Hear Her Sports

Since she was 18 years old, Kelsey Phendler has been working on water and in boats of all kinds. She’s been a professional Grand Canyon Boatman and River Guide for ten years, where she rows boats loaded with gear and passengers along 226-mile trips in every weather condition imaginable from spring through fall. Kelsey also currently pilots motorboats for the United States Geological Survey fish study group. She is now preparing to row from San Francisco to Hawaii with her Hericane Rowing teammates in the Great Pacific Race. This race will certainly be a huge challenge, but Kelsey is no stranger to the perseverance needed to smile in the face of physical and environmental adversity so she’s looking forward to this year of planning and preparation. Working with a strong group of women is exactly where Kelsey thrives. She believes training to break the Women's Ocean Rowing World Record alongside her strong teammates Sierra Myers and sisters Jennifer and Kristen Hofer will be a deeply transformational experience.

In this special collaboration with Women's Running Stories, we talk to Jae Gruenke, Feldenkrais practitioner, running form expert, and founder of The Balance Runner.   Jae Gruenke is known as “the wise woman of running” and has helped runners from beginner to Olympian relieve pain and improve their performance; she specializes in helping runners whose problems have persisted despite medical treatment. Jae’s interest in running technique was sparked when, as a professional dancer, she was asked to perform choreography that included sustained running in large, outdoor environments. Frustrated by how difficult and uncomfortable running felt, she began to study running technique and use the Feldenkrais Professional Training Program she was enrolled in as a laboratory to discover how to coordinate her movements so that running felt comfortable, easy, and enjoyable. Eventually, realizing she’d come to prefer running to dancing, and also that the changes in movement that had made the difference to her running were n

Kristen Bourne has coached cross country skiing at the collegiate and professional level for the past three years. She was the assistant coach at The College of Saint Scholastica for two years where she was a 2021 Women’s Sports Foundation Tara VanDerveer Fellow. During the summer, she was an assistant coach with the Craftsbury Green Racing Project professional team in Vermont. Prior to coaching, she skied for Northern Michigan University for five years, qualifying for the NCAA Championships three-times and representing the United States at the World Junior Championships and U23 World Championships in 2015 and 2016. After college, she moved to Oslo, Norway where she skied full-time and was an intern at the Norwegian School of Sports Science. Currently, Kristen is the US Ski Cross Country D-Team coach at US Ski and Snowboard, overseeing the top junior and U23 athletes in the US as well as traveling full-time on the World Cup supporting all national team athletes. She is also a graduate student at the College o

Erika Hood was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio and has over fifteen years of experience in community organizing and advocacy. She believes that authentic engagement matters most when working with the community. In 2009 Erika, her sister Ebony and their mother Marcia founded Syatt, formerly known as See You at the Top. Syatt's MISSION is to support its community through culturally relevant programming in the natural and built environment. As a co-founder of SYATT, Erika is able to transform the lives of youth and adults in Cleveland, by curating culturally tailored opportunities for community members to engage in nature and outdoor recreation. In spaces that are historically white, she understands how important Black and Brown representation in nature is and has committed to maintaining a level of expertise in all activities that she encourages her community members to try. Most recently that meant that she and her sister became certified SCUBA divers. As a member of a community that suffers from toxic stre

Jenny Nguyen picked up a basketball right around the same time she put down her milk bottle. From an early age, people called her a tomboy. Instead of playing with dolls and wearing dresses, she climbed trees and rode bikes. But most of all, she loved to play basketball. That love shaped her whole identity and helped her to fit in all the way through high school. When she was 19 years old in her first year playing college ball at Clark College, Nguyen ruptured her ACL. She was devastated by the career-ending injury, but stumbled upon a newfound passion: cooking. She cooked all through college, first for her roommate, then for the whole floor and then for the entire dorm. She landed her first kitchen job at age 22 and fell in love with the craft all over again. After graduating from college, Nguyen enrolled at the Western Culinary Institute in downtown Portland. There she graduated from the expedited program while working full time at a couple of fine dining restaurants. When she was in the kitchen, Nguyen was

