished sixth in 15:01.21, a 12-second personal best.
I was also impressed by Jess McClain. It had been five years since she ran her last indoor track race, also at BU, and she finished eighth in a three-second PR of 15:09.50. She’s training for April’s Boston Marathon and the next day, she ran 16 miles on the course before finishing off her day at a Bruins game.
The 800s, earlier in the day, featured some excellent matchups. Heat one was a who’s who of the U.S. high school all-time list with Stanford’s Juliette Whittaker and Roisin Willis, Harvard’s Sophia Gorriaran, and pro Sammy Watson all racing. Gabija Galvyyte of the Bowerman Track Club won in 2:00.97, edging out France’s Anaïs Bourgoin (2:00.98). Then came Watson (2:01.37), Willis (2:01.45), Gorriaran (2:02.23) and Whitttaker (2:02.39), all in a row. Whittaker, who was racing for the first time since her breakthrough Olympic performance, ran with her left knee taped.
Some excellent athletes were relegated to heat two, but that ended up being the heat to be in. Harvard’s Victoria Bossong took the race out quickly and pulled her competitors to the fastest times of the day. BYU’s Meghan Hunter won in 2:00.21, which moved her to fifth on the NCAA all-time list, and UNC’s Makayla Paige was close behind in 2:00.57, which places her sixth all time. Aurora Rynda of Canada and the Very Nice Track Club ran an indoor PR for third (2:00.67) and Bossong had the fourth-fastest time of the day (2:00.79), moved to 11th on the NCAA all-time list, and broke Gorriaran’s school record.
I was also really impressed by Dartmouth senior Bella Pietrasiewicz, who had a breakthrough race in the 1,000m. New Balance pros Nozomi Tanaka of Japan and Addy Townsend of Canada took the race out quickly, but Pietrasiewicz, who I admit I had never heard of until Friday, stuck right with them. She was already an accomplished runner, but this performance put her on a new level. Tanaka won in 2:39.06, Townsend was second (2:39.32), and Pietrasiewicz was third in a 4.18-second personal best of 2:39.85, which ranks her third on the NCAA all-time list. The event isn’t contested at the championship level, but it was an excellent run. (All Terrier Classic results | Mile replay | 5,000m replay | Citius Mag’s post-race interviews)
The return of Shelby Houlihan
There was always the chance that Shelby Houlihan, who turns 32 on Saturday, was going to return from her four-year doping ban but never reach the level of performance she was at pre-ban. As various outlets began releasing footage from her workouts in recent weeks, that began to seem less likely. And if anyone had any lingering doubts about her ability to become a factor in U.S. distance running again, she put them to rest with a 8:31.56 3,000m at the University of Arkansas’ Razorback Invitational on Saturday. (That’s 0.96 seconds faster than Hiltz ran the previous day.)
Racing against a field of collegiate athletes, Houlihan followed rabbit Krissy Gear through 1400m and then, running alone, picked up the pace over the final kilometer. She finished less than five seconds off of the 8:26.66 personal best that she ran in February 2020. Houlihan’s attire made it clear that she is still unsponsored. She wore black briefs and a white top, with the word RISE written on the back.
Some people say track needs more rivalries and villains, and whether or not you consider Houlihan to be a contender for the villain role, her return will bring a bit more controversy to the starting line. She told Runner’s World that Saturday’s crowd was very supportive, though. Next up, she plans to race a mile at BU on her birthday.
Earlier in the meet, Gear won the mile in 4:26.00, which is faster than her outdoor personal best. And behind her, Oregon’s Silan Ayyildiz ran 4:27.84, which puts her fifth on the NCAA performance list this season. The previous day, Shafiqua Maloney, of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, won the 800m in 1:59.87. (Results)
Wins for Heather MacLean and Melissa Courtney-Bryant, and a busy weekend for Elise Cranny
After Nikki Hiltz ran 8:32.52 on Friday and Shelby Houlihan ran 8:31.56 on Saturday, Great Britain’s Melissa Courtney-Bryant ran 8:28.69 at Sunday night’s New Balance Indoor Grand Prix, topping them both and taking over the world lead. After her quick mile on Friday, Elise Cranny bounced back with a second-place finish in the 3,000m, running an indoor personal best of 8:29.78 and taking over the U.S. lead.
