The Lane 9 Podcast

"I was prioritizing the general trend toward a carb load, but it really kind of stressed me out in a way that I was a little bit surprised by. But also, we talk about this in the REDs space all the time—having energy is better than having no energy," shares REDs researcher Melissa (Mel) Lodge, whom you may know from following @FED_Collaborative on Instagram.  Lodge was an elite track and field athlete who competed collegiately, but hasn't tackled longer distances until now. (She's done some 10Ks, but never raced a half-marathon!) Her REDs and female athlete health reserach, along with the coursework she has completed for both her PhD and her dietetics cirruculum, certainly set her up with an immense fueling and health knowledge base going into this experience.  She ran her first marathon at the Wineglass Marathon in October 2025, crossing the finish line in 2:51:45, 3rd female overall and 1st in her age group (25-29).  But it wasn't easy! She shares how she structured her training plan while also finishing her dissertation (which she successfuly defeneded just last week), how she fueled, what worked and didn't work for her, what surprised her about the whole process, and why she's not sure she'll do another one...at least not for a while!  We wrap things up by exploring a few of the 10 things she wishes more people knew about REDs. So, come for a marathon recap, stay for some hot takes! Follow Mel on IG at @FED_Collaborative.  If you're looking for sports nutriton and marathon fueling support for your next training cycle, and/or a coach informed in REDs and women's health, go to our Lane 9 Women's Sport and Health Directory at lane9project.org/directory.  Follow Lane 9 on IG @Lane9Project, and contact us anytime via Lane9project.org

" Consider why you want to do this. What are the motivating factors for completing the marathon right this second? What are your long-term health and movement goals, and does this get you closer to them or further away?" Lane 9 co-founder, and dietitian, Heather Caplan RDN takes on two more listener questions in this episode. 1) How do clinicians navigate what may be REDs, with an athlete who has an IUD and doesn't get periods?  2) If I'm undertrained and experiencing symptoms of REDs (haven't had a period in about a year), but I want to run marathon, what should I do? As always, remember that all of our episodes cover these topics to raise awareness and engage in the converastion around REDs and women's health in sport, but they are NOT intended to (nor do they) provide individualized medical, nutrition, or mental health care. Please check in with your clinicians before you make any changes. If you are looking for a healthcare team to support you as a woman in sport, navigating REDs or not, go to Lane9Project.org/directory to match with a clinician in our Women's Sport and Health Directory.  Connect with Lane 9 Project via Instagram @lane9project, or visit Lane9project.org. Submit a question for our next Q&A episode by sending us a DM, or a message on our site!

"You might think, 'On the other side of this, if I'm not even guaranteed better performance, Why would I do it?' That comes down to our values," shares Lane 9 co-founder, and dietitian, Heather Caplan. This Q&A episode tackles two questions:  Is it possible to be 'healthy' even with extremely irregular periods or absent periods, if everything else is going well? Will I recover from REDs and get faster? What if I get slower, or get injured? Have your own question to submit to Lane 9 for a future episode or resource? We'd love to hear them! Go to Lane9project.org and contact us. Or follow us on Instagram @Lane9Project and come on into our DMs.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!  

"I'd rather suck at running and have my life back," Erin McDonald, who just won the 2025 Detroit Free Press International Half Marathon in 1:16. She objectively does not suck at running, but she does have her life back! Erin McDonald recently opened up about her struggles with restrictive and rigid eating in college as a runner at Michigan State University. She was primed and favored to make nationals her senior year—staying "disiplined" with her food, rest, and training routine—but the race went totally awry. With a job lined up after graduation, she was ready for a long break from running. Four years, in fact. When she came back to the sport, she had gained weight from fueling adequately and listening to her body, as well as taking care of her mental health. She was curious about the marathon, and was about to find out, she was pretty good at it!  But as she shares in this episode, her motivation for recovering from restrictive eating and chronic injuries had nothing to do with fast times. She just wanted her life back, and in this case, the rest came together.   Follow Erin on Instagram to cheer her on as she tackles another marathon this year, @sunkistErin.  Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!  

