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Why do you run? Health? Happiness? Personal achievement? 

More people are pursuing the challenge of training for and running a marathon. Distance running has been shown to improve cardiovascular health, muscle strength, and other physical indicators of health. However, the sport is also seeing an increasing number of athletes - especially women - fall victim to eating disorders. Though lower weights can be associated with faster speeds in female distance runners, many factors influence a runner’s speed, and focusing on weight as the primary indicator of athleticism does more harm than good for runners’ mental and physical health and performance. It’s our job as members of the running community to ensure every athlete can achieve health and happiness and reach their full potential, without fear of weight stigma and judgment.

Endurance runners experience a lot of cultural pressures to look a certain way, and female runners are subjected to commentary on their physical appearance more often than their male counterparts. Coaches contribute, perpetuating the narrative that skinnier means faster, even at the detriment of runners’ mental and physical health. Athletes who chronically under eat are not only unable to perform at their best, they're also at risk for physical issues, including digestion trouble, insomnia, and loss of bone density, leading to increased risk of illness and injury. Their mental health suffers, too. Often, those who under eat obsess about food, have trouble concentrating, and experience increased anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts. None of this helps athletes achieve optimal performance, but for people that have been told weight loss is the best way to improve at their sport, these symptoms are side effects they’ve come to expect and learn to live with. 

Allie Kiefer is an American distance runner who understands the pressure to lose weight all too well. Though Allie is thin by “normal” standards, in the distance running world, tall and extraordinarily thin are the norm. During her time as a D1 college runner, she knew she weighed more than the women she competed against, and when people described her, they’d often use the word “strong,” which she knew was a euphemism for “too big.” When she spoke to her coaches about this, they encouraged her to diet, which she did. She ended up losing too much weight, her body could no longer handle the rigors of training, and she quit running. It wasn’t until she graduated college and moved to New York City that she took up running again. This time, though, she decided running would be different. 

Physical traits, like overall health, weight, and VO2max, do affect runners, but “skinny” isn’t the end-all-be-all that we’re led to believe it is. In fact, a recent study showed that body weight alone is not enough to determine a runner’s speed during a vertical climb, and muscle mass is vital to achieving more powerful push-off, better running economy, and faster speeds. Body composition, training volume, and cardiorespiratory health also contribute to athletes’ speeds - and these factors are highly influenced by genetics. Runners can reach their potential and reduce their risk of injury in myriad  ways that don’t require weight loss, including supplementary training, like HIIT and strength training, following proper periodization, and incorporating speed work into mostly low-intensity running. And it goes without saying, proper fueling (i.e. eating enough) is essential to maintaining this level of intense training. 

Allie joined a CrossFit gym, she ate more, and she ran more than she ever had before. She did hard workouts she sometimes wasn’t able to finish. She stopped worrying about what her body looked like, and she just trained with the goal of being her best. She felt great - and weighed ten pounds more than she did during her previous peak performances. Despite doing everything “wrong” by the conventional standards of distance running, she finished fifth at the 2017 New York City Marathon as an unsponsored, mostly unknown athlete. Critics said she should be tested for drug use. After all, no one who looked like her - in other words, someone who weighed more than a typical elite distance runner - should be able to run as fast as she did. 

Allie persisted, and in 2018, she earned seventh in the New York City Marathon. And she’s continued to win and earn podium finishes in more marathons. Now, Allie is a coach and an advocate for more inclusivity in the running community. 

We’d do well to have more coaches like Allie - ones who advocate for true health and focus on getting the best performances out of their athletes, regardless of weight. We need to empower coaches with education about proper fueling and understanding that thinner may not mean faster. We also need to work on preventing disorders in athletes - starting with shifting the focus from weight to performance results. If distance running really is about health, happiness, and personal achievement, fostering positive environments would give athletes the tools and support they need to actually achieve these things. 

Together, we can start shifting the narrative in our sport and empower ourselves, coaches, and other runners to celebrate health, happiness, and achievement. Yes, physical indicators of health can help predict race outcomes, but when we stop forcing our bodies to function on as little energy as possible in order to achieve “skinny,” we all have a better chance of reaching our potential and helping our bodies and minds thrive.