Anouk Patty has a long and distinguished career at several blue-chip corporations. She was Head of Strategic Partnerships at HP, Inc. focused on 3D scanning and 3D printing partnerships, particularly in the footwear and sports categories. Prior to that, she led HP’s partnerships in the gaming space. Anouk spent time at Intuit where she was the GM of Quicken and Quickbooks for the Mac business. Her foundational professional experience was developed at both Bain & Company in San Francisco and J.P. Morgan in New York City and Melbourne, Australia. Anouk is on the board of Park City-based POWDR, the parent company of Woodward, Copper Mountain, and Killington Resort and previously sat on the board of Green Mountain Valley School. Anouk is a long-time athlete. She competed on the U.S. Alpine Ski Team in the 1980s and raced for Dartmouth College, where she was a three-time All-American and won the NCAA Skiing Championship in 1988. She earned an MBA from Harvard Business School, an executive education certificate in

Sasha DiGiulian began climbing in 1998 at six years old. She won the World Championships for Female Overall, a Silver in the Bouldering World Championships, as well as Bronze in the Duel. Sasha was also the undefeated pan-American Champion for over a decade. Outdoors, Sasha is the first North American woman to climb the grade nine-a, five-fourteen-d. Additionally, she has on-sighted multiple eight-b-pluses, five fourteen-a’s, ascended groundbreaking, multi-pitch routes of over fifteen hundred feet of eight-c climbing, AND accomplished multiple First Ascents and over thirty First Female Ascents around the World. Sasha is a graduate of Columbia University in New York City where she studied Non-fiction Writing and Business. She is on the Board of the Women’s Sports Foundation, and is an Athlete Ambassador for Right to Play, Up2Us Sports, Access Fund, and American Alpine Club. She is the founder of SEND Bars and Female Focused Adventures, plus is a co-founder of RoamTV. Join Hear Her Sports Patreon https://www.p

Hayley has been a full-time, professional cyclist since completing her PhD in Inorganic Chemistry at The University of Cambridge in 2016. She is 2x Elite British TT champion, 17x Cycling Time Trials National Champion and holds 3 British TT records (at 10, 25 and 50 miles). She was the first woman to break the 50-minute barrier for a 25-mile time trial. Hayley won bronze at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and at the 2019 European. She also represented Great Britain at the second e-Sports World Championship in 2022 and at the inaugural UCI Gravel World Championship in fall 2022. Hayley has also appeared as co-commentator and studio pundit for several high-level cycling events, including World Championships, European Championships, Ride London, Commonwealth Games and La Course.  Hayley has been a member of The Cyclists’ Alliance since its inception and became involved in the mentoring program in 2018; first as a mentee then as a mentor.  Join Hear Her Sports Patreon https://www.patreon.com/hearhersports Find all ep

Joanne Lannin wrote for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram in Portland, Maine for twenty-two years …where she was the first female sports reporter. Who Let Them In? Pathbreaking Women in Sports Journalism is Joanne’s fourth book about women and sports. Joanne is a retired English and journalism teacher and she still plays basketball in an over-50 league. She lives in the Portland, Maine area with her husband Rik and their two rescue pups.  Join Hear Her Sports Patreon https://www.patreon.com/hearhersports Find all episodes http://www.hearhersports.com/ Find Hear Her Sports on all social @hearhersports Buy Who Let Them in at https://bit.ly/wholetthemin Find Joanne’s basketball blog at www.findingawaytoplay.com Find Joanne’s substack blog at https://joannelannin.substack.com/

Savilia Blunk was raised in rural Northern California. As the youngest of three, she spent her childhood chasing two older brothers around on rusty, hand-me-down bikes. Her love of the outdoors and the adrenaline from physical activity began with her parents providing an early introduction to pure adventure... Of course, strong internal motivation to keep up with her brothers also helped! Savilia started bike racing in high school through the NorCal NICA league – founded in 2009, NICA (the National Interscholastic Cycling Association) develops interscholastic mountain biking programs for student-athletes across the United States. Savilia is a six-time MTB National Champion, Pan Am Champion, current Elite Cross Country National Champion, and she has achieved two World Cup bronze medals. One of Savilia's biggest passions is to be an approachable mentor to kids getting into the sport, and to inspire cycling as a lifelong outlet.  Join Hear Her Sports Patreon https://www.patreon.com/hearhersports Find all episod

