As a child in Chardon, Ohio, Butcher realized she was fast at a young age. In ninth grade, she learned about track and field as a sport that was only available to men—and as a sophomore, she sought to change that, asking the school's track coach to start a girls' team. When he refused, her mother contacted Stella Walsh, the 1932 Olympic champion in the 100 meters and then-coach of the Polish Falcons, a boys and girls track club in Cleveland, Ohio. A couple of days each week, Butcher’s mother would make the 30-mile drive from Chardon, so her daughter could train with the team. Butcher would go on to win three national titles in her signature event, the 880 yards, as well as continuing to advocate for more opportunities for girls and women in distance running. She also pursued passions off the track, including a solo 2,500-mile motorcycle trip through New England and Canada; writing poetry and prose, as well as teaching English; and riding and training horses, which she continues to do to this day.

Randi Bromka Young can pinpoint the moment her running career started: She woke up one day when she was 31 and ran as far as she could from her house. She only traveled a mile that day, but from there, the transition to running ultramarathons was “rather quick,” in Young’s words. Her first race was the famed Boulder Bolder 10K and then some short summer races and a short triathlon. By 1987, she had run six marathons; in July of that year, Young ran her first ultramarathon, the Vail Valley 50 Mile; and then, she won the Leadville 100 in a time of 24:12. She'd return to that legendary course three more times, finishing the race in 1988, 1989, and 1990. She aldo represented the United States at the World 24 Hour Championships in 1990 and won the TAC 24-Hour Championship in 1992.

Sally “Sal” Edwards is no stranger to being at the front of endurance races and the forefront of revolutions in running retail and exercise physiology. She didn’t pick up running until after college, but eventually became a Nike-sponsored runner and competed in a number of marathons, including the inaugural US Olympic Marathon Trials in 1984. Her marathons were interspersed with ultramarathons—In 1980 she won the Western States Endurance Run—both of which were ultimately supplanted by triathlons. She also founded two companies—Fleet Feet Sports and Heart Zones, of which she remains CEO—and has shared her expertise in training methods and exercise physiology across 24 books and over 500 articles.

In December 1971, Cheryl Bridges (now Cheryl Treworgy) became the first woman in the world to break 2:50 in the marathon. Treworgy decided to try running in 1964, when she was in high school; though she had no girls' teams to train with, she soon began competing and excelling. Eventually, she ran on five world cross-country teams and came in fourth at the 1969 international cross-country championships. A little more than three decades after Treworgy’s world-record marathon, one of her daughters, Shalane Flanagan, started winning championships, and she medaled at the 2008 Olympics. Once Treworgy retired from competitive running, she stayed close to the sport in other ways, including coaching, becoming a university’s assistant athletic director, and even training herself in photography, covering track and cross country meets as a professional photographer. Because of what she got out of running, Treworgy says she “became an advocate for any woman who really wanted to run or participate in a kind of athletic endeavor.”

In 1979, standout 800-meter runner Karen Troianello (Blair) joined a group of women student-athletes and coaches in a lawsuit against Washington State University (WSU), suing over inadequate funding and support for women’s athletics under Washington’s Equal Rights Amendment. By the luck of the alphabet, she ended up being named the plaintiff. Blair vs. Washington State University went to the state Supreme Court, which—in 1987—ruled in favor of Blair, changing college athletics in the state of Washington and nationally.

Michele Cuke's first racing success came at age ten when she won a 600-meter race sponsored by her church. She went on to become one of California’s top high school 800-meter and cross-country runners, then competed collegiately at UCLA. She ran all four years, culminating in setting the 10,000-meter school record and becoming the 1983 NCAA 1500-meter champion. Ultimately, Cuke completed eleven marathons in less than three hours, including eight in less than 2 hours and 45 minutes. To this day, she remains second-fastest on the growing list of American-born Black female runners who have eclipsed three hours in the marathon, thanks to the 2:37:41 she ran at the 1991 California International Marathon.

1972 was a banner year for American women in athletics, and Patricia Barrett, a high schooler from New Jersey, was at the center of many of the milestones. In January that year, she won her first marathon, the inaugural Jersey Shore Marathon. Then, she was one of the eight women who ran the Boston Marathon that year, the first year female runners could officially enter and receive numbers. That fall, she returned to Central Park for the New York City Marathon, joining Kuscsik and five other women in a 10-minute protest at the start of the race. “I guess I was an activist in a way,” she says. “But I just just loved to [run].”

Shawanna White is a semi-professional runner and physical education teacher in Columbia, South Carolina. Nearly every weekend, you can find her on the starting line, racing distances from the mile to the marathon. She’s run more marathons under three hours than any other American-born Black female runner—her current total is 16—and her personal best of 2:45:19 places her eighth on the list of fastest African American marathoners, a list she was instrumental in creating. In 2022, she was inducted into the National Black Distance Running Hall of Fame and featured in the documentary Breaking Three Hours

When 16-year-old Billee Pat Connolly stepped up to the start line of the 800-meter  race at the 1960 U.S. women’s Olympic Track and Field Trials, she had no idea she  would become a part of history in what has now become known as "The Abilene  800," the event that opened the door for women to run longer distances. Connolly went on to become a three-time Olympian, a renowned track and field coach, who coached Evelyn Ashford and Allyson Felix to their own Olympic berths.