More Than Medals: Lessons from "Good for a Girl" by Lauren Fleshman
On centering yourself, challenging norms, and finding meaning beyond the podium
I think running is one of the most beautiful sports—perhaps only second to dance. It’s pure, requiring little more than your body and a pair of shoes, although even the latter is optional for some. It showcases both the power and grace of the human body, with the rhythm, beat, and breath becoming its own kind of music.
As a lover of both running and a good book, I’m drawn to stories written by or about runners. Enter: Good for a Girl by Lauren Fleshman. It’s part memoir, part sociological study—on the sport of women’s running. It highlights many issues facing girls and women from gaps in knowledge/training among coaches to the way the media has represented female runners.
Fleshman’s story begins in the early days of high school cross country, takes her to Stanford where she excels as a highly decorated runner, after which she becomes a national champion as a pro. She interweaves her personal story with the observations she makes, and psychological/physiological research she finds, about women running in a world that wasn’t designed for them.
Let’s run through some of the themes that jumped out for me in this book.
Belonging
We all want to belong. It’s a human desire. We want to feel like our presence matters and we’re welcomed by a community. Fleshman had this desire too. After her first track meet in eighth grade, she was approached by Dave DeLong, the cross country and track coach at Canyon High School in California. DeLong saw Fleshman’s potential and pitched running as a way to be part of something. In the book, Fleshman wrote:
“DeLong went on to describe a group of fun kids that would be my instant circle of friends…He spoke to me like I’d belong, and belonging was impossible to resist. I was giddy with the promise of it.”
Interestingly, this sense of belonging is missing as Fleshman moves through her professional career. She recognizes all the ways in which women don’t fit in the male-dominated world of professional running—and she makes that a cause to fight for.
The joy of it
It’s an unfortunate reality that when many athletes and performers reach high levels in their craft, they somewhat lose touch with their love of the game. I’m a firm believer that joy has to be an integral part of peak performance. Otherwise, what’s the point? Fleshman writes about the parts of running she loves and finds joy in:
“On Sundays, I flexed my independence and returned to the kind of running I initially fell in love with, one of connecting to my body through exploration and play. Every other day my body was being forged into a tool for winning, and the racing and travel schedules were relentless.”
Exploration and play, she says. Those are important for all of us to keep in mind because most of us lose that playful curiosity as we age.
“It was March by the time I started running. While I was building up to three miles without a walk break, my teammates were beginning their outdoor seasons. Normally that would have made me feel behind and distressed, but I was building something new, filling my journal with reflections and ideas. I decided that if I was going to put my heart into this sport again, I would approach things differently. Making everything about winning, about the Olympics, about being the best . . . it felt bad. Not just when things went wrong, but most of the time. The industry’s emphasis on outcomes placed no value on the things that made me fall in love with running in the first place: Sunday long run drives in Jesse’s mushroom van, descending along a forest trail with my arms wide like wings, the ping of a rock I’d throw on a water tower at the end of my run, the simple pleasure of mastering a skill . . . any pursuit of excellence had to center these moments of joy, or it wasn’t worth doing.”
Something needs to change
One of the major issues that Fleshman highlights throughout her book is eating disorders. It’s a pervasive problem, but one that doesn’t get talked about enough—and there certainly aren’t enough resources to support the women (and men) navigating this struggle.
Early in her career, Fleshman has a strong desire to prove that she can be healthy and win; that sacrificing her health wasn’t necessary to succeed in this sport:
“I felt overcome with a desire to beat every single girl who had a weird relationship with food, this strategy that made you faster for a little while—which could dictate the outcome of this race—but forced you to quit a couple of years later. I wanted to win, and I needed to know it could be done without putting myself in danger. I needed to know it was worth it to take care of my body when nobody else seemed to care. No adults at the event were addressing the issue in front of us. We had a hotel full of stars, and we were greeted with pomp and circumstance. What we really needed was an intervention.”
