Maggie Mertens presents "Better Faster Farther," with Michael Waters

More than a century ago, a woman ran in the very first modern Olympic marathon. She just did it without permission. Award-winning journalist Maggie Mertens uncovers the story of how women broke into competitive running and how they are getting faster and fiercer every day—and changing our understanding of what is possible as they go.

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). Yet 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 disguised as men. They faced down doctors who put them on bed rest and newspaper reports that said women collapsed if they ran a mere eight hundred meters, just two laps around the track. Still today, women face relentless attention to their bodies: Is she too strong, too masculine? Is she even really a woman?
Mertens transports us from that first boundary-breaking marathon in Greece, 1896, to the earliest “official” women’s races of the twentieth century to today’s most intense ultramarathons, in which women are setting all-out records, even against men. For readers of Good and Mad, Born to Run, and Fly Girls, Better Faster Farther takes us inside the lives and the victories of the women who have redefined society’s image of strength and power.

Praise for Better Faster Farther

“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

"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. Better Faster Farther is a look behind the curtain that all women who love running and sport should read.” —Kara Goucher, Olympic runner and New York Times-bestselling author of The Longest Race

“Better Faster Farther traces the history of scrutiny over women's bodies and capabilities as runners at the intersections of race, gender identity, and sex development making clear just how little we actually know (and care to know) about them. An essential read to normalize women's existence, excellence and humanity within the sport of running.” —Alison Mariella Désir, author Running While Black

About the author

Maggie Mertens is a writer, journalist, and editor in Seattle. Her essays and reporting about gender, culture, and sports, have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, NPR, Sports Illustrated, ESPNw, and Glamour, among others. Her first book Better Faster Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women (Algonquin Books, June 2024) is a national bestseller and received Starred Reviews from Kirkus, BookPage, and Booklist.

About Michael Waters

Michael Waters has written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, WIRED, Slate, Vox, and elsewhere. His first book, The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) was released in June 2024. He was the 2021–22 New York Public Library Martin Duberman Visiting Scholar in LGBTQ studies and lives in Brooklyn.

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