Lane 9 Project Podcast: Recent Episodes

Lane 9 Project

Lane 9 Project is a community dedicated to educating active womxn, and their support systems, on issues including reproductive health, eating disorder treatment and recovery, and sport.

What do you actually eat when your body is healing — and you're not allowed to move?

That's the question Shira Evans, RD, CSSD, found herself living through after a significant cycling accident left her with a concussion, road rash, and a scapula broken in two places. As a sports dietitian who specializes in REDs and disordered eating in athletes, she knew exactly what to do nutritionally — but navigating the mental health piece, the unsolicited body comments, and the slow, humbling process of returning to sport? That was a whole other conversation.

Shira is a registered dietitian and board-certified specialist in sports dietetics based in Oregon. She's a lifelong athlete, Boston Marathon qualifier, and cross-country cyclist who works virtually with athletes and active individuals throughout the US. She specializes in sports performance nutrition, REDs, and disordered eating and eating disorders in athletes — including gender-affirming nutrition support for non-binary and trans athletes. She is also a Lane 9 Directory dietitian.

Chapters

[00:04:00] How Shira got into sports nutrition — and why she created her own path

[00:06:00] Her sports nutrition philosophy: finding the gray space when everything feels black and white

[00:09:00] Cycling across the country — twice — and why the bike unlocked a different kind of adventure

[00:11:00] The accident: concussion, broken scapula, and road rash — what happened and what came next

[00:12:00] Unsolicited body comments: navigating them in real time and the parallel to athletes with REDs

[00:18:00] Why injury increases energy needs — and why that's hard to honor when you're not moving

[00:21:00] What eating actually looked like: 3 meals, 4–5 snacks, and the pre-breakfast snack strategy

[00:25:00] Starting sports psych and ERP to get comfortable being near her bike again

[00:29:00] Supplements that helped: Juven, HMB, calcium, vitamin D, and higher-dose fish oil for concussion

[00:34:00] Return to run: getting cleared doesn't mean it's going to feel good — and that's okay

Resources mentioned:

Juven — amino acid supplement for wound healing; contains collagen, vitamin C, and protein
HMB (beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate) — leucine derivative shown to help maintain muscle mass during limb immobilization
Fairlife milk — lactose-reduced option Shira used in calorie-dense smoothies during recovery
Find Shira Evans, RD, CSSD at https://shiraevansrd.com/ or in the Lane 9 Directory: lane9project.org/directory

Are you an athlete? Find a sports dietitian, DPT, therapist, or coach who understands athletes at lane9project.org/directory.

What does it look like to chase a goal and then permit yourself to let it breathe for a season?

Host Heather Caplan, RDN, is joined by her Lane 9 co-founder Alexis Fairbanks for an informal midsummer catch-up. They talk travel, food culture in Spain and Portugal, the very real struggle of treadmill running, women's sports they're following right now, and what Alexis is training for after deciding to take a much-needed break from marathon training. They also check in on Alexis's sub-3 marathon goal (where she's gotten as close as 3:02) and what it looks like to stop forcing it and let the training come to you instead.

It's the kind of conversation they don't get to have nearly enough, since they live in different time zones and their schedules are constantly pulled in different directions. But when they do, it's a good one.

Chapters

07:57- Food culture while traveling and eating without overthinking it in Barcelona and Mallorca 12:15- What Alexis is training for now, and why taking a break from marathon training felt like a relief 20:45- Heather on having no running goals right now, and why that's okay 21:00- Checking in on Alexis's sub-3 goal: how close she's gotten, what's worked, and what hasn't 25:00- How to hold a big goal without letting it haunt you 25:45- What's exciting in women's sports right now

31:30- Bar IX Detroit, a women's sports bar in crowdfunding mode

Resources mentioned:

Megan Rapinoe's Podcast — World Cup-focused episodes with Rose Lavelle, Lindsey Horan, and more
Bar IX Detroit — a women's sports bar in crowdfunding; follow along on Instagram
Taylored Training Run — Becky Anthony's coaching group, now featuring Alexis; find her in the Lane 9 Directory
Lane 9 Substack — Alexis writes monthly training missives; Heather sends Friday notes on REDs, fueling, and women's sports

Connect + get support:

Are you an athlete? Find a sports dietitian, DPT, therapist, or coach who understands athletes at lane9project.org/directory.
Are you a clinician or coach? If this conversation resonated with you professionally, Lane 9 Membership was built for you. Join a community of dietitians, DPTs, psychologists, sports medicine providers, and coaches who are doing this work, and get listed in the Lane 9 Directory so athletes can find you. Future clinicians and coaches are welcome too.
Follow us on Instagram and get in touch anytime!

"I have no doubt you could run that half-marathon, but I understand the hesitation."

That note from her physical therapist is what Host Heather Caplan, RDN, needed to hear, and this episode is her passing it along to you.

It's midsummer. Schedules are chaotic, training cycles are in-between, and sometimes the most useful thing a podcast can do is just pause and remind you: you've come further than you think.

In this solo episode, Heather reads a Substack essay she wrote in May after a long season of navigating plantar fasciitis, a hamstring tweak, a race she almost didn't run, and the slow, non-linear work of rebuilding. She reflects on why acknowledging the progress we've made is just as important as chasing the next goal.

Whether you're in the middle of REDs recovery, returning from injury, navigating a hard training cycle, or just feeling like you're far from where you want to be, this one's for you!

Resources mentioned:

Lane 9 Substack - Friday morning notes on REDs, periods, nutrition, women's sports, and more
Stephanie Flippen - Heather's running coach
Nancy Boyd, DPT - Heather's physical therapist and Lane 9 Directory member

Extra credit - If this episode hit home, here are a few ways to pay it forward:

Send this episode to a friend who needs this message right now
Leave a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify; it genuinely helps more people find us
Reach out and tell us what you're celebrating; we mean it! Email us at lane9project@gmail.com.

Connect + get support:

Are you an athlete? Find a sports dietitian, DPT, therapist, or coach who understands athletes at lane9project.org/directory.
Are you a clinician or coach? If this conversation resonated with you professionally, Lane 9 Membership was built for you. Join a community of dietitians, DPTs, psychologists, sports medicine providers, and coaches who are doing this work, and get listed in the Lane 9 Directory so athletes can find you. Future clinicians and coaches are welcome too.
Follow us on Instagram and get in touch anytime!

What does it take to reach sub-3 with your period intact and your body well-fueled?

That's the question Coach Laura Filla can now answer from experience. After four years, ten marathons, low ferritin, grief, a coaching business, and two kids, Laura crossed the finish line at Bayshore 2026 in 2:58:43. Host Heather Caplan, RDN, sits down with Laura to talk through the whole arc: what changed, what didn't, and why the breakthrough finally came when she stopped white-knuckling her training and started thriving through it.

Laura Filla is a marathoner, mom, RRCA Level 2 Certified Running Coach, and ACE Certified Personal Trainer. She founded Filla Endurance in 2021 with a focus on helping runners get the best out of themselves in a way that supports their long-term health. She's also a Lane 9 Directory coach.

Chapters

03:58- Laura's first marathon and what made her want to go faster

08:20- When sub-3 first felt possible: the 3:06 breakthrough at Indianapolis

12:31- What people don't see behind a fast marathon time

13:52- Fueling in the early seasons and working with a dietitian for the first time

17:58- Navigating grief, setbacks, and a ferritin of 14

19:32- How low ferritin showed up in training and how she finally fixed it

26:31- Tracking cycles and fueling through high-mileage weeks

29:41- Process-based goals and celebrating wins before the finish line

35:26- Race day at Bayshore: the pace group, recalibrating, and the ducks

40:33- The pain cave during the last couple of miles, the mantra, and crossing sub-3

43:46- Race fueling strategy: 84 grams per hour

Resources mentioned:

Filla Endurance - Laura's coaching business; follow her on Instagram at @coachlaura.run
Laces and Legends Podcast - Laura's podcast highlighting women runners in the St. Louis running community
Garmin app (cycle tracking)
Connect with Laura through the Lane 9 Directory at lane9project.org/directory

Connect + get support:

Are you an athlete? Find a sports dietitian, DPT, therapist, or coach who understands athletes at lane9project.org/directory.
Are you a clinician or coach? If this conversation resonated with you professionally, Lane 9 Membership was built for you. Join a community of dietitians, DPTs, psychologists, sports medicine providers, and coaches who are doing this work, and get listed in the Lane 9 Directory so athletes can find you. Future clinicians and coaches are welcome too.
Follow us on Instagram and get in touch anytime!

What does it actually take to diagnose REDs, and what happens after?

If you've ever wondered what's going on behind the scenes when a sports medicine physician suspects REDs, this episode is your inside look. Host Heather Caplan, RDN, sits down with Dr. Rosa Pasculli, a non-operative sports medicine physician based in Atlanta, to walk through the full medical picture: how REDs gets diagnosed, what labs actually matter and why, and what treatment looks like in practice. It's a masterclass in multidisciplinary care, and a reminder of just how important it is to have a physician on your team who knows how to ask the right questions.

Dr. Pasculli is a former competitive dancer turned sports medicine physician with a particular clinical interest in bone stress injuries and REDs. She is the head team physician for Emory University, overseeing 450+ varsity athletes, and serves as a consulting physician for the Atlanta Ballet, the Georgia Ballet, and the Atlanta Falcons Cheerleaders. She also sees runners, weekend warriors, and masters athletes, including, as she mentions in this episode, an 80-year-old woman doing an Ironman.

07:59- How Rosa got into sports medicine and the female athlete space 12:44- What she's seeing in the clinic: awareness of REDs and where education still falls short 14:47- REDs as a diagnosis of exclusion: what that means and why it takes a team 15:51- Lab work 101: CBC, CMP, ferritin, thyroid, and what Rosa is actually looking for 21:48- DEXA scans: who needs one and when, including the Female Athlete Triad Coalition's updated guidelines 24:22- Medical management of REDs: risk stratification, the REDs CAT2 tool, and keeping athletes in sport where possible 25:26- When it becomes dangerous: bradycardia, orthostatic changes, and the malnourished heart 28:34- Setting expectations with patients and parents around timeline and testing frequency 30:31- The Emory Women's Sports Medicine program and the cross-institutional community behind it

Resources mentioned:

IOC RED-S CAT2 Tool (2023)- free Excel-based risk stratification tool for clinicians
Female Athlete Triad Coalition- updated DEXA scan guidelines for adolescent and adult athletes
Emory Women's Sport and Wellness Conference- Saturday, August 15th, in-person and virtual; registration opening soon
Connect with Dr. Pasculli through the Lane 9 Directory at lane9project.org/directory

Connect + get support:

Are you an athlete? Find a sports dietitian, DPT, therapist, or coach who understands athletes at lane9project.org/directory.
Are you a clinician or coach? If this conversation resonated with you professionally, Lane 9 Membership was built for you. Join a community of dietitians, DPTs, psychologists, sports medicine providers, and coaches who are doing this work, and get listed in the Lane 9 Directory so athletes can find you. Future clinicians and coaches are welcome too.
Follow us on Instagram and get in touch anytime!

What does it actually take to build a girls' running program from three athletes to a full roster, and what does it cost the coach who gets it there?

That's at the heart of this conversation with Miran McCash: high school cross country and track head coach at Highline High School, and owner of ANA Run Coaching, an all-women adult running coaching business based in Seattle. Host Heather Caplan, RDN, and Miran talk about what it's really like to be a woman in a head coaching role, how she's creating space for girls to talk about their bodies and their periods, and why representation on the coaching staff is the reason girls stay in sport.

08:54- Teaching girls' weight training and building confidence in the weight room

11:11- Growing up with all-male coaches and how it shaped her

15:31- Growing the girls' cross-country team from 3 athletes to a full roster

16:29- Incentives, belonging, and why cross-country culture matters

23:28- How Miran talks to her athletes about periods, REDs, and changing the language around bodies

29:18- Balancing the financial and emotional load of coaching at a Title I school

36:59- Why women aren't signing up for coaching positions

40:16- Over-scheduling, under-recovering: the injury surge Miran is watching in real time

46:09- Going part-time teaching to grow ANA Coaching, and South End Running Exchange

Resources mentioned:

Bras for Girls: the organization Miran brought to her school to provide sports bras to female athletes across all spring sports
Better, Faster, Farther by Maggie Mertens- includes the story of Bobbi Gibbs running the Boston Marathon before Katherine Switzer, in a bathing suit (no sports bras yet)
Lane 9 Episode with Mary Cain mentioned
Follow Miran on Instagram
Follow Miran's business, ANA Coaching, on Instagram
Follow the South End Running Exchange on Instagram

Connect + get support:

Are you an athlete? Find a sports dietitian, DPT, therapist, or coach who understands athletes at lane9project.org/directory.
Are you a clinician or coach? If this conversation resonated with you professionally, Lane 9 Membership was built for you. Join a community of dietitians, DPTs, psychologists, sports medicine providers, and coaches who are doing this work, and get listed in the Lane 9 Directory so athletes can find you. Future clinicians and coaches are welcome too.

Follow us on Instagram and get in touch anytime!

What if we stopped treating sport like entertainment and started treating it like healthcare?