"Athletes aren't immune to that messaging of like, 'carbs are bad, you shouldn't have carbs, and they're the worst thing ever.' But we know that carbs are our body's preferred source of fuel, especially when you're doing these intense bouts of exercise like most athletes are doing," shares sports dietitian Lauren (or Lo) Segal.  Segal is a now in private practice, after almost 10 years of working as a collegiate sports dietitian, most recently at the University of Utah. She's part of our Lane 9 Clinicians and Coaches Membership, and listed in the Lane 9 Women's Sport and Health Directory.  We talk about her experiences as a D1 collegiate athlete, playing volleyball for Kent State University, and why that fueled her passion for supporting female athletes. She specializes in sports nutrition and REDs, and shares more information about what she wants collegiate athletes to know about nutrition, and accessing support.  Connect with Lauren Segal RDN via Lane 9 here! Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" You can't ultimately control what happens in a race. And so you convince yourself you can, right? Or you tell yourself, well, if I control these other things, I might be able to control what happens in the race."  Stephanie Reents ran for four years on the Amherst College women's Cross Country team in the early 90s, and is the author of "We Loved to Run" her debut novel. Reents wanted there to be a novel about women's running, stories about the identities athletes hold and how those identities shape and change team dynamics, friendships, and relationships...to themselves, to their sport, and to each other. She didn't shy away from including the full spectrum of a collegiate athlete's experiences—disordered eating, body shaming, navigating trauamtic experiences, and still, continuing to compete.  In this episode, Reents shares her own experiences as both a high school and collegiate athlete, and of course, why she wrote the stories of these young women athletes from the perspective of their Cross Country team, on a quest to make Nationals.  Buy the book: "We Loved to Run" by Stephanie Reents (Lane 9 Bookshop affiliate link) Connect with Reents: @stephanie.reents on Instagram.  Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!  

"I've never had a very lean body type. I kept showing up to these triathlons with lean-looking people and second-guessing if I deserved to be there...then smoking them on the bike and in the run, and gaining that confidence," shares Jess Cerra, a former professional cyclist, a sports nutrition entrepreneur, and now VP of Product and Community Development at Alete Active Nutrition. Cerra joins us to talk about her unusual path into high level endurance sports, and then professional cycling, while studying aspects of sports nutrition, and eventually founding a sports nutrition company. She created the JoJé bar while competing professionally, and navigating her own highs and lows in sport. She shares her experiences with the stress of professional athletics, body image, disordered eating in cycling sports, and learning how to fuel her body. And, what the story behind her bar being acquired by Alete Active Nutrition. Go to AleteNutrition.com and use code LANE920 for 20% off your order! Connect with Jess Cerra on IG @JessCerra, and the Alete Active products via @SaltStick.  Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

"I've found that athletes vastly underestimate their [energy] needs," shares Heather Caplan RDN, co-founder of Lane 9, in this Q&A-style episode.  Listen for this one if you're wondering... How often is it okay to have sweet things/desserts? Is it possible to have REDs without weight loss/changes? Why am I not getting my period back, even though I'm eating a lot more? This one tackles flexibility with food, decades of carb-fearing and how it probably still impacts what most people eat on a daily basis...even in sports, weight stigma in athletics and the variety of REDs symptoms, and what "a lot" might actually mean, when it comes to eating for energy availability.  Have your own question to submit to Lane 9 for a future episode or resource? We'd love to hear them! Go to Lane9project.org and contact us. Or follow us on Instagram @Lane9Project and come on into our DMs.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

