How She Did It

Stories, Advice, and Secrets to Success from Fifty Legendary Distance Runners

By: Molly Huddle, Sara Slattery

Narrated by: Molly Huddle, Sara Slattery, Gisela Chípe, Chanté McCormick, Karen Murray, Eileen Stevens, Shannon Tyo

The ultimate roadmap for female distance runners, from two-time Olympian Molly Huddle and two-time NCAA champion Sara Slattery—featuring 50 candid interviews with women who’ve made it

The road from a high school track to an Olympic starting line is long and sometimes shadowy. Obstacles like chronic injuries, under-fueled nutrition, and coercive coaching can threaten to derail careers before they’ve even begun. Frustrated by seeing young talent burn out before reaching their potential, professional distance runner Molly Huddle and college coach Sara Slattery have teamed up with trailblazing running legends and sports medicine professionals to create an essential guide to reach your running potential.

This is How She Did It—an instructional and inspirational collection of stories and advice for female runners. The book begins with key information from the professionals who help make athletic excellence possible: trainers, physicians, nutritionists, and sports psychologists. Then, you’ll hear the first-person accounts of fifty women who’ve done it themselves. From the pioneers who fought tirelessly for women’s inclusion in the sport to the names splashed across headlines today, featured athletes include:

Joan Benoit Samuelson • Patti Catalano Dillon • Madeline Manning Mims • Paula Radcliffe • Deena Kastor • Brenda Martinez • Shalane Flanagan • Emma Coburn • Raevyn Rogers • Molly Seidel • and more

With Molly and Sara guiding the way, these athletes share their empowering stories, biggest regrets, funniest moments, and hard-won advice. Collectively, these voices are the embodiment of strength, meant to educate, inspire, and motivate you to see how far—and how fast—you can go.

Buy the paper copy

This book is full of wonderful stories and covers to many important topics, but it doesn’t translate well to audio. As other reviewer mention, the nutrition info and stats are hard to listen to without seeing. Mispronunciation of professional runners’ names is a challenge. I’ll buy paper copies for every young female runner I know instead.

Worth hanging in there

This book starts out slow but it’s really worth hanging in there some great stories and inspiration enjoy!

Wonderful book

This is a great book. Even if you don’t like running, the ideas expressed can be applied to how you live your life. The stories are interesting and entertaining. Both Ms. Slattery and Ms. Huddle did an excellent job with the narration, too. Well done.👍

A Much Needed Book But...

When I saw this book on Audible's list of upcoming titles, I was excited. I pre-ordered my copy and even attended a Zoom meeting where the authors discussed the book. There was a lot of excitement around it and once it launched, I downloaded a copy and jumped right in.
Oh boy, the first few chapters were heavy on the psychological, dietary, and other matters that I couldn't focus on because the narration was monotonous.
I just wanted to get to the stories of the super athletes included in the book. I wanted to be inspired, motivated and lifted into each woman's world but the narration and organization of the contents got in the way.
The endless listing of stats made my head spin. The monotonous narration made it easy to forget whose story was being told and after a while it became a jumble of "I did this and I did that " as the lives of elite athletes blurred into each other.
I wanted to love this book. As a newbie marathoner, I so wanted to love this book but something wasn't working.
I suspect the paper copy would read better because you can skip the stats, skim through those earlier chapters, and delve into the How She Did It stories.
The Audible version needed to be edited down so each story would be concise and crisp. I gave it a generous four stars because we need more books on female athletes and I don't want to discourage any readers.
But, frankly, I'd recommend buying the book instead.

Monotone book for pre-teen runners

I wish I could figure out how to return this title. I’m in my mid 40’s and this book is targeting young teen pre pubescent girls who are runners and the narration might as well be Siri it’s so monotone. I tried so hard to give it a chance but I wish I hadn’t wasted a credit on this. I feel it’s description is misleading - I don’t need to learn how to sleep and care for my bones as a teenager. Sad face emoji.