That's the question at the center of this conversation with Mary Cain: professional middle-distance runner, Stanford medical student, and New York Times Bestselling author of the new memoir This Is Not About Running. Host Heather Caplan, RDN, and Mary Cain talk about what it would actually take to change sports culture, including how we coach youth athletes, how providers diagnose and treat REDs, and what it means to find yourself outside of sport.

Chapters

09:10- What hope actually looks like in women's sports right now

11:32- Reframing athletics through a healthcare lens

14:01- What is an athlete? Rethinking youth sport, PE, and why kids drop out

18:49- Detaching from outcomes- what coaches, parents, and teammates can actually do to support athletes

23:28- Periods, pressure, and getting her first period in 10th grade

29:59- Flexibility and fueling across seasons

31:37- REDs vs. the Female Athlete Triad

32:34- Talking to athletes with body dysmorphia: a more trauma-informed approach

38:36- How Mary got diagnosed with REDs and navigated the healthcare system

44:47- When a non-sport therapist was exactly the right call

47:44- Writing This Is Not About Running while in med school

Resources mentioned:

This Is Not About Running by Mary Cain is available now
The Rich Roll Podcast
Another Mother Runner Podcast
Follow Mary on Instagram: @runmarycain

Connect + get support:

Are you an athlete? Find a sports dietitian, DPT, therapist, or coach who understands athletes at lane9project.org/directory.
Are you a clinician or coach? If this conversation resonated with you professionally, Lane 9 Membership was built for you. Join a community of dietitians, DPTs, psychologists, sports medicine providers, and coaches who are doing this work, and get listed in the Lane 9 Directory so athletes can find you. Future clinicians and coaches are welcome too.

Follow us on Instagram and get in touch anytime!

"Once I started doing more core work...prescribed to me by a pelvic floor DPT, and what everyone says you should be doing after pregnancy...I was feeling pain," shares Lane 9 Coach Becky Anthony, head coach and owner of Taylored Training Run.

Becky shares her story with a rare injury, osteitis pubis, which she was diagnosed with around three months postpartum. She was working with a physical therapist (DPT) on a return to run program, and had tried to check the boxes before getting back to the sport. But something felt wrong, and painful. And it took a little while to get an accurate diagnosis, and even longer before she was able to run again.

No two postpartum experiences are the same, even for one person. Becky shares this in hopes of helping the next parent build their care team—starting with nutrition, working with a DPT and a coach, etc.—and reminding parents to advocate for themselves, and their care.

Connect with Becky through the Lane 9 Directory, at Lane9project.org/directory. Follow her coaching online at @tayloredtrainingrun, on Instagram.

Find a sports dietitian, DPT, and other healthcare providers who know how to support you, the athlete and (maybe also) the parent, by going to Lane9project.org/directory.

Follow us on Instagram, @Lane9Project, and get in touch anytime!

"The [symtpoms] of under-fueling, and REDs, make it a lot harder to meet your [calorie] needs," shares dietitian KC Stockmon. "It's kind of this vicious cycle."

We're here to talk about how many calories an athlete actually needs to be eating, WHY it's important to eat enough, and the symptoms of under-fueling. The problem is, under-fueling is so common in athletics that athletes are quick to dismiss their symptoms as just "part of training". When actually, if the body has the energy—aka calories—that it needs to function well and recover from your training sessions, you might feel great. You just don't know what you don't know.

That's why we're here, in Lane 9, with reminders to eat enough, fuel before during and after training sessions, and connect with sport-specialized healthcare providers when you need to!

Build your sport healthcare team—support with fueling, injuries, mental health, and medical support— by going to Lane9Project.org/directory

Follow Lane 9 on Instagram @Lane9Project, and subscribe to our newsletter at Lane9project.substack.com

If you're a clinician looking to join our Directory and clinical membership, head to Lane9project.org/join

" I also learned the hard way. I did pay the price for several years. I had a lot of injuries, and I was in the stress fracture cycle for seven years. And that was a wake-up call. It really showed me you're not invincible and, and you're gonna have to really learn how to do this differently," shares longtime Lane 9 supporter and community member, Amy Sams.

Amy reached out to Lane 9 last Fall seeking support from a dietitian in our Directory, finally ready to fueling adequately as she approached the California Internation Marathon in December (2025), with the goal to break 2:50 for the first time. And, a little spoiler: She did it!

Amy has spent decades navigating her history with an eating disorder, struggling with fueling and rest, and multiple bone stress injuries. She has run 25 marathons, but now feels like she's really tapping into her potential. Meanwhile, she reminds herself, she's "allowed to be a work in progress."

Build your sport healthcare team—support with fueling, injuries, mental health, and medical support— by going to Lane9Project.org/directory

Follow Lane 9 on Instagram @Lane9Project, and subscribe to our newsletter at Lane9project.substack.com

"It took me several injuries to really figure out...this is going to keep happening unless I do something big about it," shares coach and DPT Bethany Brausen, a member of the Lane 9 Membership and clinical directory.

And we want to help young athletes figure those things out a lot sooner, so they have more fun training and competing, tap into their athletic potential, and/or find longevity in the sports they love.

This conversation covers periods, bone stress injuries, team culture and conversations about fueling and menstrual health, when to pause training or take seasons off if an athlete isn't menstruating, and how to connect with a clinical care team when needed.

Bethany Brausen is a a Minnesota-based board-certified orthopedic clinical specialist and doctor of physical therapy. She's also a running coach for a high school cross country team. We talk about her experience as an athlete, and how she's taking what she learned, combined with her clinical expertise, to create healthier training and performance environments for her team.

Connect with Bethany Brausen DPT, and build your sport healthcare team, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory

Follow Lane 9 on Instagram @Lane9Project, and subscribe to our newsletter at Lane9project.substack.com

"Being the best is not the end all be all. And can you have self-confidence [in sport] without being the best?" Dr. Savannah Landis, Lane 9 Clinician, asks us to consider how perfectionism shows up in our sport experiences, and how to nurture a sense of self in and outside of sport, for athletes at all ages.

Dr. Savannah Landis is a licensed clinical and sports psychologist specializing in treating athletes with eating disorders as well as mental health issues regarding perfectionism, self-esteem, and identitiy. She was a competitive swimmer in college, and works with athletes at all levels of sport as they navigate the highs and lows.

Connect with Dr. Landis, and build your sport healthcare team, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory

Follow Lane 9 on Instagram @Lane9Project, and subscribe to our newsletter at Lane9project.substack.com.

"I was honestly terrified of [pregnancy]. I feel like whenever I looked around in the sport, I didn't see it. And if someone did get pregnant, it seemed like they disappeared. And if they came back, it seemed like it was against all odds," Molly Huddle shares with the Lane 9 Podcast.

She is a 2x Olympian, has competed in six Olympic Trials throughout her career, and has run professionally with Saucony for 20 years. She has set multiple American Records, including the 5K, 10K, 10-miler and half-marathon, a few of which she still holds. And she was one of the first athletes to benefit from the Dream Maternity Campaign—activism organized around protecting pregnant and postpartum athletes with clauses in their professional contracts, instead of pausing their pay and their support.

Molly is candid with us about the fears she held around pregnancy and returning to high level racing, the injuries she has navigated in her postpartum training, how hard it is to breastfeed and eat enough and train for races, the support systems she has in place, and how she's embracing the things she cannot do right now (like, keep a really clean house—not a priority!).

She's working on a new book, and shares more about that, too!

If you're looking for support as a pregnant or postpartum athlete, head to Lane9Project.org/directory to connect with a Lane 9 clinician.

You're about the toe the line for your spring goal race, or you're mid-season for your sport and it's getting intense. Let's have a pep talk!

We're sharing this one because we are fully in the swing of the Spring sport season, and that might mean that you're bumping up against some internal resistance to do the things that you know would be helpful, but would also require changing some old habits.

You could be fueling more carb loading, or just eating enough in general. You could be focusing on getting your period back. You could be tapering or taking more consistent rest days. But if you're not doing those things right now and you know there's some change required to get from point A to point B with your health, you might be resisting some of those changes.

There is often some grief involved, grieving and old self. A body change, a sport change an identity shift. Whatever it may be, this resistance to change may present as some bargaining you may think. I know those things are healthy for some people, but I don't need to do them, or I don't need to change that much.

This episode is a reminder: You are unique, but you are NOT the exception to the known best practices for sports fueling, rest, and overall health. The work works.

If you are looking for support from a dietitian, therapist, sports medicine provider or PT, go to Lane9project.org/directory and connect with one of our clinicians!

Send us your questions, feedback, or a little love note anytime. We're here for it! Lane9project @ gmail dot com, or go to Lane9Project.org and click on "Contact".

" I've had a lot of colleagues who have navigated infertility and have been really open about it, which has helped me."

Professional runner Gabi Rooker joins the Lane 9 Podcast to talk about discovering she had a grapefruit-sized fibroid outside of her uterus, getting it removed, and navigating fertility treatments while still training for marathons like Chicago in 2025, and Boston 2026. She's been open about this process and how it's going for her, to help the next person navigate through own experiences and feel less alone along the way!

Follow and cheer for Gabi via her Instagram account, @gabirooker!

Connect with a clinician who is uniquely trained to support women in sport by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. Our providers have experience in treating all aspects of REDs, including period health and fertility support.

Follow Lane 9 on Instagram @lane9project. Contact us anytime via Lane9project.org

"The athletic person is going to need more calories overall, and a lot of those calories should be coming from carbohydrates," shares Lane 9 clinician, Brooke Czarnecki RDN. We are talking ALL about carbs on this episode!

We talk about why athletes need to skirt the general nutrition advice and focus more on their unique needs, especially when it comes to carbs. We talk specifics, we talk tracking, we talk Low Carbohydrate Availability, and much more.

If you've noticed that your hemoglobin A1c numbers are high, or are wondering how low energy/carbohydrate availability may impact these biomarker, here's a great read from another Lane 9 clinician, Abby Chan RDN: "Why your hemoglobin A1c might be high, even if you're an endurance athlete"

If you have a question for the Lane 9 clinicians, send it to us via our contact form on Lane9Project.org.

Connect with Brooke, and other Lane 9 clinicians, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. Follow us on Instagram @Lane9Project, and send us a message to say hi, anytime!

"We are not done [as athletes], by a certain age. And we should be able to push for what we want," shares athlete, advocate, and clinician, Meghan Vogt.

Meghan is part of the Lane 9 Clinician Membership and Directory, and posted to the Lane 9 Project Substack a few months ago, as she began to collect data for her dissertation project. She's studying "The Overlooked Connection Between Perimenopause, Disordered Eating, and REDs", as both a clinician, and someone with lived experience as an athlete navigating perimenopause, through a system that wasn't, and still isn't fully, designed to support her.

Listen to hear Meghan's story, why she's passionate about researching this growing percentage of people navigating perimenopause and athletics, and where we are seeing gaps in care for this season of life.

Connect with Meghan Vogt via her Lane 9 Directory profile, at lane9project.org/directory, or by going to athletealigned.com.

Follow Lane 9 on Instagram @Lane9Project, and subscribe to our Lane 9 newsletter for weekly updates.

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"Injury is part of the athletic experience. Burnout, setbacks, losses...all of these things are part of being an athlete. There's nothing you can do to eliminate ALL risk of that," shares licensed therapist and sport psychology consultant, Olivia Papakyrikos. She is part of our Lane 9 Membership and Directory. Olivia was a collegiate athlete, and now supports athletes navigating things like injuries, body image struggles, and life transitions.

We talk about the stages of grief an athlete may experience when navigating an injury, why it's actually so disruptive to our sense of identity, and what to do about that.

Connect with Olivia Papakyrikos through Lane 9's Directory, or visit her site here.

Follow Lane 9 on Instagram @Lane9Project, and subscribe to our Lane 9 newsletter for weekly updates.

Lane9Project.org

"Over the years, clients have shown me that recovery begins in spaces where they feel safe enough to tell the truth."

It's Eating Disorder Awareness Week and this year's theme is "Every Body Belongs". We wrote a little something about that on our newsletter, and shared here as well. We appreciated how eating disorder dietitian Marci Evans wrote the quote above in her newsletter this week, and have seen the same play out, here in Lane 9. We shared our stories, and it opened the door for other athletes to see what they could do the same, whether that's with us, or with someone they feel safe talking to. We hope to continue to nurture this space where your stories, and any and every body, are welcomed and held.

We're also here to help you take the next step toward eating disorder care, if you want/need it, with our Directory of Women's Health & Sport Clinicians. These are are clinicians vetted by Lane 9's team, and uniquely trained to support athletes with eating disorders and disordered eating. Go to Lane9project.org/directory to find a care team, or contact us.

Follow Lane 9 on Instagram @Lane9Project, and go to Lane9Project.org for more resources.

"The first time [younger female athletes] work with a barbell or trap bar or something, you can see it. They're like, 'this is bada**, this is awesome," shares physical therapist and ultra-endurance athlete, Hannah DePaul, on this episode about building bone density and weight lifting for female athletes (from highschool and up!).

