Natalie is a woman. And I said this earlier. Natalie, not only am I I admire you for running the Boston Marathon, but you ran it three months postpartum. And I said, very honestly, I couldn't even fit into my normal genes six months postpone m. So I can't even imagine what that is.
So I was, I was six months postpartum, but I did.
I did do one other marathon this spring when I was four months, which is pretty nuts.
I runners, like you are touched, right, like those of us who are not runners, were like, I can't even imagine why you'd want to do that. Let's start at the beginning, though. You tell me a little bit about your running history and your running career, because you're not just an average, you know, run of the mill runner, You're you're a competitive marathon runner.
Yeah. So, and it's actually funny that you that you say that. So when I started running when I was in high school. So I joined my high school cross country team after I quit the tennis team because my tendency team was too competitive and I just like was not very good and I needed to take one more season of a sport in order to not have to take gym.
Class, so I was really bad. I dropped out of more races than I finished when I was in high school.
But somewhere kind of between my senior ye of high school and my freshman year of college, I just kind of fell in love with running and with training for things and racing. So I ran collegiately for my D three school, Cavin College in Michigan, and I still wasn't very good compared to the other girls on the team, but I just I really enjoyed it. And so since I've graduated, I went to grad school and I just kind of kept up this you know, interest in not
just running but competing. And I've now done eighteen marathons. The first one I did was when I was nineteen, when I was in college, and.
I've won five of them.
But I really do, I think have the unique perspective of, you know, being somebody who is competitive and wants to do my best, you know, time wise and performance place wise. But I've been in a place where I have not been at the top of the field. So yeah, it's it's been a journey.
I bet, I bet, and I can't even, like I said, running a race four months six months. But forget about it. I mean, that's not gonna happen. I want to talk about what happened though, when you were about to run the Boston Marathon and you've been with a running club for many, many years. Tell me about running club. Tell me about the lead up to the Boston Marathon and what happened after.
Yeah.
So I had been with this particular club in Northern Virginia for a little over a year when I was gearing up for Boston, and I had been very vocal with that club that you know, my interest and passion was in building you know, a women's competitive team.
So encouraging women.
You know, we had a very strong number of Masters women, which is women over forty, you know, at all kind of stages in our running career.
So we had women who were.
Sort of fresh out of college, out of competing with their college teams, to you know, women who had picked up the sport later on. But we're having success with it all the way up to you know, women in their forties. I don't know if we had anybody in their fifties, but the idea being, you know, were a club for all women to continue this competitive.
You know, competitive running.
So going into Boston, I had actually registered when I was eight months pregnant, and it was I had a not very enjoyable pregnancy. I just had a lot of like really bad the pain. So it's hard to be active.
I'm somebody who's obviously used to being very active. So when I registered for Boston, you know, in my mind, I was thinking, I just want this to be kind of a celebration of you know, my body, of this body that carried me through pregnancy and then you know, delivered my son, and you know, now can do this, git back to doing this thing that I love, even if I'm not, you know, as fast as I.
Want to be.
So I was on Twitter, I think it was maybe like December or January, and I saw Jennifer say post something about, you know, the BAA's policy that they were choosing to allow biological males to.
Run in the women's category.
At Boston, and it was just kind of this like like frustration. You know, it just felt like a little insulting in a way of just like, you know, I signed up for this race to celebrate you know what to me was this like great act of being a female, of being a woman, and this policy is saying like, yeah, well you don't really matter that much, and all of the success that you want to have is is sort of secondary to this like quote unquote inclusivity policy that we want to have.
Ye, so I wish isn't it true that the marathon had already did already had a non binary category, right?
Yeah?
Yeah, And there's some debate, I guess, around how that that category functions, but it's clear that it's not, uh, it doesn't. You know a lot of these people who are you know, view themselves as as female. They they would they don't want to participate in that, they want to participate in the women's race. So yeah, so I agree to I've met with Jen a few times and you know, we talked about what some kind of statement
or whatever would look like. And you know, this was something that had kind of been weighing on me for a long time. You know, I had just seen so many examples of like teenage girls, you know, having to take a stand and having to deal with this, you know, in their schools, and I just kept thinking like, well, where are the adults in these situations?
Like why are any adults saying anything?
And so I think I even said in one of the first interviews, you know, this just seems like the time for me to finally take like a public stand on this. Now, it was definitely more widely viewed than
I expected. When there's an individual, Nicky Hilts picked it up and made a fairly condescending video of it that basically said, you know, running a marathon is all about having fun and making friends, and you know, why does it matter you're at the You're not winning the race, so your result doesn't really matter.
To be clear, nick and Nicki Hilts considers herself trans and non binary, correct, but she still runs, yeah, women's.
But competes in women's running. It is a biological female.
Okay, so I mean, but obviously as a trans non binary person, Nicki Hilts could choose to run in a non binary category or run in the merry category, right, and yet that's not happening.