Olympian Molly Seidel is a professional runner. She is well known for her incredible performance in the Tokyo Olympics heat to win bronze in the marathon. She was 2nd in the Olympic trials, which was her first-ever marathon. In 2021, Molly ran the fastest time ever by an American woman at the New York City Marathon in 2:24:42, shattering the previous course record by more than a minute. None of that success is a fluke. Molly graduated from the University of Notre Dame, where she was a 4-time NCAA champion, 6-time NCAA All-American, 6-time Atlantic Coast Conference champion and 2016 female ACC Athlete of the Year. Molly speaks up about mental health, eating disorders, and the impact physical movement has on both. Molly along with Kathrine Switzer and The Women’s Sports Foundation partnered with Michelob Ultra to help increase representation of female and non-binary runners by bringing visibility to the incredible stories of these athletes and helping more female and non-binary runners to join the race to equal

Kathy Murray is a certified personal trainer with over thirty years of experience in the fitness industry. She is a graduate of The Ohio State University where she was a member of the 1983 National Cheerleading Championship Team. She won the United States Aerobic Championship in 1986 and spent the year traveling the world as a Fitness Ambassador and worked as a free-lance educator to teach fitness to European Instructors. While in Munich, she coached the Munich Cowboys (American Football) Cheerleaders to six national titles in cheerleading and was head trainer/translator for the German Gladiators during a pilot TV show for the International Gladiators. Kathy has competed in triathlons since 2000 and has owned her personal training business Fit Bodies for 24 years. This year, she co-authored the Audible book, The Munich Cowboy Cheerleaders based on her time coaching the squad. Join Hear Her Sports Patreon https://www.patreon.com/hearhersports Find all episodes http://www.hearhersports.com/ Find Hear Her Spor

Kelcey Ervick was a goalkeeper for nationally ranked soccer teams as a girl and a D1 player in college. These days, she is an author, artist, mother, and professor of creative writing at Indiana University in South Bend. Her latest book is the graphic memoir, The Keeper. Kelcey has written three award-winning books of fiction and nonfiction----THE BITTER LIFE OF BOŽENA NĚMCOVÁ, LILIANE'S BALCONY, and FOR SALE BY OWNER. She is co-editor, with Tom Hart, of THE FIELD GUIDE TO GRAPHIC LITERATURE, forthcoming from Rose Metal Press in 2023. Kelcey’s NEW book, due out in September 2022, is a graphic memoir, called The Keeper. It i about her time as a soccer goalie along with so much more surrounding that -- including Title IX, Women’s sport history, friendship, growing up, and art. Join Hear Her Sports Patreon https://www.patreon.com/hearhersports Find all episodes http://www.hearhersports.com/ Find Hear Her Sports on all social @hearhersports Purchase The Keeper https://bookshop.org/books/the-keeper-soccer-me-an

Cherie Louise Turner is the host and producer of Women's Running Stories, where she shares the running stories of women from around the world and at every level of the sport. Cherie is a lifelong athlete whose first serious competitive love was racing bicycles on the road and track. In the early 90s she earned her way on to a professional domestic team. Cherie’s post cycling life has primarily focused on running and she's raced distances from the 400m on the track to 50 miles on the trails, all the way to her recent completion of the historic 56-mile hilly road race, the Comrades Marathon in South Africa. These days Cherie is excited to explore the potential and the benefits of being an older athlete and what it means to improve as an athlete as the years go by. Join Hear Her Sports Patreon https://www.patreon.com/hearhersports Find all episodes http://www.hearhersports.com/ Find Hear Her Sports on all social @hearhersports Find Cherie Turner on IG at https://www.instagram.com/clouiseturner/ Find Women’s R

Madam Athlete is a career podcast for women working in sports and athletics, created by sports medicine physician, Dr. Giselle Aerni. On the podcast, she interviews women working in sports about their career journeys and takes deep dive into career development topics like building your confidence and graceful self-promotion. Yetsa A. Tuakli-Wosornu, M.D., M.P.H. is a sports and wellness expert and an athlete. She is interested in helping people achieve high performance at all stages of life through holistic mind-body development. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, she is an interventional spine Physiatrist, a long jumper (representing Ghana until 2016), and she was the International Paralympic Committee's inaugural Welfare Officer. She offers community and academic audiences a fresh combination of rigorous content and experiential wisdom, with love.  Join Hear Her Sports Patreon https://www.patreon.com/hearhersports Find all episodes http://www.hearhersports.com/ Find Hear Her Sports on all social @hear