Hannah DePaul is a former D1 Swimmer, who held multiple records at the University of Michigan, and has gone on to run ultra-marathons. She's currently training for The Huron 100, a point-to-point independent event based outside of Ann Arbor, MI. We have a few scholarship spots to give to Lane 9 athltes, for The Huron 50 or 100 mile distances! If this is something you're interested in, please reach out to us via Lane9Project @ gmail dot com.

Tune into this episode to hear Hannah bust some myths about strength training for high school female athletes, share how she addresses the WHOLE athlete not just the injury, how she screens for REDs and underfueling as a physical therapist (DPT), and how to actually incorporate strength training into your weekly routine even if your preferred form of movement is running, cycling, or swimming.

Hannah DePaul DPT is part of the Lane 9 Directory. You can find her and her clinic via Lane9project.org/directory or going to hannahdepaulpt.com

If you're looking for sports nutriton, mental health, or injury support for your next training cycle, and/or a coach informed in REDs and women's health, go to our Lane 9 Women's Sport and Health Directory at lane9project.org/directory.

Follow Lane 9 on IG @Lane9Project, and contact us anytime via Lane9project.org

"I had girls come up to me and say, 'I haven't had my period in X amount of time, how do I get it back?'" Gracen Key, head coach for the Women's Distance program at Fort Lewis College (FLC) in Durango CO joins us to talk about creating a team culture where athletes feel comfortable asking questions like that.

Key joined FLC about two years ago, and is working hard to create a team cuture that celebrates fueling, regular periods, and self expression. After struggling with injuries, and eventually having surgery for a severe hip labrum tear, her personal athletic career seemed over but she was drawn to coaching by mentors in the sport. She's been at three programs so far, and feels strongly about her athletes having regular periods, eating enough, and performing in a way that feels best for them.

We got to bring a Lane 9 workshop to her team last year, and wanted to reconnect with Key to learn more about her coaching philosophies and approach. We hope it's helpful for you, too!

If you're looking for sports nutriton and marathon fueling support for your next training cycle, and/or a coach informed in REDs and women's health, go to our Lane 9 Women's Sport and Health Directory at lane9project.org/directory.

Follow Lane 9 on IG @Lane9Project, and contact us anytime via Lane9project.org

"That really was the biggest thing during my marathon build is like, wow. Reminding myself to get back into those [fueling] habits, but also remembering I shouldn't need to train for a marathon to have these healthy habits," shares Melissa Berry, a former D1 Cross Country and Track runner for the University of Oregon. Berry ran her debut marathon at CIM 2025, in 2:35:57, getting her first OTQ in the marathon.

Berry grew up in Eugene OR and was excited to find herself at her hometown university as a collegiate athlete. She fueled well in highschool and saw big improvements, but struggled through injuries, inadequate fueling, and comparison to other athletes in college. It wasn't until Coach Shalane Flanagan joined the program, in Berry's penultimate season, that things started to turn around.

Berry shares her story with Lane 9, including how she joined the Tracksmith Stamata team to go for a marathon OTQ, thinking it would take a few years. But actually, it just took one try! Stay for the race recap and fueling lessons learned.

If you're looking for sports nutriton and marathon fueling support for your next training cycle, and/or a coach informed in REDs and women's health, go to our Lane 9 Women's Sport and Health Directory at lane9project.org/directory.

Follow Lane 9 on IG @Lane9Project, and contact us anytime via Lane9project.org

"There are a lot of outside influences that challenge the way we experience our body, which accumulates to our own personal body image," shares Dr. Krissy Ladner, a sports dietitian in the Lane 9 Women's Sport & Health Directory.

Dr. Ladner joins us to talk about how body image dissatisfaction may impact our fueling and nutrition, our mental health, and our performance in sport. It's a very common thing for people socialized as women to struggle with, and of course athletes and people of all genders may struggle with body image concerns. She speaks to the importance of coaches (and athletic staff that frequently interact with athletes at various levels) being able to recognize behaviors and changes in an athlete's demeanor, or fueling habits, and how it may be tied to body image dissatisfaction. We also cover some ways to balance body image dissatisfaction with building positive body experiences.

We share some resources for learning more about this topic, including books, podcasts, and social media accounts (or general tips for shifting your algorithm!), and also acknowledge that we come to this conversation with our own body and societal privileges. So, maybe this is a place to start, but there are many more resources out there to continue learning!

Connect with Dr. Krissy Ladner via Lane9project.org/directory.

If you're looking for sports nutriton and marathon fueling support for your next training cycle, and/or a coach informed in REDs and women's health, go to our Lane 9 Women's Sport and Health Directory at lane9project.org/directory.

Follow Lane 9 on IG @Lane9Project, and contact us anytime via Lane9project.org

We are coming up on Lane 9's 9th birthday!! This episode gives you a big update on a new thing in Lane 9, for our athletes. Listen first, then go to Lane9project.org to join us!

If you're looking for sports nutriton and marathon fueling support for your next training cycle, and/or a coach informed in REDs and women's health, go to our Lane 9 Women's Sport and Health Directory at lane9project.org/directory.

Follow Lane 9 on IG @Lane9Project, and contact us anytime via Lane9project.org

" It's interesting looking back because I normalized being hungry, normalized being super tired... and when you don't know that that's not normal, you're also not necessarily open to hearing otherwise because it sounds like somebody wants to hold you back from your performance."

Justine Fédronic immigrated to the US from Europe in elementary school. Before she learned English, she found a way to connect with her classmates at recess—through running. She showed talent on the run early, and a coach suggested she try for an athletic scholarship to college. She competed at Stanford, but not without some highs and lows.

Fédronic signed a professional running contract before graduating college, but her running career before and after this point was riddled with chronic bone stress and soft tissue injuries. She struggled with underfueling, irregular periods, and constantly having to take time off.

" A lot of college and high school, I really struggled with my mental health. And there was definitely a correlation between my stress injuries and my depression," she shares.

In this conversation with Lane 9, she shares how her running story didn't go as planned, and how she's found her way back to the sport without the pressures of performance and outcomes. She has worked with some of the brands you know and love, and is now working with the nonprofit For All Mothers+.

Connect with her on Instagram @jfedronic.

If you're looking for sports nutriton and marathon fueling support for your next training cycle, and/or a coach informed in REDs and women's health, go to our Lane 9 Women's Sport and Health Directory at lane9project.org/directory.

Follow Lane 9 on IG @Lane9Project, and contact us anytime via Lane9project.org

"I was prioritizing the general trend toward a carb load, but it really kind of stressed me out in a way that I was a little bit surprised by. But also, we talk about this in the REDs space all the time—having energy is better than having no energy," shares REDs researcher Melissa (Mel) Lodge, whom you may know from following @FED_Collaborative on Instagram.

Lodge was an elite track and field athlete who competed collegiately, but hasn't tackled longer distances until now. (She's done some 10Ks, but never raced a half-marathon!) Her REDs and female athlete health reserach, along with the coursework she has completed for both her PhD and her dietetics cirruculum, certainly set her up with an immense fueling and health knowledge base going into this experience.

She ran her first marathon at the Wineglass Marathon in October 2025, crossing the finish line in 2:51:45, 3rd female overall and 1st in her age group (25-29).

But it wasn't easy! She shares how she structured her training plan while also finishing her dissertation (which she successfuly defeneded just last week), how she fueled, what worked and didn't work for her, what surprised her about the whole process, and why she's not sure she'll do another one...at least not for a while!

We wrap things up by exploring a few of the 10 things she wishes more people knew about REDs. So, come for a marathon recap, stay for some hot takes!

Follow Mel on IG at @FED_Collaborative.

If you're looking for sports nutriton and marathon fueling support for your next training cycle, and/or a coach informed in REDs and women's health, go to our Lane 9 Women's Sport and Health Directory at lane9project.org/directory.

Follow Lane 9 on IG @Lane9Project, and contact us anytime via Lane9project.org

" Consider why you want to do this. What are the motivating factors for completing the marathon right this second? What are your long-term health and movement goals, and does this get you closer to them or further away?"

Lane 9 co-founder, and dietitian, Heather Caplan RDN takes on two more listener questions in this episode.

1) How do clinicians navigate what may be REDs, with an athlete who has an IUD and doesn't get periods?

2) If I'm undertrained and experiencing symptoms of REDs (haven't had a period in about a year), but I want to run marathon, what should I do?

As always, remember that all of our episodes cover these topics to raise awareness and engage in the converastion around REDs and women's health in sport, but they are NOT intended to (nor do they) provide individualized medical, nutrition, or mental health care. Please check in with your clinicians before you make any changes.

If you are looking for a healthcare team to support you as a woman in sport, navigating REDs or not, go to Lane9Project.org/directory to match with a clinician in our Women's Sport and Health Directory.

Connect with Lane 9 Project via Instagram @lane9project, or visit Lane9project.org. Submit a question for our next Q&A episode by sending us a DM, or a message on our site!

"You might think, 'On the other side of this, if I'm not even guaranteed better performance, Why would I do it?' That comes down to our values," shares Lane 9 co-founder, and dietitian, Heather Caplan.

This Q&A episode tackles two questions:

Is it possible to be 'healthy' even with extremely irregular periods or absent periods, if everything else is going well?
Will I recover from REDs and get faster? What if I get slower, or get injured?

Have your own question to submit to Lane 9 for a future episode or resource? We'd love to hear them! Go to Lane9project.org and contact us. Or follow us on Instagram @Lane9Project and come on into our DMs.

Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

"I'd rather suck at running and have my life back," Erin McDonald, who just won the 2025 Detroit Free Press International Half Marathon in 1:16. She objectively does not suck at running, but she does have her life back!

Erin McDonald recently opened up about her struggles with restrictive and rigid eating in college as a runner at Michigan State University. She was primed and favored to make nationals her senior year—staying "disiplined" with her food, rest, and training routine—but the race went totally awry. With a job lined up after graduation, she was ready for a long break from running. Four years, in fact.

When she came back to the sport, she had gained weight from fueling adequately and listening to her body, as well as taking care of her mental health. She was curious about the marathon, and was about to find out, she was pretty good at it!

But as she shares in this episode, her motivation for recovering from restrictive eating and chronic injuries had nothing to do with fast times. She just wanted her life back, and in this case, the rest came together.

Follow Erin on Instagram to cheer her on as she tackles another marathon this year, @sunkistErin.

Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

"Athletes aren't immune to that messaging of like, 'carbs are bad, you shouldn't have carbs, and they're the worst thing ever.' But we know that carbs are our body's preferred source of fuel, especially when you're doing these intense bouts of exercise like most athletes are doing," shares sports dietitian Lauren (or Lo) Segal.

Segal is a now in private practice, after almost 10 years of working as a collegiate sports dietitian, most recently at the University of Utah. She's part of our Lane 9 Clinicians and Coaches Membership, and listed in the Lane 9 Women's Sport and Health Directory.

We talk about her experiences as a D1 collegiate athlete, playing volleyball for Kent State University, and why that fueled her passion for supporting female athletes. She specializes in sports nutrition and REDs, and shares more information about what she wants collegiate athletes to know about nutrition, and accessing support.

Connect with Lauren Segal RDN via Lane 9 here!

Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" You can't ultimately control what happens in a race. And so you convince yourself you can, right? Or you tell yourself, well, if I control these other things, I might be able to control what happens in the race."

Stephanie Reents ran for four years on the Amherst College women's Cross Country team in the early 90s, and is the author of "We Loved to Run" her debut novel. Reents wanted there to be a novel about women's running, stories about the identities athletes hold and how those identities shape and change team dynamics, friendships, and relationships...to themselves, to their sport, and to each other. She didn't shy away from including the full spectrum of a collegiate athlete's experiences—disordered eating, body shaming, navigating trauamtic experiences, and still, continuing to compete.

In this episode, Reents shares her own experiences as both a high school and collegiate athlete, and of course, why she wrote the stories of these young women athletes from the perspective of their Cross Country team, on a quest to make Nationals.

Buy the book: "We Loved to Run" by Stephanie Reents (Lane 9 Bookshop affiliate link)

Connect with Reents: @stephanie.reents on Instagram.

Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

"I've never had a very lean body type. I kept showing up to these triathlons with lean-looking people and second-guessing if I deserved to be there...then smoking them on the bike and in the run, and gaining that confidence," shares Jess Cerra, a former professional cyclist, a sports nutrition entrepreneur, and now VP of Product and Community Development at Alete Active Nutrition.

Cerra joins us to talk about her unusual path into high level endurance sports, and then professional cycling, while studying aspects of sports nutrition, and eventually founding a sports nutrition company. She created the JoJé bar while competing professionally, and navigating her own highs and lows in sport. She shares her experiences with the stress of professional athletics, body image, disordered eating in cycling sports, and learning how to fuel her body. And, what the story behind her bar being acquired by Alete Active Nutrition.

Go to AleteNutrition.com and use code LANE920 for 20% off your order!

Connect with Jess Cerra on IG @JessCerra, and the Alete Active products via @SaltStick.

Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

"I've found that athletes vastly underestimate their [energy] needs," shares Heather Caplan RDN, co-founder of Lane 9, in this Q&A-style episode.

Listen for this one if you're wondering...

How often is it okay to have sweet things/desserts?
Is it possible to have REDs without weight loss/changes?
Why am I not getting my period back, even though I'm eating a lot more?

