Better, Faster, Farther How Running Changed Everything We Know about Women

National Bestseller

From foot-binding to finish lines, women have been told they couldn’t run—that their bodies were too fragile, too delicate, too wrong for the track. Award-winning journalist Maggie Mertens shatters that myth with this electrifying history of women who refused to stay on the sidelines.

Better, Faster, Farther takes you from the first woman who dared to run the Olympic marathon in 1896 (without permission, naturally) to today’s ultramarathon champions who are rewriting the record books and redefining what the human body can achieve. This isn’t just sports history—it’s the story of how women have fought medical establishments, media mockery, and literal shoving matches to claim their right to run.

Mertens reveals the audacity it took to race in nursing shoes before running shoes existed, to compete without sports bras (not invented until 1977!), and to face down doctors prescribing bed rest instead of starting lines. These athletes proved that women don’t just belong in competitive running—they excel at it, sometimes outpacing men in the most grueling endurance events.

For readers who loved Born to Run and Good and Mad, this is essential reading. It’s about resilience, rebellion, and the revolutionary act of a woman running like the wind. As Gloria Steinem says, “patriarchal societies have found ways to immobilize women, but now, marathoners and Olympians are proving that women can run like the wind!”

A triumph of investigative journalism and storytelling that will inspire every woman who has ever laced up her shoes and headed for the horizon.

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