Jessica Dragičević Cassleman grew up in Chile with British and Yugoslav roots. She found her way into elite athletics through community sports clubs, eventually competing and coaching at a high level. A political upheaval in Chile and a serendipitous phone call brought her to the United States and the University of Illinois, where she became a pioneering women's track and field coach in the early years after Title IX. She built competitive programs at Illinois and Washington State University, fighting for equity in resources and respect for women athletes, and developing a coaching philosophy centered on training the whole person. Eventually, she stepped away from coaching, choosing family and a different kind of leadership. She became an academic administrator, serving as assistant dean in both the Honors College and the Carson College of Business at WSU, shaping international programs, teaching and mentoring students, and carrying the same principles into the classroom.

Ultra-running legend Helen Klein turned 100 on November 27, 2022. A force of nature, she believes anything is possible if it is within your grasp. Few people have grasped as many accolades as she has. Over the course of her remarkable career, Klein amassed 75 national and world records, completed 90 marathons and 143 ultramarathons; and at age 66, was one of the first athletes to complete the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning which consists of four of the most demanding 100-mile trail races in the United States. At 72, she completed a 145-mile race in the Sahara Desert in Morocco. Just weeks later, she finished the punishing 370-mile Echo-Challenge in Utah. She also holds the marathon world record for women aged 80 and over in 4:31:32, which she set at the 2002 California International Marathon. Five years later she shattered the 85 and over record at the same race.

If Tish Hamilton is being honest, she doesn't consider herself a pioneer in women's running. She looks at titans of the sport like Kathrine Switzer and activists like Alison Mariella Desir—"They're legit," Hamilton says. But Hamilton's work in the sport—as the first female executive editor of Runner's World magazine—is nothing to sneeze at. Hamilton calls the marriage of her two passions—running and journalism—a privilege. She helped usher in the second running boom, one driven largely by women, one step behind the helm of the go-to magazine for runners. The mission was to broaden the coverage of the sport—from elites to weekend warriors doing incredible work—and with that, bring in a more varied audience, including women.

Anne Audain is a three-time Olympian and former professional runner for New Zealand. She had success as a very young athlete, qualifying for the 1972 Munich Olympics at age 16, though she wasn't able to compete until the 1976 Montreal Olympics, when she was 20. However, the road to discovering her talent wasn't without its challenges. Anne, who was adopted as a baby, was born with a bone deformity in both feet, which she wasn't able to correct with surgery until she was 13 years old. After more than a year of rehab and recovery, Anne hit the ground running, literally. Despite having competed in her first Olympic Games in 1976, she only went pro in 1981, and went on to have a storied career, breaking several course records on the US road running circuit and winning multiple Commonwealth Games medals. She retired from competition in 1990 and is now based in Evansville, Indiana.

Eileen Waters Connolly was a trailblazer in American long-distance running, part of the first generation of women to compete in the sport. In 1972, she made history by setting a world record in a 50-mile race on a track in Santa Monica, finishing in 7:05:31. Even more impressive, she ran negative splits—completing the second half 23 minutes faster than the first. A year later, she returned and broke her own record, cutting 10 minutes off her time. She died in 2016 at 71 from adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC), a rare form of cancer. As she aged, she never lost her sense of humor or self-effacing nature. She was quoted as saying, "When you get
old, you just show up and most likely you'll win your age group."

When you think about excellence in the marathon, the name Deena Kastor inevitably jumps to mind. After all, the 52-year-old held the American record in the distance for a whopping 19 years, setting it first in London in 2003, then bettering her own mark just three years later when she became the first American woman to run under 2:20. In fact, Kastor—a three-time Olympian, World Marathon Majors champ, World Cross Country medalist, and holder of national records from the 5K up to the 26.2—was drawn to distance from the very first time she hit the track.

Long before Roberta Gibb and Sara Mae Berman unofficially ran the Boston Marathon (1966 and 1969 respectively), Arlene Pieper Stine became the first woman to officially finish a sanctioned marathon in 1959, when she ran the Pikes Peak Marathon—ascent and descent—in 9:50:20 when she was 29. She was accompanied by twelve men and a horse. Pieper Stine ran in the men's category and was not given a special category or fanfare for her historic finish. She never ran another marathon and her pioneering accomplishment fell into obscurity until 2009.

Upon turning 50 years old, Yolanda Holder decided to do something different for her birthday. While others in her circle of family and friends opted for elaborate parties, expensive experiences or trips, or even purchasing long-desired goods, Yolanda, on the other hand, set out to walk 50 marathons in 50 weeks. She didn't just meet that goal—she crushed it, completing 66 marathons in 52 weeks. And she never stopped. Now 67, Holder has become one of the most accomplished ultra-endurance athletes in the world. She has set Guinness World Records, all while breaking barriers as a race walker in a runner's world. Yolanda is also the first African American woman to achieve numerous milestones in multi-day racing.