This one tackles flexibility with food, decades of carb-fearing and how it probably still impacts what most people eat on a daily basis...even in sports, weight stigma in athletics and the variety of REDs symptoms, and what "a lot" might actually mean, when it comes to eating for energy availability.

Have your own question to submit to Lane 9 for a future episode or resource? We'd love to hear them! Go to Lane9project.org and contact us. Or follow us on Instagram @Lane9Project and come on into our DMs.

Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

"Once I started to really add fueling into the long runs...I realized how much that was helping the next run," shares Dr. Leah Avery DPT.

Leah Avery DPT was a D1 collegiate swimmer, who qualified for NCAA championships and the Olympic Trials (2008). On paper, her athletic story reads as inspiring and exciting for a young athlete. In reality, it was a pressure-filled struggle to keep up with expectations, training, and results. She was ready to be done. When she graduated and started her DPT program, she couldn't have been happier to stop swimming, and start running.

"It wasn't all rainbows from there, though," she adds.

We talk about Leah's story as an athlete, and clinician, and how she got into coaching runners after becoming a parent. From there, we dive into some training practices for runners to avoid overtraining, and REDs. Easy days, deload weeks, and more!

Dr. Leah Avery DPT is part of the Lane 9 Women's Health & Sport Directory. Connect with her here! Or follow her on Instagram, @Leahs.Runs.DPT

To build the rest of your women's healthcare and sport team, visit Lane9project.org/directory to connect with our dietitians, mental health providers, and coaches.

Lane 9 on IG: @Lane9Project.

"I weighed more as a professional runner than I did in college, and I ran faster as a professional runner," shares sports dietitian Maddie Alm MS RDN.

You might know Maddie Alm from her Instagram account and podcat, Fueling Forward. She started her journey to becoming a registered dietitian after meeting with a sports RDN in college, as a collegiate athlete. In college, she was feeling exhausted between workouts and training sessions, but as she shares on this episode, "didn't even realize that fueling was important." That all changed with a pretty simple suggestion from the dietitian: Fuelg between workouts! In this case, with chocolate milk.

We don't hate it!

Alm shares her story as a walk-on collegiate runner at CU Boulder to becoming an All-American in her 5th year of eligibility. As she completed her additional dietetics coursework and then internship, she started training with Team Boss and began racing professionally. Now she works in private pracitce helping fellow runners fuel adequately and avoid REDs, while pursuing her own training goals on the other side of elite racing.

Connect with Maddie Alm MS RDN on Instagram @fueling_forward.

Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" When I eventually figured out my food intolerances and a better relationship with fueling, I brought [my marathon PR] down to 2:44 within a little under a year."

Jenny Grimshaw, VP of marketing at EQUIP*, and now a 2:36 marathoner, joins us on the Lane 9 podcast. Jenny is also a mom of 2, and navigating prophylactic surgeries to reduce her risk of breast and ovarian cancers (with the BRCA-1 gene). Her postpartum running experiences have been full of PRs, as she has figured out her own fueling needs, how to balance her identity as a runner with all the other things she does, and has worked with a coach to better balance her training volume and find her confidence as a runner.

Jenny shares:

her early experiences with food intolerances and GI distress that were assumed by physicians to be anorexia, but would later be more correctly classified as ARFID
the anxiety and panic attacks that she dealt with as a young runner, and injuries that plagued her through college, related to fueling, mental health, and wanting to explore life outside of running
why she got into longer distances after her collegiate T&F years
the gastroenterologist appointment that changed everything for her
how she brought her marathon PR from a 3:13 to a 2:36 (not to say "you can, too!" but to give just one example of how fueling and mental health impact our experiences in sport)
why she was drawn to EQUIP, and her role there

*EQUIP is a virtual eating disorder treatment company that offers care in all 50 states. They're also part of the Lane 9 Directory.

Connect with Jenny Grimshaw on Instagram @jenny_gshaw, and follow her training for her next marathon!

Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" I think young people often don't get that chance to like take a step back [from sport] and say like, is this working [for me]?" shares Kaleigh Cornelison, who specializes in working with teens and adolescents.

Kaleigh is a licensed clinical social worker with over 15 years of experience working with teens and the adults who care about them. She leads workshops, creative resources, and writes the both, and newsletter for parents and professionals who wanna embrace both the challenges and the joys of the teenage years. She takes a balanced approach to social media use, acknowledging both the benefits and the downsides to how it impacts development, connection, experiences in sport, and more.

This episode covers

her experiences in sports growing up, through college, and training for her first half-marathon
why she decided to specialize in working with teens and adolescents as a social worker
the ups and downs, pros and cons to teens participating in sports—from social connection to identity to body image and disordered eating
how social media can both help and harm our experiences in sport (and of course, as a human, in general)
how to talk to teens in a way that actually connects with them, especially when it comes to the hard stuff (like disordered eating behaviors)

Connect with Kaleigh Cornelison through her newsletter bothandnewsletter.com. And on Instagram @kaleighcornelisonmsw

Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

"There's nothing wrong with getting a little out of shape. It's okay! We shouldn't be in our peak or prime all the time," shares Stevie Lyn Smith, sports dietitian and endurnace athlete.

Stevie Lyn Smith is a Registered Sports Dietitian, avid endurance athlete, and dog mom. Her mission is to help educate and coach athletes on how to fuel their goals without sacrificing their health and happiness. And, she’s also part of our Lane 9 Directory of Women’s Health & Sport Clinicians!

This episode covers:

Why she took 4 years off of training for triathlons
Her year of racing (and PRs!) in 2025 after that long break
Setting boundaries and structure for your own racing and recovery, especially when your social circles are also your training circles
Why she doesn't want to hear that you "can't eat more carbs", and HOW to do that
Fueling strategies for ultra-endurance endeavors, like an Ironman (of which she's raced 10!)
and the importance of taking mental and physical breaks from training for big goals, even if it means you lose some fitness. It's okay!

As mentioned: Heather's episode on Stevie's podcast, episode 48 on Real Fuel with SLS.

Follow Stevie Lyn on Instagram @StevieLynLyn, or connect with her through the Lane 9 Directory here.

Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

"I was the last [athlete] in my recruiting class by my senior year," shares Asia Rawls, aka Coach Brown Bambi, reflecting on the challenges of collegiate athletics and how she stuck with it.

Rawls competed in multiple events, eventually excelling in the 400m hurdles. She ran for Eastern Michigan University (EMU) under coach Sue Parks. In this episode she shares how running changed her life, from a young age, after switching school districts and having more access to sport, all the way into getting a scholarship as a student athlete.

Now, she's the head coach at Machine Athletics (while also working FT in tech!), running with the Detroit-based running group We Run 313, and running World Majors Marathons!

Tune in to hear more of her story, why she brings the world of sprinting into the world of distance running, and how running has shaped so much of her story and who she is today.

Connect with Asia on IG, @brown_bambi.

Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" I mean, half of our cross country team in college, I would say had disordered eating," shares Maddie Barrett, of Joyful Run Coaching.

She's a full time running coach, parent, and recently underwent a double-mastectomy. Maddie is part of the Lane 9 Directory, and joined us to talk about her experiences as a young athlete navigating eating disorder treatment, her time as a collegiate skier and runner, and how she has navigated running and sport through her pregnancy and postpartum.

Just last year, she had surgery for a double-mastectomy and reconstruction, and shares her experiences with that as well.

Connect with Maddie through lane9project.org/directory.

Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" Eating disorders sometimes even mimic OCD. And by that I mean there is a compulsion that satisfies an obsession or an urge," shares therapist Hannah de Groot, a clinician in private practice at Stride Counseling.

Hannah de Groot is part of the Lane 9 clinician Directory, and joined us to talk about her work in helping athletes navigate symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and eating disorders. She shares her own sport story, and how she got into this work, as well as what it looks like for an athlete to work through Exposure Response Therapy.

Connect with her work through lane9project.org/directory, and give her a follow on Instagram @stride_counseling.

Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" I believed that what it took to get back to where I was year before was I needed to lose weight, so kinda overnight did a whole 180—was restricting food, was counting calories, just kind of trying to lose weight. But it was all under the guise of being dedicated to my sport," shares Kassidy Johnson, now a Division 1 collegiate sports dietitian.

Johnson is not only a helping collegiate athletes fuel adequately and navigate their fear of weight gain, she's also training and competing at high level of sport as an unsponsored athlete. She's currently training for, and will soon compete in, the US National Track Championships. She recently ran an 800m PR of 2:00.7 after, as she put it, "significant weight gain" post-college.

We talked with Johnson about:

Working full time in collegiate sports while also training and competing at track meets
How she knew she wasn't ready to be done running and competing, even when her NCAA eligibility was up and she had no sponsor
Her experience in sports in high school, and how a basketball injury triggered what would become years of disordered eating and chronic injuries, while also eventually studying nutrition in college as a student athlete
Finding a master's program in dietetics that also allowed her to continue running
Why she came back to sports nutrition as a specialty, and what she loves helping athletes navigate
The fear of weight gain that plagues so many athletes/sports (and, our general culture around "health")
Nutrition trends she's seeing in college athletics
and, of course, bicab.

Follow Kassidy Johnson on Instagram @KassidyJeane.

Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

"... the overwhelming majority of people who identify as women, that run, have at one time had an eating disorder or disordered eating, or at minimum low energy availability. So just assume that 60% of images you saw [on social media] were of someone who is actively not well."

Zoë Rom and Kylee Van Horn RDN join the Lane 9 Podcast with Heather Caplan RDN to talk about why diet culture in running (and in general) sucks, and how athlete identities get wrapped up in performance nutrition, body image, and the next health trend. Rom and Van Horn co-host the podcast, Your Diet Sucks (YDS), to bring history, facts, and nuance to diet and nutrition trends, through their lenses as a journalist and dietitian.

This conversation includes:

Why Van Horn decided to compete as a collegiate athlete
How Rom got into running as a "late in life" athlete, on the trails
Writing about food and nutrition while navigating personal eating disorder treatment and recovery, and the responsibility that comes with reporting on both nutrition and health for athletes, and eating disorders in sport
Where the line is drawn between disordered eating and eating for performance
Why they started the show, YDS, together
A topic there were nervous to tackle on YDS
and a lukewarm take on taking bicarb!

Follow @YourDietSucksPod on Instagram, and tune into the podcast!

Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.

Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" I did have some moments where I questioned if I'd ever be the runner I was [before having a kid]", shares Carly Gill Larios, a 2:42 marathoner.

She joined us for a conversation about her history with disordered eating in high school, the ways in which running was healing for her through her D3 college experience, and what brought her back to running after starting her career in the TV and Film industries. She still works as a Co-Executive Producer for "90 Day Fiance", while running up to 80 miles per week and training for her next marathon. She's a mom to 2-year-old Adella, and dog, Luna, based in Boulder Colorado.

We talk about:

her co-executive producer job!
what her first few half-marathons and marathons taught her about running, training, and fueling
how her eating habits have changed over the years, to fueling much more adequately and consistently while training for marathons at the sub-elite level
how she thought her prenatal and postpartum experiences might be...and how they actually were, in regards to recovery, running, and racing again

Follow Carly on Instagram @Carlysheree.

Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you dont' see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

Follow Lane 9 Project on Instagram @Lane9Project.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter via Lane9Project.Substack.com, and go to Lane9project.org to get in touch if you'd like to send us a note!

" I was not someone that anyone, including myself, would've thought was gonna make an Olympic team one day."

Kim Conley is a 2x Olympian in the 5000m, competing in the 2012 London Summer Games and 2016 Rio Summer Games. She has competed in everything from the mile to the marathon. During her debut at the 2016 NYCM she shares how she underfueled and bonked hard. Eventually she teamed up with a sports dietitian, changed her fueling strategy, and went on to run in the 2024 US Olympic Trials Marathon. Most recently, she finished 2nd at the Brooklyn Half Marathon in May 2025, and has run a few shorter distances competitively since then.

In this episode we cover:

her positive experiences as a high school athlete
the pressure to be "lighter" during her time in college
what her first few years as a professional runner looked like
qualifying for and running in two Summer Olympics, and how she navigated mental health and training afterward
how her fueling on the run has changed completely
a new sport she's enjoying now
and what she has coming up!

Follow Kim on Instagram @kfconley.

"I think runners specifically are convinced that shtting your pants is normal...I see stuff all the time online of people saying, 'Oh, running causes me to have GI issues.' No, running plus* your nutrition is the cause."

Grace Kelley really wants you to be able to run without sh*tting your pants. And she's got the myth-busting reels on Instagram to help! Kelley is a sports dietitian, part of the Lane 9 Directory, and a runner training for her first marathon, Fall 2025. Throughout the process, she's testing out a variety of gels so you don't have to, and keeping a spreadsheet with the facts. She's also making reel after reel of objectively bad nutrition advice from the internet, to save your gut and your run from an ill-informed fueling strategy.

We had a great time chatting with Grace about how she started running on Dry Land (IYKYK) after swimming through high school, how an appointment with a dietitian changed her career path and her own relationship with food, and more about her private practice.

Then we dig into some nutrition trends that may be affecting YOUR gut, and what might help.

Follow her @GraceKelleynutrition on Instagram. And send her bad nutrition things! For the content!