"Once I started to really add fueling into the long runs...I realized how much that was helping the next run," shares Dr. Leah Avery DPT.  Leah Avery DPT was a D1 collegiate swimmer, who qualified for NCAA championships and the Olympic Trials (2008). On paper, her athletic story reads as inspiring and exciting for a young athlete. In reality, it was a pressure-filled struggle to keep up with expectations, training, and results. She was ready to be done. When she graduated and started her DPT program, she couldn't have been happier to stop swimming, and start running.  "It wasn't all rainbows from there, though," she adds.  We talk about Leah's story as an athlete, and clinician, and how she got into coaching runners after becoming a parent. From there, we dive into some training practices for runners to avoid overtraining, and REDs. Easy days, deload weeks, and more! Dr. Leah Avery DPT is part of the Lane 9 Women's Health & Sport Directory. Connect with her here! Or follow her on Instagram, @Leahs.Runs.DPT To build the rest of your women's healthcare and sport team, visit Lane9project.org/directory to connect with our dietitians, mental health providers, and coaches.  Lane 9 on IG: @Lane9Project. 

"I weighed more as a professional runner than I did in college, and I ran faster as a professional runner," shares sports dietitian Maddie Alm MS RDN.  You might know Maddie Alm from her Instagram account and podcat, Fueling Forward. She started her journey to becoming a registered dietitian after meeting with a sports RDN in college, as a collegiate athlete. In college, she was feeling exhausted between workouts and training sessions, but as she shares on this episode, "didn't even realize that fueling was important." That all changed with a pretty simple suggestion from the dietitian: Fuelg between workouts! In this case, with chocolate milk.  We don't hate it!  Alm shares her story as a walk-on collegiate runner at CU Boulder to becoming an All-American in her 5th year of eligibility. As she completed her additional dietetics coursework and then internship, she started training with Team Boss and began racing professionally. Now she works in private pracitce helping fellow runners fuel adequately and avoid REDs, while pursuing her own training goals on the other side of elite racing. Connect with Maddie Alm MS RDN on Instagram @fueling_forward.  Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" When I eventually figured out my food intolerances and a better relationship with fueling, I brought [my marathon PR] down to 2:44 within a little under a year." Jenny Grimshaw, VP of marketing at EQUIP*, and now a 2:36 marathoner, joins us on the Lane 9 podcast. Jenny is also a mom of 2, and navigating prophylactic surgeries to reduce her risk of breast and ovarian cancers (with the BRCA-1 gene). Her postpartum running experiences have been full of PRs, as she has figured out her own fueling needs, how to balance her identity as a runner with all the other things she does, and has worked with a coach to better balance her training volume and find her confidence as a runner.  Jenny shares: her early experiences with food intolerances and GI distress that were assumed by physicians to be anorexia, but would later be more correctly classified as ARFID the anxiety and panic attacks that she dealt with as a young runner, and injuries that plagued her through college, related to fueling, mental health, and wanting to explore life outside of running why she got into longer distances after her collegiate T&F years the gastroenterologist appointment that changed everything for her how she brought her marathon PR from a 3:13 to a 2:36 (not to say "you can, too!" but to give just one example of how fueling and mental health impact our experiences in sport) why she was drawn to EQUIP, and her role there *EQUIP is a virtual eating disorder treatment company that offers care in all 50 states. They're also part of the Lane 9 Directory. Connect with Jenny Grimshaw on Instagram @jenny_gshaw, and follow her training for her next marathon! Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" I think young people often don't get that chance to like take a step back [from sport] and say like, is this working [for me]?" shares Kaleigh Cornelison, who specializes in working with teens and adolescents.  Kaleigh is a licensed clinical social worker with over 15 years of experience working with teens and the adults who care about them. She leads workshops, creative resources, and writes the both, and newsletter for parents and professionals who wanna embrace both the challenges and the joys of the teenage years. She takes a balanced approach to social media use, acknowledging both the benefits and the downsides to how it impacts development, connection, experiences in sport, and more.  This episode covers her experiences in sports growing up, through college, and training for her first half-marathon why she decided to specialize in working with teens and adolescents as a social worker the ups and downs, pros and cons to teens participating in sports—from social connection to identity to body image and disordered eating how social media can both help and harm our experiences in sport (and of course, as a human, in general) how to talk to teens in a way that actually connects with them, especially when it comes to the hard stuff (like disordered eating behaviors) Connect with Kaleigh Cornelison through her newsletter bothandnewsletter.com. And on Instagram @kaleighcornelisonmsw Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