Yeah, And so Niki is also not a marathoner. She runs the fifteen hundred, okay, so very different, very different races. So there's Yeah, so it sort of exploded from there and people started and I expected there to be you know, some pushback and some people who were you know upset with what I said, but I did not expect I got a lot of you know, I had some people who were trying to like find me in Boston, were like stalking my Strawbo, the running GPS tracking app, you know,
trying to figure out where I was. You know, a couple of people said things about, you know, we're going to look for you on the course, and so it was it was frightening. I mean, it was a it was somewhat bewildering in some ways. You know, I felt like I hadn't said anything that was you know, definitely not trying to attack anyone and to build individual but to say that this policy felt very unfair, right, and yeah, so it sort of exploded from there.
And then after the race, your running club, what did they want you to do here?
Yeah, so they had given me sort of this list of.
Things that I needed to do in order to basically be you know, at first it was a year long suspension and you know, I would still have to do all of these things, and the things were it was like on my personal social media state that you know, my views don't reflect those of the running club, which like, okay, yeah, I actual that the second one was, you know, make this apology saying that you know, what I said was
hurtful and I apologize for hurting people. And I was like, well, you know, I will apologize that people were hurt, but I don't feel like I was saying anything you specifically hurtful towards any one person, right, And it was really meant to be this critique of the policies. But then the third thing was that I needed to again make this public statement on my personal social media that said, you know, I now recognize kind of the error.
Of my ways that you know, with a.
Certain amount of you know, hormones and surgery, you know, a man can actually become a woman. And I just remember like sitting and just like I pause for a second and I said like, no, I'm not going to do that, Like I can't.
I cannot do that in faith.
Like that goes and how remarkable this is. They're trying to make you say something that you don't believe so they will allow you to stay.
That's that Yeah, so crazy.
And I even said too, I was like, you know, this goes really directly against like my Christian beliefs, and like I this isn't just like a you know, this is something that like I could point to the evidence of the things that I believe in, and so it was sort of, you know, it felt at the moment, you know, I realized that they were trying to do some damage control, which.
Is within their right to do. But then yeah, it just in hindsight, I'm like, wow, that was a very you know, somewhat.
Disturbing thing to be asked to to capitulate on this, you know, fairly fundamental thing that you know, I'd never been quiet about.
I'd always been very.
You know, proud and excited to build and support women and women's running.
And that's let's I don't want to make sure we get it all in before we run out of time here. So that is kind of where your new running group came into play with Jennifer Say who's been on the show as well, and XX Yes it's xxx Y Athletics, her company that specializes in making great athletic wear, but it also supports girls and girls sports and is working to sort of change things. Now, tell me about the running club you guys have made.
Yeah, so this.
Is actually I think Jen pointed out when I said, you know, I got the email that I was getting formally kicked out of the club. He's like, well, let's start, Let's start our own club, And I mean it is it's already. You know, we've only been live for a little under two weeks and we've already got just such.
A vibrant, great community that's building.
So it's mostly online with some in real life meetups and stuff that we're going to get started once we've got some kind of you know, little regional cohorts grown.
You know, we share training stuff, we do virtual activities.
So on Monday, we a bunch of us did a murph and then posted our results in the chat.
So it's a way for us all to kind of encourage each other to do.
Something that's maybe not necessarily within a bunch of runners wheel house.
To do two hundred push ups. We did it.
This is not the right person to articles and to talk and to just kind of you know, network and support other women across the country, you know, with this similar value of you know, we're all women at all different stages in our running careers who just wants to continue to get better and support each other.
Are you following along with what's happening in California right now with their track and field situation because they're trying to change some stuff and it's I got to tell you, I don't think you can do it in the middle
of a season. I think it would be very right to sort of And what we're talking about is the California High School Association is now considering allowing like if a if a transwoman medals, they will essentially give the medal also to a biological girl who ran in that race, and they're trying to split the baby, right.
Yeah, and this is the it's unfortunate and I'm so yeah. I follow these stories very closely when they crop up, and this is one that you know, it's it's frustrating because there are no real winners here.
You know, everybody is going to have.
To experience some sort of loss, and it's it didn't
need to be this way, you know. I think they're recognizing that the tide is turning on this and people are starting to be more vocal about the fact that it is simply, like demonstrably unfair to these you know, teenage girls who work for months to be competitive in their chosen discipline, you know, and then just lose out on, you know, opportunities attention that they would beginning from scouts and from colleges and potential scholarship opportunities, and so it's
this like vast ripple effect that now it feels like they're really scrambling to try to rectify it. But it's you know, at some point, it's maybe a little it's too late in the season.
So I'm hopeful that maybe this is you in the.
Future, something better can come from this moment in history. But you know, it's heartbreaking for those girls who are dealing with it right now.
Natalie Daniels, you are I would see an inspiration, but that would imply that I too, I'm going to start running marathons, and that is simply not a thing that's going to happen.
But I admire No.
Trust me, I know that is not a thing that I already said. I'm not going to be one of those midlife prices people who goes and starts winning. It's just not my jam. But I admire you for everything you've done, and I admire you for continuing to talk about this and starting this new running club, and I
know it's going to be successful. And I put a link on the blog today so people can join the club if they'd like to, All you crazy runners out there, and join a group of like minded people who are just trying to make sure that women can compete against women fairly in these sports. Natalie, thank you so much for your time today.
Yeah, thank you as well.