Connect with a registered dietitian near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport clinicians, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you dont' see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

Follow Lane 9 Project on Instagram @Lane9Project.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter via Lane9Project.Substack.com, and go to Lane9project.org to get in touch if you'd like to send us a note!

"I saw the tie between, you know, delaying recovery, restricting food and ending up with a bone injury in my foot. And it was part of why I took six years off."

Mary Denholm was a dual-sport athlete in college, competing in ski racing and cross country, track and field. After her first (and so far only) bone injury in college and struggling with restricting food intake, she took a long break from the sport. It ended up being six years off, while she went through law school and started her law career. "I can count on one hand the number of times I went for a run in those six years," she shared.

She has navigated a lot of change since getting back to the sport, times of very high stress, big moves, career transitions and more. But running has been a constant for her, since 2015. She shares her story within this sport, which includes qualifying for both the 2020 and 2024 Olylmpic Trials Marathons. Last year (2024), she finally got into trail running, and it's gone pretty well, to say the least! She signed her first professional running contracts at the end of last year, and at age 38, feels like many of her best races are ahead of her.

We talk about:

her experiences as a college athlete, and what happened when someone told her she'd be "faster" if she was "lighter"
how she's become in tune with her body to try to minimize injury risk, even with the timing sucks
changing your mid, leaving a career and other life transitions
why she's been intersted in trail running, but held off until 2024
her year on the run in 2024
the reason she had some menstrual cycle disruptions a few years ago
how she stays on top of her health now
how she recovered from her trail races, including Leadville 100 (which she won!) and JFK 50-miler (2nd place)
and what she's training for in 2025

Mary is a coach for Lift Run Perform. Follow her on Instagram @eatrunandbemary

Follow Lane 9 Project: @Lane9Project on Instagram and BlueSky. Subscribe to our newsletter at Lane9project.substack.com.

And head to Lane9project.org/Directory to find a clinician or coach that specializes in women's health and sport, and wants to support you!

" ...definitely we're underrepresented and I think especially with the state of our country and the world now, it can be really scary to put yourself out there."

Ari Hendrix is the third fastest US-Born African American marathoner (2:35, CIM 2022), and ran the 2024 US Olympic Team Trials Marathon in 2024. She works for HOKA and lives in Portland with her wife and two dogs.

Ari joined the Lane 9 podcast to talk about her recent move to the trails, on which she's already had some success! She recently finished 9th in her 50K debut at the 2025 Canyons Endurance Run by UTMB, and also happened to win a road 5K in Portland this spring. She played college basketball before getting into endurance running, and has navigated mental health, injuries, and setbacks in the sport.

We also talk about:

the challenges she navigated with both injuries and mental health during 2020
her CIM race in 2022, finishing in 2:35 to qualify for the 2024 US Olympic Team Trials Marathon and becoming the 3rd fastest US Born African American woman in the marathon
her experience at the 2024 Marathon Trials
why she got interested in running trails instead of sticking to road racing
how she met her wife, and her experiences as an open LGBTQ+ and African American athlete
what she's excited about in the sport

Follow Ari Hendrix on Instagram @ari_hendrix1

Follow Lane 9 Project on Instagram @lane9project, on Bluesky, and Substack.

Connect with a clinician in the Lane 9 directory by going to Lane9project.org/Directory. Find a dietitian, mental health therapist, physical therapist, and/or coach to support you as an athlete in women's sports.

" We have a lot of work to do to help improve the health of [running] culture, like the basic understanding of what it means to be a healthy runner," shares Renee Hodges DPT.

Renee Hodges is a physical therapist (DPT) based in the Phoenix AZ area, specializing in endurance athletes. As an endurance athlete herself, Hodges shares that she has experienced REDs, low energy availability, overtraining syndrome, and more. She breaks down the basics of bone health (pop quiz on osteoclasts and osteoblasts!), and how low energy avability impacts our body's recovery, and overall health.

Stay tuned for more of Renee's athletic story, why she's excited to be training for a 70.3 Ironman this year, bone stress injury rehab and recovery, and more.

Follow Renee Hodges DPT on Instagram: @reneehodges_DPT

Follow Lane 9 on Instagram: @lane9project

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: Lane9project.Substack.com

She's part of our Lane 9 Directory, as well! If you are looking for a clinician who specializes in women's health and sport, go to Lane9project.org/directory to match with someone who is a good fit for you.

Contact us anytime: Lane9project @ gmail dot com.

And find more of our resources for athletes in women's sports by going to Lane9project.org.

" I just needed to do all of those things for myself before I really talked about it publicly. Plus, I was not in a great head space about it at first, as most people aren't with a big injury," says well-known sports dietitian Meghann Featherstun, RDN MS CSSD, in regards to the post where she shared her sacral stress fracture injury at the end of 2024.

Meghann Featherstun, aka "Feathers" (if you're a "Fuel for the Sole" listener), and maybe best known by her private practice's name and Instagram handle, Featherstone Nutrition, joined Lane 9 to talk about her running experiences—including her first marathon, the 6 World Marathon Majors in 18 months, her recent injury, and more. Featherstun is a 2:51 marathoner, breaking the 3-hour mark for the first time in 2019 and getting faster from there. And she's on Instagram weekly sharing accessible and easy-applicable sports nutrition information for the everyday runner.

(Think you can't fuel before your run? Her graham-crackers say otherwise!)

This episode also covers:

the real reason Meghann signed up for her very first marathon in 2009
the lessons she had to learn for herself before specializing in sports nutrition
how everything came together for her to complete the 6-star World Marathon Majors goal in only 18 months
the process of coming to terms with her sacral stress fracture and then sharing with widely, which isn't easy to do
how she's been recovering from that injury
and of course, sports nutrition! Trends, carbs (not a trend!), sodium (also not a trend, but kind of is!), and eating adequately for performance.

Follow Meghann on Instagram @FeatherstoneNutrition.

Follow Lane 9 on Instagram @Lane9project.

To find a clinician to work with, go to Lane9project.org/Directory and match with a dietitian, therapist, physical therapist, and/or coach from our network.

And hey, if you like this episode, let us know! We love to see it.

" I think I was just trying to make only running work for me and I just am not the kind of person that can only run. I need other things in my life," shares Jess McClain, who most recently finished 7th overall and first American across the finish line at the 2025 Boston Marathon, in 2:22:43, a 3-minute personal best.

Jess McClain is professional marathoner for Brooks Running. In 2024, she placed 4th at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, placed 4th at the U.S Olympic Track & Field Trials in the 10,000m, won the 2024 U.S. 10K road championships, and placed 8th overall at the 2024 TCS New York City Marathon. In other words: She had a big year!

McClain went on to PR in the 10K on the track, placed 4th at the US Half-Marathon Championships in March, and again, 7th at the 2025 Boston Marathon. This time around, as a professional runner for Brooks once again, she's doing things differently. She's clearer on what works well for her, when it comes to work, life, and running competitively, and she's leaving her own footprint on the sport because of that.

She joins the Lane 9 podcast to talk about all of the following:

lessons learned by underfueling and overtraining for the marathon (a sacral stress fracture in 2022 became a reset for her)
why she sticks to about half the weekly mileage of her fellow professional runners when training for the marathon (at least for now!)
her experiences on competitive high school and collegiate track and cross country teams, the team cultures around fueling and periods, and what she learned from her coaches along the way
her first experience as a professional runner—plagued with injuries, stress, and setbacks
why she came back to compete at the Olympic Marathon Trials in 2024, and what she thought would happen after that race
how she's fueling NOW for her marathon training and racing, and her pro tips for finding gels/fueling options that work well for you
and how she loves to celebrate after her races

Follow McClain on Instagram @JessTonn.

Follow Lane 9 Project @lane9project on Instagram and Bluesky.

If you're looking for a clinician who specializes in REDs, sports nutrition/health, and women's health, head to Lane9project.org/Directory to match with someone in our network.

"My big fear with all of this is the trickle down," Dr. Sasha Gollish joins us on the episode, to chat about her work in Gender Equity in sport, her time as a professional runner for team Canada, how she knew she was in perimenopause, and much more.

Gollish ran at a younger age, but took some time off and worked as an engineer in Toronto before getting back to the sport at a high level. We talk about what it looked like to go back into competitive running, working with Oiselle and Asics, going to the World Marathon Championships in 2023 for Team Canada, and eventually navigating perimenopause.

As a gender equity advocate, Gollish worked to bring awareness to the World Athletics decision to resume "sex testing" for athletes competing in the female category, so we discuss her thoughts and perspective on that, along with concerns about how it may impact athletes down the line.

Follow Dr. Sasha Gollish and Yellow Running Shoes on Instagram: @Sgollishruns.

Connect with Lane 9 on Instagram @lane9project, email us Lane 9 project at gmail dot com, and/or go to Lane9project.org.

Find a clinician and/or coach to work with as you navigate fueling, mental health, and menstrual health by going to Lane9project.org/directory.

"I didn't know what I was doing at all...I didn't take any gels in my first marathon...Now I take gels like every 5K or sometimes every 30 minutes."

Emilia Benton is a freelance health and wellness journalist who is particularly passionate about sharing diverse stories and elevating underrepresented voices. Her work has been published by outlets such as Runner's World, Outside RUN, SELF, Women's Health and the Houston Chronicle. Emilia is also a 14-time marathoner, 50-something-time half-marathoner and USATF Level 1-certified run coach.

We talk about the races she has run and worked at this year (including riding on the lead vehicle in Boston), and:

Why she keeps running marathons (14+), and why she loves the Houston Marathon
How she has approached training for races lately & why she hired nell rojas as her coach
A plea for wider carbon-plated shoes
How she approaches fueling now and what she has learned along the way
Her hydration tricks for getting through the heat of a Houston Summer
How she transitioned from being a FT journalist at the Houston Chronicle to a job in healthcare to freelance work
and more!

Follow Emilia @emiliambenton on Instagram.

Follow @lane9project on Instagram, and reach out anytime: Lane9project at gmail dot com.

To find a clinician or coach who specializes in women's health and sport, go to Lane9Project.org/directory.

"For so long, every conversation, every day, was like, 'what is your weight?' So really like reinforcing confidence and performance all around the number on the scale."

Alexa Efraimson signed a professional running contract with Nike when she was just 17 years old. She hadn't gone through puberty yet, and while did shortly after that, her cycles were "super inconsistent" for the next six+ years. She navigated challenges with weight, body image, and fueling for performance. She got a college degree while running professionally, and had some success during her eight years as a pro. But in 2022, after enduring an emotional time with her partner and their families, she began to reevaluate her relationship to running and sport. She retired, and started pursuing an additional degree to eventually become a registered dietitian.

This episode covers the following topics and more:

Efraimson's current running and a big goal she has
the Dietetic internship (she's graduating in May 2025)
Navigating racing professionally, weight, body image, fueling, and harmful nutrition advice
Going through puberty as a professional runner
How she felt about the Mary Cain story when it came out and she was also competing as a pro runner for Nike
What happened during the last year of her professional running career
The nutrition book that totally shifted her perspective on eating and health

Follow Alexa Efraimson as she becomes a registered dietitian this year (2025) and begins supporting fellow athletes: @alexa.efraimson.

Looking for a clinician to support you through REDs, fueling for performance, or navigating mental health in sports? Go to Lane9Project.org/Directory to connect with a Lane 9 provider.

Follow Lane 9 on Instagram @lane9Project and Substack: lane9project.substack.com.

"{Houston} was a really great season opener and showed me again that I could fuel like I even fuel in the half marathon now, it's I'm able to take fuel. It's, and sustain my training and feel healthy and finishing strong in my races," shares Molly Bookmyer.

Bookmyer is an elite distance runner based in Columbus OH. She walked onto the Ohio State XC/Track and FIeld teams, but left the sport before graduating because of some frustrating injuries and health issues. She wasn’t getting regular periods, which actually led to her healthcare team discovering a small brain tumor.

After some time away from the sport she got back into distance running and eventually qualified for both the 2020 and 2024 Marathon Olympic Trials. While her marathon and half-marathon times have improved over the years—she ran a PR and won the 2024 Twin Cities Marathon in 2:28, and ran a half-marathon PR at the 2025 Houston Marathon with a 1:09—she has also navigated some intense challenges with gut health and fueling.

We recorded this right before she traveled to DC where she ran the Cherry Blossom 10-miler, which she finished in 52:42, 8th overall female and 7th american. As she shared on Instagram, she “Ran over a minute PR in the 10 mile race and snagged a 10k PR of 32:11 in the process”. Next up is London, so we’ll be virtually cheering for her in a few weeks!

This episode covers a lot! We discuss:

Her 14th place finish at the Half marathon championships in March 2025
Why she’s planning to do more races this year
How she walked onto the XC/TF team at Ohio State in college, her experience as a collegiate athlete, and why she quit after a few years
How she found out she had a small brain tumor,which may have been related to her experience with amenorrhea
Why and how she got back into high level/elite running, which only a few years later landed her in 3rd place at the 2019 US 25K Championship
How her fueling has evolved, especially after two stress fractures in/around 2020, and then a very unpleasant experience during the 2022 Houston Marathon
Her gluten-free fueling strategies and what's working well for her now
Her water bottle secret for elites
And her post-race journaling prompts!