"There's nothing wrong with getting a little out of shape. It's okay! We shouldn't be in our peak or prime all the time," shares Stevie Lyn Smith, sports dietitian and endurnace athlete. Stevie Lyn Smith is a Registered Sports Dietitian, avid endurance athlete, and dog mom. Her mission is to help educate and coach athletes on how to fuel their goals without sacrificing their health and happiness. And, she's also part of our Lane 9 Directory of Women's Health & Sport Clinicians! This episode covers: Why she took 4 years off of training for triathlons Her year of racing (and PRs!) in 2025 after that long break Setting boundaries and structure for your own racing and recovery, especially when your social circles are also your training circles Why she doesn't want to hear that you "can't eat more carbs", and HOW to do that Fueling strategies for ultra-endurance endeavors, like an Ironman (of which she's raced 10!) and the importance of taking mental and physical breaks from training for big goals, even if it means you lose some fitness. It's okay! As mentioned: Heather's episode on Stevie's podcast, episode 48 on Real Fuel with SLS.  Follow Stevie Lyn on Instagram @StevieLynLyn, or connect with her through the Lane 9 Directory here. Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

"I was the last [athlete] in my recruiting class by my senior year," shares Asia Rawls, aka Coach Brown Bambi, reflecting on the challenges of collegiate athletics and how she stuck with it.  Rawls competed in multiple events, eventually excelling in the 400m hurdles. She ran for Eastern Michigan University (EMU) under coach Sue Parks. In this episode she shares how running changed her life, from a young age, after switching school districts and having more access to sport, all the way into getting a scholarship as a student athlete.  Now, she's the head coach at Machine Athletics (while also working FT in tech!), running with the Detroit-based running group We Run 313, and running World Majors Marathons! Tune in to hear more of her story, why she brings the world of sprinting into the world of distance running, and how running has shaped so much of her story and who she is today. Connect with Asia on IG, @brown_bambi. Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" I mean, half of our cross country team in college, I would say had disordered eating," shares Maddie Barrett, of Joyful Run Coaching.  She's a full time running coach, parent, and recently underwent a double-mastectomy. Maddie is part of the Lane 9 Directory, and joined us to talk about her experiences as a young athlete navigating eating disorder treatment, her time as a collegiate skier and runner, and how she has navigated running and sport through her pregnancy and postpartum. Just last year, she had surgery for a double-mastectomy and reconstruction, and shares her experiences with that as well. Connect with Maddie through lane9project.org/directory.  Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" Eating disorders sometimes even mimic OCD. And by that I mean there is a compulsion that satisfies an obsession or an urge," shares therapist Hannah de Groot, a clinician in private practice at Stride Counseling.  Hannah de Groot is part of the Lane 9 clinician Directory, and joined us to talk about her work in helping athletes navigate symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and eating disorders. She shares her own sport story, and how she got into this work, as well as what it looks like for an athlete to work through Exposure Response Therapy.  Connect with her work through lane9project.org/directory, and give her a follow on Instagram @stride_counseling.  Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" I believed that what it took to get back to where I was year before was I needed to lose weight, so kinda overnight did a whole 180—was restricting food, was counting calories, just kind of trying to lose weight. But it was all under the guise of being dedicated to my sport," shares Kassidy Johnson, now a Division 1 collegiate sports dietitian.  Johnson is not only a helping collegiate athletes fuel adequately and navigate their fear of weight gain, she's also training and competing at high level of sport as an unsponsored athlete. She's currently training for, and will soon compete in, the US National Track Championships. She recently ran an 800m PR of 2:00.7 after, as she put it, "significant weight gain" post-college.  We talked with Johnson about:  Working full time in collegiate sports while also training and competing at track meets How she knew she wasn't ready to be done running and competing, even when her NCAA eligibility was up and she had no sponsor Her experience in sports in high school, and how a basketball injury triggered what would become years of disordered eating and chronic injuries, while also eventually studying nutrition in college as a student athlete Finding a master's program in dietetics that also allowed her to continue running Why she came back to sports nutrition as a specialty, and what she loves helping athletes navigate  The fear of weight gain that plagues so many athletes/sports (and, our general culture around "health") Nutrition trends she's seeing in college athletics and, of course, bicab.  Follow Kassidy Johnson on Instagram @KassidyJeane.  Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