And running on what is now her home track in Boston, Parker Valby was impressive in her professional debut. She finished third in a 6.55-second personal best of 8:34.95. Most of the athletes in the field ran personal bests, and Ireland’s Sarah Healy ran a national record of 8:35.19, finishing fourth. Australia’s Jessica Hull, the pre-race favorite, was a late scratch.
When pacer Taryn Rawlings exited the race with seven laps to go, Cranny took over the lead and managed to shake everyone except Courtney-Bryant, who waited patiently and struck with just over 100 meters to go. Cranny said that she chose to double in part to help her get ready for Grand Slam Track, which begins in April and will follow the same pattern: two races in one weekend with a rest day in between.
Earlier in the meet, before the TV window began, New Balance Boston’s Heather MacLean won an exciting mile at home. She took the lead with about 400m remaining and held off challenges from Kenya’s Susan Ejore-Sanders and Sinclaire Johnson to win in 4:23.32, breaking her own meet record from 2023.
Raevyn Rogers won the 500m in 1:08.98, and I was glad to hear that she’s feeling more like herself again. It was fun to see Olympic 100m champion Julien Alfred win the 300m in a St. Lucian record of 36.16 and Olympic 100mH champion Masai Russell win the 60m hurdles (7.80 seconds). Jacious Sears won the 60m in 7.11 seconds. Prior to the TV window, Sascha Scott won the masters mile in 5:07.82, and Paige Sheppard of New Jersey’s Union Catholic High School pulled off a dramatic win in the high school mile, nipping California’s Hanne Thomsen, 4:44.49 to 4:44.54, at the line.
I’ve been attending this meet since I was young enough to think that the masters milers were old, and it’s been fun to see it evolve into what it is today. It gets better every year, and while I would have liked to see a women’s 800m and/or a mile field so deep that it needed to be in the TV window, I can’t complain because this meet had a ton of star power. (Results)
Other News and Links
Gabby Thomas is dealing with a new level of fame, and its pitfalls, after winning three gold medals at the Paris Olympics. Last week, she shared on TikTok that she is being stalked by a group of men who always seem to know her flight information. Simone Biles and Coco Gauff were among those who commented saying it happens to them, too. Thomas posted a video of two of the men and later posted this update.
Japan’s Mariko Yugeta, 66, was hoping to break her marathon world record for the 65–69 age group at the Osaka International Women’s Marathon on January 26. She fell short of her goal but on a cold, windy day, she ran an incredible 3:09:29. According to this piece, Yugeta took a long hiatus from the sport to focus on work and family, and she got more serious about racing again when she was in her 50s and her children were grown up. The linked article includes some details about how her training has changed as she has aged.