Follow Molly on Instagram to cheer her on, @MollyBookie.

Follow Lane 9 @Lane9Project.

Connect with a women's health and sport clinician to get support with YOUR fueling, mental health, and/or period health by going to Lane9Project.org/directory.

"I had lost my period for a year. I was definitely not eating nearly enough, eating healthy to an extreme point...it was a very unhealthy relationship with my body," shares Natalie Tyner, who was a North Carolina State Champion in high school and went on to compete collegiately for University of NortH Carolina (UNC). Natalie is now focusing her work on supporting high school athletes who are preparing to compete at a higher level, navigating mental health, performance nutrition, and balancing their training with adequate rest. She's doing this work because she knows how hard it is to compete at the D1 level, and wants future athletes to be more prepared than she was.

In this episode we talk about:

the knee injury Natalie has been navigating for a few years
feeling wholly unprepared for the college athlete experience, and running at a higher level, during her freshman year of college
the disordered eating, and hypothalamic amenorrhea she experienced in high school, and how a cookbook can sometimes feel like a rule book
the performance anxiety that plagued her running experience for years
the culture around food, body image, and periods that she experienced during her collegiate experience
and both why and how she came into the work she does now, supporting high school athletes as they prepare for the collegiate athlete life

Follow Natalie @NatSportPrep on IG to connect with her.

Follow @Lane9project, and visit Lane9Project.org where we house our resources, including our Clinician Directory. If you are also struggling with disordered eating, hypothalamic amenorrhea, and/or performance anxiety (or other mental health issues), our directory of women's health and sport clinicians are here to help. We'll match you with a provider in your area.

"I feel like on every team I've been on, I've been someone who has eaten the most...which is sometimes a little daunting." Annie Rodenfels joins Lane 9 to talk about everything from period health, queerness in running, body dysmorphia, and why she's still coaching herself...longer than she anticipated doing so!

Rodenfels is a professional runner based in Boston MA, coming off of an indoor track season that included two PBs in her events. After leaving the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) high performance team last year, she's been coaching herself while figuring out next steps with a sponsor and/or team. While it's not her preference, she's done it well enough to keep herself in the mix competitively.

We got to talk to Annie about her experiences from high school to D3 collegiate running to both the sub-elite and professional running environments—a conversation about periods, eating enough, body dysmorphia, and queerness in the sport of running (or...what feels like a lack thereof, compared to some other prominent women's sports).

In this conversation:

an update on her current training
her take on the 2025 indoor season (and her 2 PBs)
why she's still coaching herself, and balancing working 20 hours per week with training and competing
the various team cultures she has experienced when it comes to periods, nutrition, body image, and having access to resources (or having to find them on your own) that high level competitors may want/need during various seasons (e.g. a dietitian, mental health therapist, etc.)
protective factors (for her) against disordered eating, despite some experiences with body dysmorphia
Queer culture and representation in women's sports, and how it feels a bit lacking in the running space; why she shared her bisexuality more publicly about two years ago
the race distance, and big audacious goal she might take on, in the future

Follow Annie on Instagram (@andrearodenfels) and/or Strava.

To connect with a clinician who can help you navigate fueling for performance, treating REDs, body image, mental health, and/or period health, go to Lane9project.org/Directory. For more resources from Lane 9, visit Lane9project.org.

Follow us @Lane9project on IG, and let us know if you liked this episode!

"I think for so many years I was married to like, if I don't get the run in, I don't feel like I got a quality workout in and I just don't feel like that anymore," shares Lindsey Hein, host of I'll Have Another, among other podcasts produced by her media company, Sandy Boy Productions.

Lindsey is a 17-time marathoner, running coach, mom of 4, race announcer, and podcast host! On this episode, she talks candidly with us about all the body things, and she's been through a lot.

Tune in for any/all of these things:

How running is feeling for her in THIS season of life, 2 years post-hysterectomy
A case for doing long runs during the week!
The hardest thing to recover from (mastectomy) physically, and the hardest emotionally (hysterectomy)
Perimenopause symptoms
Postpartum symptoms!
The different experiences she had with each of her four pregnancies and postpartum return to running
How running has changed for Lindsey since starting her show, I’ll have another, in 2016
Her kids getting into running now,
and more!

Follow Lindsey on Instagram @LindseyHein626. Find her work and her shows here!

If you relate to any of these things, and are looking for a clinician who can support you through this season and chasing running goals, go to Lane9Project.org/Directory. We have clinicians and coaches who specialize in women’s health and sport, across more than 20 states!

For everything else we’re working on, check out Lane9project.org, and send us a note if you have any questions!

Follow us on Instagram @Lane9project.

"It's an act of resistance, in taking care ourselves, especially for those of us who have had a disordred relationship with food. Take care of yourself not just because you want to feel good on your runs, but because you want to be a badass in life."

Amanda Katz is a personal trainer, running coach, Equinox trainer and programmer for indoor cycling, onset trainer with the New York Times, and co-host of the podcast, "Between Two Coaches". We connected with Amanda for our "In Lane 9 with" series on our Substack (see her feature here), and wanted to extend that conversation to the podcast.

Connect with a clinician or coach from the Lane 9 Directory by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. We match you with a right-fit provider for performance nutrition, physical therapy and/or pelvic health, mental health, and/or menstrual health.

We talk about:

her year on the run in 2024, with many PRs in fueling! Getting up to 80g carbs per hour with a lot of practice and consistency
how (and why) she became both a group fitness instructor and running coach, and what her days look like when she's also training for her own movement goals (like a marathon!)
why she doesn't participate in strava, or share any of her paces on Instagram
her experience with two eating disorder "rock bottoms", and how she found a way to participate in group therapy for free when she couldn't afford private pay treatment options, and what actually worked for her
her take on carbon-plated shoes
and her two favorite soapboxes/hot takes!

Tune in for Amanda's humor, smack talk and 'Great NYC energy, No BS', and stay for the best bagel recommendation from a lifelong New Yorker (but don't tell anyone else! she doesn't want a line!).

Find Amanda via Instagram @Amanda_Katzz and via AmandaSKatz.com

For more from Lane 9 Project visit Lane9Project.org. Or email us Lane9project @ gmail.com

Follow @Lane9Project on Instagram and blue.sky.

"It was pressure I put on myself. Because I saw other athletes and I wanted to be part of that, okay, look, I want to prove that they did the right thing supporting me during my pregnancy, and now I'm going to come back for them."

Neely Spence Gracey ran professionally for eight years after a lot of success as a collegiate runner in the D2 program at Shippensburg University. She has two kids, has coached hundreds of athletes through her business, Get Running, and ran FOUR marathons in 2024 alone. In this episode, we caught up with Neely toward the beginning of 2025 and talked about all the things:

Her transition from high school success to collegiate running at Shippensburg University, a D2 program in Pennsylvania
Why she started her run coaching business while still running professionally
Her two different experiences with pregnancy and running
How she approached getting back to running postpartum with her second kid to try to avoid some of those injuries
How long it took her to feel “normal” again on the run, and running and racing postpartum after her professional contracts ended
Training between her qualifying race (CIM 2022) and the Olympic Trials in 2024
What she realized while training for the 2024 Olympic Trials marathon
Her year of 4 marathons in 2024!
A race recap from her 2:33 at CIM 2024
Her 2025 goals

For more from Lane 9, where we talk about REDs, period health, nutrition, and mental health, go to Lane9project.org. To connect with a Lane 9 clinician or coach, click on "Driectory", and to get in touch, click on "Contact". We'd love to hear from you!

Follow Neely @neelysgracey on IG.

@Lane9Project on IG and Blue.Sky

"I absolutely know, had I not made that decision to go back into treatment, I would be still spinning my wheels in like a very, very harmful place. So, it was a risk worth taking."

Amelia Boone, as many of you know, is an Obstacle Racing World Champion turned Ultrarunner, attorney by day, and eating disorder awareness advocate and writer. She had a weird year in 2024, with no start or finish lines for the first time in a LONG time. She navigated a difficult injury, and continues to navigate some of the long-term impacts of an eating disorder.

We talk about:

What she would tell her younger self if they went to get coffee together
How she's feeling on the run, at the time of our chat (Feb. 2025)
What life looks like on the other side of elite level racing and competing
Why we need more not-so-epic comeback stories
Her hesitations in sharing this part of ED recovery, that's not as sensationalized, not as exciting, but maybe the most accurate in terms of what most people experience
Why she wishes she had gone back to ED treatment much earlier (than mid-30s)
And why going back to treatment was "110% the right choice"
Some ways she's exploring her creativity and non-sport performance side now!

For more from Lane 9, go to lane9project.org.

To find a clinician to work with, and build your ED and/or REDs care team, go to Lane9Project.org/Directory. We have clinicians across the country who are ED and REDs informed and ready to support you in your sport(s)!

@Lane9Project on Instagram.

Eight years ago, on the eve of Eating Disorder Awareness Week in 2017, we decided to go live with our personal stories—our lived experiences with disordered eating, hypothalamic amenorrhea, running, injuries, all of it—and see what happened. We had BIG Ideas for Lane 9 Project, but the only way we knew how to start, was to write. Alexis wrote her essay first, and we're revisiting her story in conversation form for this episode.

On the eighth anniversary of launching Lane 9, we explore why we keep coming back to this work (literally...we left, and came back last year!). And we share how we met, why we felt compelled to do something, ANYTHING, about the lack of knowledge that so many athletes (ourselves included) have about their own bodies, fueling, and period health.

More to come, this is part 1!

Ways to work with Lane 9:

team workshops
run coaching (with Alexis or Heather)
share your story
share our content with a coach, friend, teammate, or mentor!

And connect with our clinicians! Go to lane9project.org/directory to find a clinician that feels like a good fit for you and your REDs recovery.

Lane9project.org. And @Lane9Project on Instagram

"A lot of us were really struggling with our own issues, particularly related to issues with eating disorders, issues with body image that sort of thing, myself included. and I think unknowingly I was kind of passing it on to my teammates," shares Julianne Morse, or Coach Jules as she's known these days!

Morse joined the Wheaton Lyons women's cross country and track team as a walkon athlete her freshman year. She competed through injuries, setbacks related to REDs, and struggles with body image. She found support in both a therapist and a dietitian, connecting with Boston's Female Athlete Clinic, and eventually ran major PRs in her 5K and 10K events. Despite what was considered a career-ending injury during her senior year, she's stuck with the sport and continues to advocate for her care so she can, hopefully, get back out on the run soon. She's now a Graduate Assistant Coach at University of Wisconsn-Platteville, where she's also pursuing her Master's degree in Sports Administration.

We talked about:

not being the fastest runner in high school, and reaching out to the Wheaton coach asking to be the team photographer...which turned into her own spot on the XC and T&F teams
struggling with disordered eating, body image, and amenorrhea during her freshman and sophomore years of college
connecting with both a therapist and dietitian who supported her to come back to the sport and stay injury-free for over 2 years
the injury that ended her season, and her D1 committ to Niagara University
her decision to coach as a Graduate Assistant Coach at University of Wisconsin-Plattevile
her future plans and ambitions as both a coach and an athlete

If you're struggling with REDs, body image, underfueling, digestive issues, or resonate with any of Julianne's story, we have a directory of women's health and sport clinicians ready to support you. Go to Lane9project.org/Directory and find a clinician that feels like the right-fit for you. We're happy to help! If you have questions, contact us via Lane9project at gmail dot com.

For show notes, a full transcript (via email/PDF), and more work that we're doing in Lane 9, head to Lane9project.org.

If you share this episode on social media, tag @lane9project.

"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 longer distances, the story of her first marathon in Indianapolis (where she ran a 3:02), and the three world majors that followed. As she shares, she learned "to respect the marathon", and eventually ran a 2:55 at CIM in December 2024.

Follow Val @valrunsdenver on IG.

Mentioned on the show: SELF article by Cindy Kuzma, "Sorry, but running without energy gels isn't the flex you think"

Go to Lane9project.org/directory to find a clinician or coach to work with as you navigate post-collegiate running, REDs, and/or fueling for your sport. Our directory includes RDs, DPTs, MDs, therapists, and more.

Get in touch via Lane9Project.org/contact to bring Lane 9 resources to your team or clients. We'd love to work with you!

Follow @lane9project on IG, and get all show notes at Lane9project.org.

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, mental health, menstrual health, abuse, and more.

Katie's story is also one for the books. Her own experience as a collegiate athlete touches on most of the above, and we talk about it.

Find Katie and her team at thrivementalhealththerapy.com.

If you are struggling with an eating disorder, mental health, menstrual issues, or medical health as a female athlete, head to Lane9Project.org/directory to connect with one of our vetted women's health providers.

Follow @lane9project on IG.

Get in touch if YOU are a clinician and want to add your services to our directory!

"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 pregnant again.

Now, with 2 and 4 year old kiddos at home, she's continue to navigate this season of life, and what it means for her running.

"I didn't realize before I had to take such extended breaks how much of a role running was playing in my self care. I think I was just like, well, it's just what I do, but, it was multiple things rolled up into one."

Tune in for a relatable, but not-as-often-widely-shared story of how Cate is navigating what running looks and feels like now, how she's still building community around running, and finding new ways for it to be in her life, as a parent and 30-something in tech.