Eating disorders disproportionately affect the physical and mental health of female athletes, yet the NCAA does not have a solid policy in place to prevent or manage it. Fleshman contrasts this with the way the NCAA approaches concussions, by using research to create guidelines that all athletic departments must follow. Could this discrepancy have anything to do with the fact that while football has the highest number of concussions among all college sports, it also brings in the most money for colleges and universities? The point is that something needs to change. Young girls and women are paying a steep price to stay relevant in their sport.
Finding your center
Right before a race, while most other runners are doing their final stride out, Fleshman lays on the ground. She calls this “soaking in the field.” It’s her way to ground, find calmness, and come back to herself. It only takes a few seconds, but the sensation she experiences helps dial in her mindset.
She also described another time she found her way to center before a race.
“For my last long run before the NCAA championships, I went running along on a decommissioned road too full of potholes for anyone else on my team to bother with, a place I sometimes went to clear my head. As I ran, I tuned in to my chest, my lungs, the rhythm of my footsteps. I listened until my steps and breath combined to make a kind of music. Finding my way to the middle of the road, I closed my eyes and imagined myself in the middle of the race. My footsteps were now on tartan track, the sun was now a tower of halogen bulbs. With each step, a force of gravity built up in my core and pulled all the parts of me back to center. I felt compact, dense, no loose bits vulnerable to a snag. I saw the finish line moving closer and closer to me, nobody else around. I raised my arms in victory and felt the expansiveness of a supernova.”
Three weeks later, Fleshman won her “third consecutive NCAA title, becoming only the second woman to ever do so . . . It was the highest-stakes race of my life so far—I stepped right into the pressure, kept it fun, and I came through. I felt so proud of myself.”
These routines would excite any sport psychology professional. It’s easy to get caught up in the swirl of competition, losing both your focus and yourself. The mentally conscious athlete learns how to connect to their center, recognizing that their best performances only emerge when their mind, body, and spirit is in sync.
On success
It’s wonderfully inspiring to see an athlete’s career arc from being focused on results to redefining success. After finishing fourth at the Olympic trials in 2008, Fleshman hoped 2012 would be her year. Unfortunately, she battled an injury leading up to the World Championships the year before (where she placed 7th, the highest finish by an American in history) and overly taxed her body after running the New York City Marathon 7 weeks later. This resulted in her showing up at the 2012 Olympic Trials knowing that she didn’t have a chance. What’s cool, though, is that she wanted to compete anyway. She had earned a spot at the trials and knowing it would be her last, sought to have the experience. This exchange with a reporter at the pre-trials press conference prompted me to say an enthusiastic YES outloud:
The reporter said,
‘“You’ve got to be the fastest 5K runner in history not to make an Olympic team. It seems you can’t catch a break. How will it feel stepping out there, knowing that six months ago you were a favorite to win?’
My stomach turned over. ‘Four years ago, I bought into the idea that all that mattered was the Olympics. I lived like the running monk everyone told me to be, and it killed the joy of everything. Since then, I’ve defined success for myself and I do it my own way. I reject the idea that all that matters is becoming an Olympian. It’s wrong, and it’s a limiting belief that’s not good for the sport, either. There are so many other good stories here. The fact is almost nobody traveling all the way here with their friends and family in tow will make the Olympics. Simply getting here is winning for most people.’
‘That’s great, but that doesn’t change the fact that the entire point of the Olympic Trials is to select the team,” the reporter said.
‘No . . . I get to decide what the point is,’ I said.
‘I can’t tell if you’re being wise or delusional.’
‘Me neither.’”
Fleshman got to decide. In fact, each of us gets to decide. We are the arbiters of our own lives and we get to define what success really is. Fleshman realized that “the more my life expanded off the track, the more satisfied I was on it.” She’s reminding us to diversify our portfolio—to play in multiple arenas and find meaning in unique interests.
It is tremendously difficult to break away from society’s definition of success. But the better we’re able to do that, the more room we create for deep fulfillment.
Good for a Girl is more than a memoir—it’s a mirror held up to a sport (and society) that still has growing to do. Fleshman’s story reminded me that the most powerful kind of performance is one rooted in wholeness, not sacrifice. Her words left me inspired to keep choosing joy, rewriting the rules, and running my own race—on my own terms.