Elite Marathoner Emma Kertesz on Durability, Big Goals with a Career, and Knowing When to Rest
Release Date: 10/31/2024
Val Rubio Meza, from 400m to a 2:55 Marathon at CIM
Lane 9 Podcast
"I never once felt like myself while I was running in college," shares Val Rubio Meza on the Lane 9 Podcast. But she certainly found her stride with running groups, and longer distances, after her collegiate running days were over. While she specialized in the 400m in high school and college, and couldn't fathom doing a 6 mile training run, she eventually gravitated toward 13.1 and 26.2 mile races. She found running groups in Denver that she connected with, and felt supported by, which helped her find joy and fun in the sport again. Val shares how she increased her endurnace to run...
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Katie Steele on Mental Health in Sports, Coaching Dynamics, and "The Price She Pays"
Lane 9 Podcast
Katie Steele LMFT competed for University of Oregon and Florida State as a collegiate runner, and now incorporates her experiences with mental health struggles, unethical coaching practices, and the pressures of collegiate athletics into her work as a therapist. She co-authored the book, "The Price She Pays: Confronting the Hidden Mental Health Crises in Women's Sports, from the Schoolyard to the Stadium" The title says a lot, and the book lives up to it. Telling the stories of female athletes across the country and across a variety of sports who have struggled with eating disorders,...
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Cate Barrett: Unlearning "faster is better", and rebuilding postpartum
Lane 9 Podcast
"I've done a lot of work trying to unpack the ''faster is better, or faster is the only way to run...it sounds so silly saying it out loud, but it's just been like, weighing on my consciousness." Cate Barrett shares about this process, of unlearning the one and only way she knew how and was trained to run, as a competitive collegiate athlete and finding her post college stride. She ran an Olympic marathon trials qualifying time in 2018 at CIM, and ran the 2020 Olympic Team Trials Marathon in February 2020. Soon after that, she was pregnant with her first kid, and a year after that, she was...
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Caila Yates RDN on Running Groups and Diet Culture, How to Fuel Adequately Anyway
Lane 9 Podcast
"Okay, no one on your team is fueling. But, what if you're the person to set the example?" Caila Yates is a sports and eating disorder dietitian based in Boulder CO, in private practice (Steady State Nutrition). She started running in college because one of her friends was doing it, and the rest is history. For her, running was supportive to her own eating disorder recovery, though we know that's not always the case. Now she works with runners at various levels of the sport, and knows the ins and outs of running culture, disordered and restrictive eating, and how hard it can be to stand...
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Marine Corps Marathon Winner Tessa Barrett on Navigating Early Success, Grief, and Post-Collegiate Running
Lane 9 Podcast
"When I was in college I saw a lot of people struggling, not just myself, because it's just a very difficult time." Tessa (Tess) Barrett won the 2013 Foot Locker National Cross Country Championship as a senior in High School. She was featured on a billboard in her hometown! The highs were high, and it could seem like everything was going well at the time. But she was also struggling with her own health, and with a sick parent. She went on to compete at Penn State, grieving the loss of a parent and navigating the often-fraught world of collegiate athletics, with a lot of eyes on...
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5 Big Changes to Lane 9 in 2025!
Lane 9 Podcast
Hello 2025! The year we are connecting female-bodied athletes to the clinicians and coaches who are trained and equipped to support their fully body health—menstrual, mental, and physical wellbeing that keeps athletes in their game(s). Tune into this short n' sweet episode to hear from Lane 9 Co-founder, Heather Caplan, about what we're up to this year and how to work with us. For more about the Lane 9 Directory—how to find a clinician or how to join us if you ARE a clinician—go to Lane9project.org / contact. Or DM us on Instagram: @lane9project.
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2x Olympian, Weightlifter, and RD2Be Jourdan Delacruz, of Her Athlete
Lane 9 Podcast
"I think making two Olympics was easier than trying to figure out what I want to do now." Jourdan Delacruz has been competing as a weightlifter for ten years, from training as a highschooler at the US Olympic Training Center, to multiple international competitions, to both the Toyko and Paris Olympics. Meanwhile, she completed her degree in Nutrition and Dietetics, on her way to becoming a registered dietitian with the hopes of working with athletes like herself. We caught up with Jourdan at the end of 2024, as an Olympic year winds down and she reflects on everything she's accomplished...
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Georgetown Athlete Fiona Max on Performance Anxiety, Owning Your Training, and Recognizing Perfectionism
Lane 9 Podcast
" Own what you're doing. And, if you're really riding a wave of inconsistency or doubt, remember that you're always on your own side." Georgetown athlete Fiona Max, running Cross Country and Track & Field in her last year of NCAA eligibility joins us on the Lane 9 Podcast. Fiona competed for, and completed her undergraduate degree at Princetown University from 2020-2024, then transferred to Georgetown to pursue her Master's in Sustainability and compete again. She wrote a blog post for GU Energy Labs titled "Practice over Perfection" about her experience with performance anxiety...
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Rachel Drake Wants to Share the Struggle, and her JFK 50-Miler Course Record
Lane 9 Podcast
Rachel Drake is a professional trail runner with Nike, co-host of The Trail Network Podcast, mom of 2-year old Lew, and a newly-minted medical resident in Salt Lake City, UT. A few weekends ago, she ran, won, and broke the course record for women at the JFK 50 Miler in northern Virginia—a huge accomplishment on its own, but especially considering all of the above. We talked to Rachel about her time as a collegiate athlete, finding trail running and a close community of friends in that space when she moved to Portland OR, and eventually getting back to racing on the trails and roads...
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Dr. Sarah Lesko on How the NCAA is Failing Female Athletes
Lane 9 Podcast
Dr. Sarah Lesko is MANY things—a runner, parent, practitioner, and a staunch advocate for female athletes of all ages, devoting her work to getting and keeping girls in sports. We couldn't have been more excited to chat with her, getting the story of her days as a collegiate athlete, why she took more than 15 years off of running and how that actually felt, what happened when she came back to running and met Oiselle's founder Sally Bergesen, and everything in between. Sarah is now the Executive Director and Board President of the incredible nonprofit, Bras for Girls, which started within...
info_outlineEmma Kertesz won the 2024 Bayshore Marathon in 2:37, a three and a half minute PR for the seasoned marathoner and Boulder CO resident. She's from Toledo OH, and ran for the University of Toledo. While she describes her collegiate athletic experiences as "tricky", she had a few lucky experiences with a supportive assistant coach that helped her steer clear of disordered eating habits or chasing the thin ideal (especially at the time). She went on to train with the Hanson brothers, and eventually moved out to the mountains. She has a full time job in early education, and is very intentional about her training, nutrition, and periods of rest. She trains with the The Track Club in Boulder, gave a shoutout to Caila Yates of Steady State Nutrition, and keeps a low profile on social media.
We talk about all of this, including what's up next for Kertesz as she trains for Houston 2025, in this episode.
Read more about Emma in the "9 Miles With Emma Kertesz" post on our Substack.
For more about the work Lane 9 Project is doing to improve the menstrual health of female athletes, and reduce REDS, go to lane9project.org. Follow along @lane9project on IG.