"... the overwhelming majority of people who identify as women, that run, have at one time had an eating disorder or disordered eating, or at minimum low energy availability. So just assume that 60% of images you saw [on social media] were of someone who is actively not well."  Zoë Rom and Kylee Van Horn RDN join the Lane 9 Podcast with Heather Caplan RDN to talk about why diet culture in running (and in general) sucks, and how athlete identities get wrapped up in performance nutrition, body image, and the next health trend. Rom and Van Horn co-host the podcast, Your Diet Sucks (YDS), to bring history, facts, and nuance to diet and nutrition trends, through their lenses as a journalist and dietitian.  This conversation includes:  Why Van Horn decided to compete as a collegiate athlete How Rom got into running as a "late in life" athlete, on the trails Writing about food and nutrition while navigating personal eating disorder treatment and recovery, and the responsibility that comes with reporting on both nutrition and health for athletes, and eating disorders in sport Where the line is drawn between disordered eating and eating for performance Why they started the show, YDS, together A topic there were nervous to tackle on YDS and a lukewarm take on taking bicarb! Follow @YourDietSucksPod on Instagram, and tune into the podcast! Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" I did have some moments where I questioned if I'd ever be the runner I was [before having a kid]", shares Carly Gill Larios, a 2:42 marathoner.  She joined us for a conversation about her history with disordered eating in high school, the ways in which running was healing for her through her D3 college experience, and what brought her back to running after starting her career in the TV and Film industries. She still works as a Co-Executive Producer for "90 Day Fiance", while running up to 80 miles per week and training for her next marathon. She's a mom to 2-year-old Adella, and dog, Luna, based in Boulder Colorado.  We talk about:  her co-executive producer job! what her first few half-marathons and marathons taught her about running, training, and fueling how her eating habits have changed over the years, to fueling much more adequately and consistently while training for marathons at the sub-elite level how she thought her prenatal and postpartum experiences might be...and how they actually were, in regards to recovery, running, and racing again Follow Carly on Instagram @Carlysheree.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you dont' see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you! Follow Lane 9 Project on Instagram @Lane9Project. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter via Lane9Project.Substack.com, and go to Lane9project.org to get in touch if you'd like to send us a note!

" I was not someone that anyone, including myself, would've thought was gonna make an Olympic team one day." Kim Conley is a 2x Olympian in the 5000m, competing in the 2012 London Summer Games and 2016 Rio Summer Games. She has competed in everything from the mile to the marathon. During her debut at the 2016 NYCM she shares how she underfueled and bonked hard. Eventually she teamed up with a sports dietitian, changed her fueling strategy, and went on to run in the 2024 US Olympic Trials Marathon. Most recently, she finished 2nd at the Brooklyn Half Marathon in May 2025, and has run a few shorter distances competitively since then. In this episode we cover:  her positive experiences as a high school athlete the pressure to be "lighter" during her time in college what her first few years as a professional runner looked like qualifying for and running in two Summer Olympics, and how she navigated mental health and training afterward how her fueling on the run has changed completely a new sport she's enjoying now and what she has coming up! Follow Kim on Instagram @kfconley.