Could men just... stop, please?
Maggie Mertens has been writing about women in sport for a while. With her new book, Better Faster Further, she contextualizes a consistently unfair history via the medium of running.
I promise I’m not trying to turn this newsletter into Book Club, but if you’re here, you clearly enjoy reading about running, so I figure this is in our shared wheelhouse. Here’s another important book that’s centered around running.
BETTER FASTER FARTHER: How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women by Maggie Mertens
I happened upon Maggie’s work not long ago, when she wrote about more and more young people running marathons to gain the feeling of having more control of their lives. The quarter-life crisis.
She asked if I’d be interested in reading her new book. I was 50/50 on covering it, though. I only feature one person every week, and if I interview every single author, I simply wouldn’t have space to write about all the other stuff I like to write about, but let me tell you right now that Better Faster Further is worth my time, and yours.
Split into seven chapters, the topics covered are clear, and delivered with an in-depth but enjoyable narrative. Maggie tells me that having the clear messages was helpful for her in terms of organizing the information while telling this huge historical story. Compiling all the information chronologically confirmed that there was a natural story to be told..
But Not More Than 100m… But Only White Women… But Not A Mile… But Definitely Not A Marathon… But Only If You Train Like A Man… But Only “Real” Women… What About the Long Run?
You get the vibe. You can see the progression. There’s always something else. As soon as a woman has broken one barrier, there’s always been something else for the powers that be to tell them that they can’t do. Just like world records, however, barriers are also there to be broken, and the stories are there to be told.
These stories are told with a delightfully withering tone, and imbued with a litany of historical facts and instances that should make you grimace and sigh. It kicks off with an introductory passage about how the first woman to complete the marathon at the Olympic Games was actually tricked by the powers that be into running it a day late because women were not allowed to such things back in 1896. They’re (literally) tales as old as time, but they’re not the ones that are told the most, and there’s a palpable feeling that Maggie Mertens is thoroughly sick of this sh*t.
