Good for a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man's World

Lauren Fleshman’s 2023 memoir Good for a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man’s World recounts Fleshman’s own journey as a track and long-distance athlete and then as a coach. Fleshman explores the norm of male physiology dominating athletic practices and norms and the ways that this systemic sexism is damaging for female athletes, especially for athletes in sports that favor lean bodies and strenuous physical training. In doing so, Fleshman hopes to create an athletic environment that sees and celebrates female physiology and therefore creates safe and sustainable practices for female athletes. Themes addressed in Fleshman’s memoir include The Power of Resilience and Hard Work, Empowerment and Joy From Running, and Male Physiology and Sexism Shaping Norms in Women’s Sports.

This guide refers to the 2023 Penguin Random House e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide refer to disordered eating as well as female abuse in sports.

Summary

Lauren Fleshman, an athletics coach, reflects on her relationship with running as her female athletes lap the track; she considers the way the sport has brought her empowerment and joy during her own professional career, as well as a sense of calm and personal connection.

As a child, Fleshman easily beat the other kids in her school when they would run a mile in PE (physical education) class. Running made her feel free and like she was flying. Her dad, a brash and exuberant man with a problematic relationship with alcohol, encouraged her by telling her that she could do anything, but she was shocked and devastated when, by middle school, she was overtaken by a male peer. She learned that puberty would make the boys in her class taller and stronger, and she saw her female peers feeling self-conscious in their developing bodies.

Fleshman dreaded puberty coming to her, as, now in high school, she was a star track and cross-country athlete. She made the varsity team while she was still a freshman, and she placed highly in state and national competitions, even winning the competitive national Foot Locker meet. Other female athletes talked about peers who developed breasts and hips and slowed down irreparably.

Fleshman was grateful to retain her slight figure throughout high school. She received scholarship applications from a number of colleges and settled on Stanford, feeling drawn to the team’s apparent health and positivity—a number of other universities she visited seemed to have a systemic problem with disordered eating. Her family had to scrape together a large portion of the tuition for her first year at Stanford, but they were also able to access several scholarships.

Fleshman had a successful year, impressing her coaches and peers with her consistency and strong results in competition and training. She broke the 5,000-meter American junior record and qualified for a full scholarship at Stanford the next year. She met a handsome fellow athlete called Jesse Thomas, with whom she started an on-again, off-again romantic relationship, both of them preferring to prioritize their athletic pursuits and studies.

Vin Lananna, the Stanford track coach, lectured the women’s team on their “integrity problem,” criticizing their performances. Fleshman reflects that it was unreasonable to hold the women’s team to a model of linear progression, which is male centric and fails to acknowledge the immense hormonal and weight changes experienced by women.

In her sophomore year, Fleshman put on weight, and her times slowed. She was desperate not to be sucked into the obsessive and unhealthy food restriction of some of her peers, but Lananna encouraged her to try to return to her previous year’s “race weight,” although he gave little practical advice on how this should be done safely. Fleshman lost some weight and pushed through training sessions, which felt much harder. After a few months of disappointing results, she managed to make it back to her previous year’s form.

Fleshman enrolled in a master’s course at Stanford but was disappointed with her thesis presentation, having focused mainly on her running. She became a professional runner and eventually signed a sponsorship deal with Nike after some negotiation, which opened her eyes to the inherent sexism in female athletic sponsorship. She trained with Lananna for the Olympic Trials in 2004 but developed an injury in her foot, which she later discovered was a broken bone.

After her recovery, Fleshman started training and competing again, including at international events. She was excited when Nike released a women’s sportswear catalog, but she was disappointed to see that the women in it were models, not athletes. Incensed, she emailed the CEO, Mark Parker, suggesting that athletes should be modeling athletic wear, and was surprised when Parker arranged a meeting with her. Fleshman herself ended up modeling for Nike, and she insisted on wearing her regular running clothing, rather than posing naked as was originally suggested. The “Objectify Me” ad received industry recognition.

Fleshman and Jesse got married. Fleshman pulled out and then restarted during a national championship and began seeing sports psychologist Darren Treasure; the affirmations they wrote together were invaluable for Fleshman.

Fleshman was injured in the lead-up to the 2008 Olympic Trials; she underperformed at the trials and was devastated not to make the team. While recovering, Fleshman and Jesse, as well as their friend Stephanie Rothfield, created the business Picky Bars. She also developed an online presence on Twitter, where she shared openly and humbly and amassed followers and supporters. Fleshman realigned her goals around running, deciding that she needed to recenter joy in her athletic pursuits.

Fleshman recovered and placed seventh in the World Track and Field Championship in Korea. She teamed up with Ro McGettigan, an Olympic steeplechaser from Ireland, to self-publish a training diary for girls. Increasingly, Fleshman found that her interests outside of running helped her to more successfully manage the ups and downs inevitable in the sport.

Despite battling an injury and therefore being out of form, Fleshman decided to compete in the 2012 Olympic Trials; she was proud of herself even though she didn’t qualify.

Increasingly frustrated with Nike’s sexism when they cut her salary and suggested that pregnancy would suspend her pay for a year, Fleshman was excited to receive a sponsorship offer from the small business Oiselle. Oiselle’s feminist and inclusive business model appealed to Fleshman, as did the fact that Oiselle was a small business, as Picky Bars had been. Fleshman signed on with them while openly pregnant and modeled their athletic wear at New York Fashion Week a few months after giving birth to her son.

Fleshman was devastated when her father, Frank, died. She reflects that so much of her running career was to impress him and connect with him. Fleshman retired from professional running and founded her coaching organization, Littlewing, which she is the head coach of. She focuses on rehabilitating injured and discouraged female athletes and achieves impressive results with her athletes. She suggests that these women are able to thrive in a female-centric environment, which prioritizes their physical and mental health. Fleshman continues to advocate for women in athleticism, hoping to make athletic communities more inclusive and safer for women.