Keep the Flame Alive is the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. Hosted by Jill Jaracz and Alison Brown, this weekly show has everything fans want to know about the Olympic and Paralympic Movements: How sports work, history, host city information, and much more! During the Games, our daily recaps cover all of the action. Nordic Combined is the only sport on the current Olympic program that is only open to men. Many athletes are working to change that, including Team USA’s Annika Malacinski. Annika talks about how the sport works, which surprisingly involves a lot of body measurements, and we learn about one of the best winner’s prizes ever. Annika gets pretty frank with us about how tough it is to not have her discipline in the Olympics. It tried to get into 2022, but was denied. Join Hear Her Sports Patreon https://www.patreon.com/hearhersports Find all episodes http://www.hearhersports.com/ Find Keep The Flame Alive on IG at https://www.instagram.com/flamealivepod/ Find Annika Malacinski on

Kim McKenny is the president and co-founder of Nordic Ski Lab, an online learning platform that uses videos to teach the ski techniques used by competitive cross-country skiers. Kim is a certified ski coach who uses her own experiences learning how to ski as an adult combined with expertise and demonstrations from world-class athletes to deliver affordable and easy-to-understand ski technique. Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt began working with Nordic Ski Lab in 2016 and she’s the primary demo athlete for Nordic Ski Lab and a technique consultant. She raced for three years on the Canadian National Ski Team and competed for the Canadian Olympic team at the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. Join Hear Her Sports Patreon https://www.patreon.com/hearhersports Find all episodes http://www.hearhersports.com/ Find Nordic Ski Lab on IG at https://www.instagram.com/nordicskilab/ Find Hear Her Sports on all social @hearhersports

Whitney Washington is a 31-year-old storyteller and worldwide bike adventurer. In 2021 she rode across the United States. This month she begins a new trip from Alaska to Argentina. Whitney grew up in a military family and moved around a lot. She discovered adventure with her mother on car trips to explore their new surroundings. She also enjoyed watching action sport films and stories about exploration and envisioning herself within those experiences. But, being fat was always the reason why she felt she could never achieve such ambitions. In college she attended an event for suicide prevention and learned about mental health and suicide related deaths. During that time she stumbled upon video editing, which ignited her imagination and showed her how she could help. She believed her best way of contributing was showing people that their life, story and dreams mattered. She quickly realized that she needed to show that to herself as well, which led her on this journey of self-understanding. Join Hear Her Sport

2022 is Bianca Smith’s 2nd season as a minor league coach with the Boston Red Sox. Prior to being with the Red Sox she was an Assistant Athletic Director and Assistant Baseball Coach/Hitting Coordinator at Carroll University. Bianca also coached at Case Western Reserve University (where she earned her dual JD/MBA) and at the University of Dallas. She also worked in Baseball Operations in the front offices of the Texas Rangers, the Cincinnati Reds, and Major League Baseball’s Commissioner’s Office. Bianca graduated from Dartmouth College in 2012 where she played varsity softball and club baseball. Join Hear Her Sports Patreon https://www.patreon.com/hearhersports Find all episodes http://www.hearhersports.com/ Find Bianca on IG at https://www.instagram.com/biancaesmith12/ Find Red Sox on IG at https://www.instagram.com/redsox/ Find Hear Her Sports on all social @hearhersports

Asanteni Charles, known at Teni, is a women’s footballer with the team Billericay Town FC based in Essex, England and St Vincent Women’s National Team. She has been playing since she was young, even traveling each summer to the IMG Academy to become a better player. Off the pitch, with her sports coaching and performance analysis degree, Teni is also a key voice within women’s sport, helping to drive the younger generation. The struggles of losing her mum and sister at a young age has led Teni to get involved through public speaking, be a part of the FA Womens Leadership Programme ,and support young female athletes in the community with similar struggles to her experiences. Join Hear Her Sports Patreon https://www.patreon.com/hearhersports Find all episodes http://www.hearhersports.com/ Find Teni on IG at https://www.instagram.com/tenicharless/ Find Billericay Town FC Women on IG at @btfcwomen Find Hear Her Sports on all social @hearhersports