For more from Lane 9 Project go to Lane9project.org. Find a women's health and sport clinician to support you through this season of life, with nutrition, therapy, Physican therapy, and/or medical care—our national directory of providers is ready to support YOU.

Lane9project.org/Directory

@lane9project on Instagram

Weekly newsletter: Lane9project.substack.com

"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 up to or stand out from what your teammates are doing. So, we talk about that!

Go to steadystatenutrition.co to find ways to work with Caila.

To find and work with a women's health and sport informed clinician from the Lane 9 Project Directory, go to lane9project.org/contact to get in touch!

@Lane9project on IG

Lane9project.Substack.com for our regular newsletter and essays

"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 her.

Tess eventually moved to Washington DC where she trains and competes with Georgetown Running Club, and had a huge year on the run in 2024. She won a couple of local races, including the Marine Corps Marathon with a personal best of 2:39:38. We talk about all of the above, and how Tess balances running with working, and having a life, on this episode.

Follow Tessa Barrett on Instagram @tessabarrett_ and via the Georgetown Running Club updates.

Lane 9 working to improve the menstrual and mental health of female-bodied athletes. Connect with a practitioner or coach through the Lane 9 directory by going to Lane9Project.org. Follow on Instagram @Lane9Project.

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.

"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 to date. She's in a time of transition, without clear next steps, but excited about a variety of possibilities. We loved hearing more about her training, competitions, Olympic experiences, and how she's already supporting athletes with nutrition resources via HerAthlete.

Follow Jourdan @herathlete on Instagram.

Lane 9 is working to improve the menstrual health of female-bodied athletes at all levels of sport and through various seasons of life. Join our national directory of providers and coaches, or bring a Lane 9 resource to your team! Go to Lane9Project.org for more info.

Follow Lane 9 @lane9project on Instagram, and say hi!

" 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 and struggling with perfectionism while competing within and studying at an Ivy League school. We talk about her experiences in collegiate athletics thus far, and what she's scheming for her post-NCAA life.

Read Fiona's post for GU here.

Lane 9 is working to improve the menstrual health of female-bodied athletes and reduce REDs by sharing athlete stories from all levels of sport and various seasons of life. We're also building a national directory of practitioners and coaches who specialize in women's health and sport. Go to Lane9project.org / contact to get in touch, and/or join our directory!

Follow @lane9project on Instagram. All show notes can be found at lane9project.org, with full transcripts available by request.

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 (and doing it well!).

And she shared the full story of her postpartum running process, getting a sacral stress fracture soon after she got back into high volume training. "We don't hear about the struggle, and I think the struggle is the predominating experience," she said, when we talked about her injury and how she felt like she wasn't seeing as any stories about setbacks. How so often, what's shared is centered around the wins, the course records, the "bounce backs".

Tune in to hear Rachel's full story, and what she's eyeing for 2025!

Follow Rachel on Instagram @RachelRaeDrake.

Follow Lane 9 @lane9project on IG. If you work with female-bodied athletes, and want to 1) add your services our national directory of providers, 2) join a collective of coaches and practitioners who work with Lane 9, or 3) bring a Lane 9 resource to your team/athletes, go to Lane9Project.org/contact.

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 Oiselle in 2017 and branched out as its own 501(c)3 in 2021. They have donated over 60,000 sports bras just THIS YEAR to young female athletes, and have even bigger plans for 2025.

Come for all of the things Sarah has done in the sport of running and for female athletes up to this point, but stay for the hot takes, and unfiltered reality checks, on what really needs to happen within the NCAA to protect female athletes and keep them in sports at all levels, for the long run.

Follow Dr. Lesko on Instagram @DrLesko and @brasforgirls. Go to brasforgirls.org to get involved.

To work with Lane 9 and support what we're building for women's health providers and female athletes, go to Lane9Project.org, and follow us on IG @lane9project.

Melissa (Mel) Lodge was a collegiate track and field athlete who had multiple bone stress injuries, and a few providers in her corner that knew exactly what to do to help her navigate REDs. She took her personal experiences and funneled her drive into studying the prevalence of and interventions that may actually help prevent and treat REDs in all levels of sport. She takes time out of her day as a PhD candidate to translate the research into digestible bits on her popular and informative Instagram account, @FED_Collaborative.

We talked to Mel about her athlete journey, and how it's informing the work she's doing now. Tune in for some well-informed hot takes, relatable anecdotes about working with providers, and the latest in her REDs research.

Love this episode and the work we're doing at Lane 9 Project? Leave us some good vibes in the reviews! Or stop by lane9project.org to learn how to work with us.

Follow @Lane9Project on IG, or go to Lane9Project.org/Contact to get in touch.

Emma 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.

We talked to Ann Arbor-based physical therapist, Eliana Lin DPT, about her experience as a collegiate athlete, completing her doctorate in physical therapy with clinical rotations in Division 1 Track and Field programs, and her clinical practice philosophies on strength training for runners, and running while rehabbing some injuries (if it’s safe, of course!).

Bonus (IMO): This episode includes a deep dive into the world of Pole Vaulting! Somehow I had never spent much, if any, time thinking about what the workouts, warmups, and track meet experience of a pole vaulter all look and feel like. But, we’ve got that for you in this episode.

Eliana Lin DPT, a former pole vaulter turned distance runner and triathlete. Witnessing numerous runners sidelined by preventable injuries, Eliana is on a mission to ensure athletes stay in the race. Having experienced the frustrations of injury firsthand, she's dedicated to transforming your running experience. At Up and Running Performance, Eliana's passion is improving runners' form and strength, helping them run faster, stronger, and injury free. Whether you're new to running or a seasoned athlete aiming for new goals, Eliana is here for you every step of the way. (@Eliana.Lin.DPT on Instagram)

For more from Lane 9 Project. go to Lane9Project.org and follow on Instagram @Lane9Project. We're working to keep your periods regular, plates full, and rest days aplenty, so more female athletes stay in sports!

Melanie (Mel) Sulaver RDN, aka Nutrition by Mel (@nutritionbymel), is here to talk about her sport story from soccer to running, parenting to postpartum, and everything in between. We chat about what happened during her collegiate soccer career that led her to leaving the team, and how that was an early lesson in advocating for herself and her own wellbeing.

Mel is now a sports dietitian speicalizing in work with female-bodied athletes, menstrual health, and supporting birthing athletes through pregnancy and postpartum. Mel brings her signature Big Uterus Energy to this conversation, and her work. We talk about that!

Work with Mel: NutritionbyMel.com

The Lane 9 Project is working to reduce REDS and improve menstrual health for female-bodied athletes at all levels of sport. Find more of our work and how to work with us at Lane9Project.org. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Lane9Project.Substack.com. Full transcripts are available for all episodes.

Dietitian Serena Stewart, aka Serena Marie per her IG account, joins Lane 9 Project to talk about her experiences with adolescent body changes, how it impacted her body image, and how it led her to running. While her early experiences in sport were part of an effort to change her body, her relationship to running has evolved and changed. She recorded this episode with us at 37 weeks pregnant, on the brink of a major life transition! We know that parts of her story resonate with a lot of our Lane 9 community, and appreciate the helpful information she shared in regards to adolescent nutrition support, sports nutrition trends, and more.

Get in touch with Serena via SerenaMarieRd.com and/or via @runnergirldietitian on IG.

The Lane 9 Project is working to reduce REDS and improve menstrual health for female-bodied athletes at all levels of sport. Find more of our work and how to work with us at Lane9Project.org. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Lane9Project.Substack.com. Full transcripts are available for all episodes.

On this episode we talk with Heidi Strickler, a dietitian who checked herself into eating disorder treatment in 2020 (at Opal) after years of struggling and running through it. Heidi planned on being a collegiate soccer player but transitioned to Track and Field, and then Cross Country, and has been a competitive and accomplished runner ever since. She talks about the many years of work she has done to untie her identity from her achievements in running, and find ways to play in the mountains, have fun, and be out there for the joy of it.

Find Heidi at @hstrickler_sportsrd on Instagram.

The Lane 9 Project is working to reduce REDS and improve menstrual health for female-bodied athletes at all levels of sport. Find more of our work and how to work with us at Lane9Project.org. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at Lane9Project.Substack.com. Full transcripts are available for all episodes.

"I did not have a period. It's not unrelated that then I had a series of five stress fractures." Nancy Boyd, former D1 collegiate runner and now DPT with a practice specializing in providing pelvic floor physical therapy, joins the Lane 9 Project for this episode.

Nancy shares her experience with late puberty onset, i.e. primary amenorrhea, at the age of 20 competing in D1 athletics. She developed an eating disorder, and experienced a series of five stress fractures. She had surgeries, a lot of time off, and some not-greaet experiences within the healthcare system. She went on to get her doctorate in physical therapy, to help athletes and humans at all levels and abilities get back to movement in whatever ways are accessible to them.

We talk about:

Nancy's story: late puberty, stress fractures, an eating disorder, and finding new ways to enjoy running as a parent and person
The impact of low estrogen levels on various parts and systems within the body
Everything you need to know about pelvic floor physical therapy, whether you're pregnant, postpartum, peri/postmenopause, and/or experiencing REDS or an Eating Disorder
How to access the care you might need
talking to younger (high school) athletes in impactful ways

For more about how to work with the Lane 9 Project in reducing REDS and improving the period health of female-bodied athletes, go to Lane9project.org.

Nancy's practice in Michigan, Ancouer Wellness: ancoeurwellness.com

@ancoeurwellness on Instagram

"What I'll see in PT {with REDS} is delayed healing...." Dr. Leada Malek, whom you may know as @drmalekpt on Instagram and TikTok, joins Lane 9 co-founder Heather Caplan to chat about what it really takes for athletes to get and stay "healthy" for the long term.

We talk about her athletic story, how she starts every assessment with active clients, the most common injuries and inquiries from runners, why strength training is a key component of running fitness, and what to actually do about stretching.

Her book, "The Science of Stretch" is available wherever books are sold. And if you haven't yet, check out her Instagram and other social channels for accessible, and very helpful, short physical therapy-focused videos and content!

Lane 9 Project is working to reduce eating disorders and REDS in female-bodied athletes at all levels.

Check out our upcoming events and resources via Lane9project.org and subscribe to our weekly newsletter at lane9project.substack.com.

Follow along on Instagram @lane9project

"As someone who already felt like I was such a big fish out of water... I was like, well, that's what other people are doing to get faster. Maybe, maybe that's what I should do."

Morgan Voight, a registered dietitian based in Salt Lake City, Utah, who's focused on the intersection between movement and eating disorders, with specific research focused on the prevalence of eating disorders among the LGBTQ plus population, joins us for a Lane 9 Project conversation.

We chat about Morgan's early experiences as a middle and high school track athlete, and then joining the Quinnipiac Cross Country and Track and Field teams as a D1 competitive runner. Between her junior and senior year, she had to take time off to begin the process of treating her disordered eating, but she was able to get back to competition before graduating.

Morgan talks to us about her relatoinship with running now, what may have been helpful to her as a younger athlete, and why she's not ashamed to be using loads of Body Glide!

Reach out to Morgan via the Kayla Jessup Nutrition team in Salt Lake City, and follow her on Instagram @morganvoight.

The Lane 9 Links:

@lane9project on Instagram

Lane9project.substack.com Weekly newsletter

Lane9Project.org to get in touch, and access our resources!

In this Lane 9 Project v2, we need your help. Listen to learn more about big things coming up—like our first event in Ann Arbor, where we're hosting the Global Trail Running Film Festival at Cahoots, on Thursday Aug 1, and a workshop for high school athletes in the works—and to get the scoop on what this relaunch of Lane 9 involves for us, your co-founders. We appreciate you tuning in, and continguing to support this work in whatever ways work for you!

The links:

trailfilmfest.com/tour (Ann Arbor, August 1!)

Lane9project.org for our content like athlete stories, our contact form, and other ways to get involved (i.e. work with us to bring Lane 9 workshops to your team!)

@lane9Project on IG

Our Substack: Lane9project.substack.com, where from July 1 to Aug 1 you can help us with our ReLaunch Lane 9 campaign.

"Running served as a place where I could feel like I was holding on to my mom, and that is like what I needed more than anything when I was grieving."

Emily Halnon's debut book, "To the Gorge: Running, Grief, Resilience, and 460 Miles Across the PCT", is a story that weaves together the deep and transformative grief of both losing her mom to cancer in 2020, and running the fastest known time (FKT) on Oregon's 460 miles section of the Pacific Crest Trail. Emily is an avid and prolific ultra-runner and writer. And she writes often about her experience with running as a love language, thanks in no small part to her brave, wholehearted, joyful mom.

We talk about finding balance and sustainable routines when training for ultra-marathons, about cultivating community and connection through running, and navigating Big Hard life things while keeping joy for the things and people you love.

For more from and about Emily, visit EmilyHalnon.com. Buy her book from you local independent book store! Follow her on IG @emilysweats.

The Lane 9 Project:

We're working to reduce eating disorders and hypothalamic amenorrhea at all levels of running. If you want to work with us, and bring Lane 9 to your team and/or coaching staff, contact us via Lane9Project.org

Follow on Instagram @Lane9Project. And subscribe to lane9project.substack.com

"When you can perform through this kind of lifestyle, it makes you not think that there's a problem. And I think that's where, we have to be careful."

