The free radical driving gender parity on The Speed Project’s starting line
Tilly GW has challenged the gender makeup of TSP to immediate success, but there’s more work to be done. She’s doing it.
I love the word ‘radical.’ It simply means fundamental change, but what is more difficult than change. The universal truth that we know about leopards, after all, is that they cannot change their spots, and yet we persist, because submitting to a status quo that is harmful to so many is not an option for some.
The status quo in question right here is representation on the start line of races. I’ve written about this topic a number of times now (I’ll link to a few of the articles at the end), but there’s still so far to go. One of my favorite headlines, however, was when The Speed Project – maybe the most emblematic event of the past decade in the running world – introduced their Radical Equity Program.
They took the most extreme category of the 340-mile journey from Los Angeles to Las Vegas – the solo mission – and made it their goal for the field to be at least 50% women and non-binary runners.
I’ve followed the REP as they invite women-only teams to run TSP, but the content is primarily digital, in the form of Instagram posts and accounts, or YouTube documentaries. It’s inherently temporary and transient. In this era of streaming subscriptions, we don’t ever truly own digital documentation, so I find it so interesting when there’s any aspect of permanence. When athlete and artist Tilly GW quietly announced a ‘zine about the couple dozen people involved in the 2025 race, I had to know more.
Tilly has been spearheading the REP. Growing up in Cambridge, I speak to Tilly while she’s in Chile, following the Atacama edition of The Speed Project, which was created in a moment where the increasing commercialization of the LA-LV event was weighing on founder Nils Arend’s mind.
