When I think of the Japanese proverb “Fall down seven times, get up eight” I picture Lauren Fleshman. She gets injured, she slogs through injury recovery, she trains again, she runs fantastic races. Then she gets reinjured and the cycle begins anew. But she never gives up. And she always comes back.
Fleshman has one of the few outstanding elite blogs that I’ve found. Not only is she remarkably candid about her own running, but she generously doles out helpful advice to anyone who asks for it. She’s opinionated and well informed too, and you’ll find interesting, useful posts that run the gamut, from the rabbiting debate, to eating disorders, to building mileage and more.
Fleshman’s self-possessed manner extends to live interviews, as shown in this famous post-race encounter after the 2010 US nationals:
And here’s edited footage of her win over the weekend at Crystal Palace:
Filed under: elites, injury, inspiration, reading
I love her blog too! She’s amazing. How does anyone have the guts to pull off that “leave the pack behind with 600m to go” thing?
It’s balls. It’s just balls.
Most awesome interview response ever. After reading TWO bits of news about Lauren today – NYC marathon and World Championships – I was compelled to write a copycat post in Denglish, hope you don’t mind. Imitation/flattery etc.😉
The fact that she is, as you say, candid about both her successes and her “failures” without being brash or bombastic is what sets her apart. She’s as articulate as they come, and while a lot of runners make great interview subjects for this reason, Lauren stands alone at the top in this regard.
http://web.archive.org/web/20060612195635/http://www.fast-women.com/athletes/interviews/2006/lfleshman021506.htm
Pisses me off that the NYRR didn’t archive the interviews from mensracing.com and fast-women.com when it discontinued those sites. One of these days I have to update the links on my site to point to the Internet Archive. loath as I am to do this for any reason.
She’s a class act indeed, Kevin, and a big contributor to running via her blog posts. I just had the pleasure of sitting in on a group phone interview. I only got to ask a couple of questions, but since other people asked what I was going to anyway, I’ve got enough for a short blog post. I’ll write that up soon.
Did you listen to the interview on Women Talk Sports with her and Lize?
[…] alert, you guys. It’s time for Lauren Fleshman Appreciation Day to go Deutsch. Diese Frau ist unglaublich. Check this […]
I don’t know how you say “badass” in German — maybe it’s “Fleshman.”
Kevin — I wasn’t aware of that until I read that post. It’s on my listen list. Gosh, but this is a small world.