Additional Results
I’ll start this with a reminder that performances on the University of Washington’s indoor track don’t end up on the collegiate all-time lists because the 307m track is considered to be “oversized.” They do count for qualifying for the NCAA Indoor Championships, though. At the UW Invitational, New Mexico’s Pamela Kosgei won the 3,000m in 8:44.62, which would have put her seventh on the NCAA all-time list. She’s been rewriting Weini Kelati’s school records, and she broke this one by nine seconds. Portland’s Laura Pellicoro won the mile in an NCAA-leading 4:25.60, which would put her third on the NCAA all-time list. Behind her, former Oregon State teammates Kaylee Mitchell (4:27.67) and Grace Fetherstonhaugh (4:28.19), and current Washington teammates Amina Maatoug (4:28.39) and Chloe Foerster (4:28.90) all broke 4:30. Kristie Schoffield won the 800m in 2:02.58, and I loved seeing Marta Pen Freitas of the Brooks Beasts, who is returning to competition after breast cancer treatment, run a two-second personal best of 2:02.71 for second. (Results)
Running on her home track, Hayley Kitching won the 800m at the Penn State National Open and broke her own school record with a 2:01.14. Georgetown’s Melissa Riggins won the mile in 4:30.47. (Results)
During heat two of the mile at Friday’s Terrier Classic at BU, there was a pile-up that affected most of the field, including BYU’s Carmen Alder. She finished the race in 4:40.41, well off what she is capable of. But thanks to some quick thinking by her coach, Diljeet Taylor, she was able to race again the next day at the Harvard Invitational. She made the most of it, winning the mile in a 3.55-second personal best of 4:29.49. (Results)
At the RAK Half Marathon, Ethiopia’s Ejgayehu Taye went out near world record pace, hitting 5K in 14:57 and 10K in 30:06, but just after that, she stopped to pick her bottle up off the ground at an aid station. (It looked like her pacer knocked it off the table? I don’t know the whole story.) She slowed significantly in the second half but still managed to win the race in 1:05:52. (Results)
Kenya’s Dolphine Nyaboke Omare won Japan’s Kagawa Marugame International Half Marathon in 1:06:05. Great Britain’s Calli Hauger-Thackery finished second in a PR of 1:06:58, and Izzi Batt-Doyle broke the Australian record, held by the late Kerryn McCann, with a 1:07:17. (Results)
Podcast Highlights
I really enjoyed hearing more from Shafiqua Maloney on the Citius Mag podcast. “[It’s] one thing being an unsponsored athlete in the U.S., but then [it’s] another thing being an unsponsored international athlete,” she said. After working 60 hours a week the year before, Maloney made the decision to go all in on running heading into last year. “It was like a do-or-die year for me,” she said. Her efforts paid off with a fourth-place finish in the Olympic 800m final.
Last week was Erika Kemp week for the podcasters, and this week was Weini Kelati week. She was on Women’s Running Stories, Citius Mag, and I’ll Have Another. WRS goes deeper into her incredible backstory, and Citius focuses more on her race in Houston and the future. It was interesting to hear her discuss getting better at championship racing on both episodes. And on IHA, she talked a little about her fiancé, who was on the World Junior team with her in 2014 and helps her with training now.
Jess McClain had a lot of good advice, especially for young pro runners, on Unexpected Curves.
I enjoyed getting an Emily Infeld update from Citius Mag. Infeld said she wants to do a mix of road and track racing this year. She ultimately thinks she might end up doing more on the roads, but she wants to end things on a better note on the track first. She said she’s hoping to run a 5,000m at BU this winter, followed by The Ten, Sound Running’s 10,000m race, on March 29. She said she wished she hadn’t pushed through her injury last year, and it was interesting to hear her talk about the pros and cons of training in groups in the last seven minutes of the episode.
It was also good to get an Olivia Baker update on Running For Real. Baker said she plans to stick with professional running through at least one more Olympic cycle, and you can get a pretty good episode synopsis at the link.
Additional Episodes: Genevieve Gregson discussed training through her second pregnancy on For the Kudos (Spiked Up No. 40) | Nia Akins talked to her mother about becoming stronger and more confident on The Risers Hub with Nicol | Sarah Lesko talked about her work with Bras for Girls and more on Trail Society (she comes on at the 30:30 mark) | California high school standout Sadie Engelhardt was on The Running Effect, and if you want her planned schedule for the entire year, she goes through it just after the 28:00 mark
That was an exhausting but fun weekend. I hope you all have the best week possible.
Alison
I’ve so appreciated your work these last six years. I also echo and appreciate your ethical stance and thoughts about social media. You are my #1 source of women’s running news now. Keep the up the good work and take care of yourself!
I was at the NB Games and although I don't know you thought I might be able to say "Thank you" in person. I did not get the chance so, Thank you, I really enjoy your work!