Andie Cozzarelli, semi-professional runner and running coach/owner of Run for a Cozz coaching, is back on the Lane 9 podcast! Listen for updates about what Andie has been up to running, training, and coaching-wise since our last episode together in 2018/2019.

Follow Andie on IG @run4acozz

The other links:

@lane9project on Instagram
lane9project.org to get in touch with!
and lane9project.substack.com to subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter

Want to hire Lane 9 Project for your run coaching needs, or to provide a workshop to your athletes or staff? Reach out. We'd love to chat!

"I listened to the {Ali on the Run interview with Sarah Sellers after 2018 Boston Marathon}. I remember I was on a run, I was crying, and I was like...'I want to do that!"

Ashley Munro RDN is a dietitian based in Tuscon AZ. By day, she's an Instructor and Performance Dietitian the University of Arizona—where she recently developed the curriculum and programming for the first ever Weight Inclusive Certificate program for healthcare providers and healthcare students. But at 4:30 or 5am, she's a runner! (If you live in AZ, you know.)

Ashley recently ran the Eugene Marathon (2024), her fourth in just a couple of years. We connected to talk about all things running, as runners will do. We love sharing stories of runners who come to the sport in a variety of ways, and from a variety of sports (like dance and cheerleading, in this case!). And we love hearing how they find their way in training for big goals while building community, relationships, and time for themselves. Ashley's running story touches on all of the above!

To learn more about Lane 9 Project, visit us and/or get in touch via lane9project.org. Subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter lane9project.substack.com. And inquire about our Run and Nutrition coaching services, workshops for athletes and coaches, and upcoming events.

@lane9project on Instagram

"Looking back, I can now see that {taking a break from collegiate running} was actually me listening to my body. And I actually feel I did the brave thing, taking that time off.”

Kate Ringwood is an eating disorder (ED) therapist, working with clients in treatment and recovery to improve and/or mold their relationship to movement and sports. She's been a runner since she was 10, and competed at the collegiate level while navigating her own ED and healing process. Kate took a year off of running and training with her team, and talks about the importance of that year for her overall wellbeing, her relationship to running and competing, and her longevity in the sport.

We also talk about what the Higher Levels of care, aka HLOC, mean in the ED treatment world, and what her work as looked like at various levels.

You'll find Kate at serendipitycounseling.com.

The other links:

@lane9project on Instagram
lane9project.org to get in touch with!
and lane9project.substack.com to subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter

Want to hire Lane 9 Project for your run coaching needs, or to provide a workshop to your athletes or staff? Reach out. We'd love to chat!

"As a woman, in the middle of my life, I realized that there was a lot I didn’t know about my own body, and really not understanding how that impacted my overall health and larger systems in my body."

Christine Yu is known most recently for writing and publishing the book "Up to Speed", which explores the myriad issues that have plagued womens' sports for decades, and highlights the "Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes". She's been writing in the women's health and fitness space for years as a journalist, and turned that work into a book that will change the game for coaches and any support staff in sports at all levels.

In this episode we talk about Christine's unique experience in youth sports without the pressure of specialization, how she got into surfing as an adult which ultimately led to her career pivot from public policy to journalism, and the actual groundbreaking science of women athletes.

The links:

Christine's Substack
@cyu888 on Instagram
her BOOK, "Up to Speed" !

Get in touch with us via Lane9project.org. And follow on Instagram @lane9project.

"Maybe the issue is we don’t care about the long term effects…until it’s too late."

Amelia Boone is five years out from her second time in high level Eating Disorder (ED) treatment, training for her next 100-miler, and enjoying the year of "Maybe". She recently wrote about being past her "prime" as an athlete, and has also shared personal updates such as choosing to freeze her eggs, the long process of building back up to running after her recent stress fracture, and ending her time as a sponsored athlete. Amelia is known for so many accomplishments in the endurance running world—an obstacle course racing champion, and ED awareness advocate, a talented ultra-marathon runner, etc. In this conversation, we tough on what that all looks like now, in 2024, and how's she processing it. Everything from the long-term health effects of eating disorders and hypothalamic amenorrhea to what "recovery" means to her, at least for now.

The links:

@arboone11 on Instagram, X, and Threads

ameliaboone.substack.com

lane9project.org

lane9project.substackcom

@lane9project on Instagram and Threads

If you know what we meant by "holding up your left hand" to check some geography during this episode, you get ten points! Tag us @lane9Project on IG and we'll award them accordingly.

This is a check in episode! Co-founder Heather Caplan, about to earn a double RD after her name (you'll see), checks in to see what you're doing to add some FUN to your runs, and shares how she's been doing that recently. (See: Music, running groups, community, and more! HBU?) She also offers a period check in, because the more we talk about these things, maybe (maybe!) the less in-our-feels we might, feel, about them.

And last but not least, a note about the race(s) she has coming up this month, like the Bayshore Half Marathon in Traverse City. Will we see local and global running celebrity Des Linden back on the course?!

The links:

CHECK IN with your updates to these questions or whatever else is on your mind: Lane9project.substack.com

Follow along on Instagram: @lane9project

Get in touch: Lane9project.org

“I was modeling all these super lean athletes that we see in the media and that are celebrated for their somatotype, even though, you know, they may have achieved that by very unhealthy means.”

Pippa Woolven is the founder of Project RED-S and a former elite and champion steeplechase runner in both the UK and US. In the last few years Pippa has become a first-time parent, and managed Project RED-S, while navigating and exploring this era of her relationship to running and competing. Her work and story have been featured in national publications such as CNN and Runner's World, raising awareness of the prevalence of RED-S, and its impact on athletes' overall health.

The links:

red-s.com

@project_reds_ on IG

lane9project.org

@lane9project on IG

Newsletter: lane9project.substack.com

If you want to connect with us, share your story, and/or join us for a conversation, reach out via Lane9Project.org .

"It took me a lot of tries to get it right," shares professional ultra-marathoner Dr. Stefanie Flippin, of her journey with the 100-mile distance. Stef is not only a professional ultra-marathoner, sponsored by lululemon and GU energy labs, she's also a podiatrist (currently on sabbatical from private practice but still consulting on medical cases), and a running coach with the Lift Run Perform team.

In this conversation with Lane 9 Project co-founder, Heather Caplan RDN, Stef shares insight into how she's managed to run not one but many 100-mile races, winning the 2021 Ultramarathon National Championship (100-Mile distance), and becoming a professional athlete while also maintaining her work as a physician.

Additionally, Stef shares details about the recent lululemon FURTHER event, wherein they brought 10 women of various backgrounds and athletic experiences to run a 6-day ultramarathon, while also conducting biomedical, biophysical, and psychosocial research on the athlete's experience.

The links:

Stef Flippin and Carolyn Su, co-hosts of Making Strides podcast, hosting shakeout runs and a live podcast event in Boston. Event details here!
@stefanieannflippin on Instagram
StefanieFlippin.com

Lane9Project.org. Contact us if you have any questions about the show, guest/topic requests, and/or want to work with Lane 9! Subscribe to the bi-weekly Newsletter at Lane9project.substack.com. Follow @Lane9Project on Instagram.

"People are going to get a really realistic dose of me in this episode!" Mary Johnson, running coach and owner of the Run Coaching group and team, Lift Run Perform, joins us for this episode. She's been part of the Lane 9 project since it began, submitting personal essays and having conversations with us about all things disordered eating, amenorrhea, and working toward big fitness goals while keeping your health and wellbeing intact.

We cover a LOT in this episode:

Mary's go-to strategy for keeping boundaries with social media

Current training and fitness goals (you heard it here first, she's got her eyes on something new!)

Making big life decisions while keeping our short terms goals in mind, but also in check

Why having her life-altering hip surgery in 2022 is something she's proud of, and how it has changed her running & perspectives

The links:

Dopamine Nation book by Anna Lembke MD Opal Screentime app

Milkman songs on Spotify

@itsamarython on Instagram , @liftrunperform on Instagram

LiftRunPerform.com

And all the Lane 9 Project things: Lane9Project.org, lane9project.substack.com (bi-weekly newsletter!), and @Lane9Project on Instagram.

Is running still feeling fun? What do you tell your ego when a race day isn't going as planned? Alexis and Heather check in on these big questions, recap the recent NYC Half-Marathon, and talk about the more common but less "celebrated" postpartum running journey, pelvic floor PT and all.

The links:

Lane9Project.org

@lane9project on Instagram

lane9project.substack.com for essays and newsletters!

Contact us with questions and/or ways to work with Lane 9 Project! We'd love to hear from you.

Traditional eating disorder (ED) treatment models have fallen short on including relationships to sport and movement into the therapeutic process. Opal Food and Body Wisdom treatment center in Seattle WA opened in 2012 to change that. To acknowledge that we, as humans, are embodied beings and that sport has potential to be so beneficial to us. Kara Bazzi, Opal co-founder, joins this Lane 9 podcast episode to talk about her experience as an accompllished D1 Collegiate runner who struggled with an eating disorder, and how she went on to build Opal with her cofounders, Julie Church RDN and Lexi Giblin PhD.

The links:

Lane9Project.org

@lane9project on Instagram

lane9project.substack.com for essays and newsletters!

Opal: opalfoodandbody.com

Alexis and Heather check in on their own training things, and welcome your input on 1) a podcast intro hot take and 2) which spring half-marathon Alexis should be signing up for (traveling from Denver)! Tag us @lane9project on IG or send an email with your thoughts.

They also chat through a few things going on in the running world right now, including but not limited to Nikki Hiltz's fire streak that keeps on keeping on, Parker Valby chucking the norms in training and doing her 3-days-a-week thing, and what happens when new parents win big titles.

The links:

Lane9Project.org

@lane9project on Instagram

lane9project.substack.com for essays and newsletters!

What we consider normal, or even "healthy", is so often shaped by and evolves with the communities we're in. With increased access to the training and lives of elite athletes and recreational runners alike, it can be hard to decipher what's disordered, "disciplined", worth pursuing, and/or damanging to your overall wellbeing. Abby and I chat about her relationship to movement, her work as a sports dietitian getting athletes at all levels to eat more, and we get into a few questions from the community!

The links:

Lane 9 Project community survey (come tell us about you!)

Newsletter Lane9project.substack.com

Lane 9 Project on Instagram @lane9project

We're working on content and event partnerships and collaborations! Interested? Contact us via lane9project.org.

Abby Chan RD @abbytheRD on Instagram and TikTok, and Evolve FLG here.

Based on a recent newsletter essay, Alexis and Heather talk in much more detail about catalysts for change, the very gradual processes they each experienced coming out of disordered eating and movement patterns, and even the soccer to endurance running pipeline. If you relate, we'd love to hear from you!

The links:

Lane 9 Project community survey (come tell us about you!)

Newsletter Lane9project.substack.com

Lane 9 Project on Instagram @lane9project

We're working on content and event partnerships and collaborations! Interested? Contact us via lane9project.org.

What IS the Lane 9 Project? On the Lane 9 podcast, we're diving back in and starting with the co-founder's meet cute, followed by the big goals they're working on now. A sub-3 marathon on has been on Alexis's list for a long time, but first she had to take many steps back. Hear more about that process on this episode, and read more about it in the bi-weekly newsletter!

The links:

Lane 9 Project community survey (come tell us about you!)

Newsletter Lane9project.substack.com

Lane 9 Project on Instagram @lane9project

We're working on content and event partnerships and collaborations! Interested? Contact us via lane9project.org.

Listen to find out!

Thanks for being here. More to come!

Heather

This episode helps to define what we mean by "eating disorder voices", and disordered thought patterns and behaviors related to food and exercise. Sadly, so much of the symptoms and behaviors of disordered eating and eating disorders are normalized by diet culture and validated by anti-fat bias (or fat phobia). We hope this helps bring awareness to these thoughts and behaviors, helps you better understand your triggers, and provides a safe spot for you to process what might be helpful for you going forward.

More from Lane 9 Project: Lane9Project.org

Contact us: Lane9Project@gmail.com

Podcast Hosts: Amelia Boone, Heather Caplan, and Alexis Fairbanks

We're back! Our episode archive is mostly lost, but we're here again and excited to be picking the mics back up. This "Relaunch" episode covers how we—Lane 9 Project co-founders Alexis Fairbanks, and Heather Caplan; joined by L9P long-time supporter, Amelia Boone—have evolved since we launched this project in 2017. Then we switch gears to discuss what has changed and evolved (or not) within the sport of running.

More from Lane 9 Project: Lane9Project.org

Contact us: Lane9Project@gmail.com

Lane 9 Project co-founder Heather Caplan takes the mic to talk about the bigger issues we could be examining with what Mary Cain shared in 2019.

Learn more about Lane 9: Lane9Project.org

Follow us on IG: @Lane9Project

Beloved running coaches Megan and David Roche joined us for a conversation about their own relationships to food, sport, and health, their SWAP coaching philosophy, and their book, "The Happy Runner".

Learn more about Lane 9 Project: Lane9Project.org

L9P Co-founders:

Alexis Fairbanks, @lexilynne on IG

Heather Caplan, @heatherdcRD on IG