In a world where self-promotion is the norm, Erin Strout is very much the exception. She prefers a far lower profile—often so busy doing the work that she has very little time to talk about doing the work. But as this year’s recipient of the New York Road Runners George Hirsch Journalism Award prior to the New York City Marathon, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to shine a spotlight on this incredibly talented, dedicated journalist.

Established in 2010, the award recognizes excellence in the reporting, writing, and broadcasting about distance running. And wow, does Erin certainly qualify. In the time since the award was founded, she has dedicated her career to covering the top levels of track and field and distance running, from the World Marathon Majors to the Rio and Tokyo Olympics.

As a longtime freelance writer, you can find Erin’s byline in the Washington Post, ESPN, SELF, Women’s Health, Outside, Triathlete, and more. She has also served as a senior editor at Running Times, contributing editor at Runner’s World, and most recently, senior writer at Women’s Running (where I had the honor of working alongside her during my time as editor-in-chief). In 2017, she co-authored the book ”Race Everything: How to Conquer Any Race at Any Distance in Any Environment and Have Fun Doing It” with Bart Yasso. And in June 2024, you can get your hands on her latest project: ”The Price She Pays: Confronting the Hidden Mental Health Crisis in Women’s Sports―from the Schoolyard to the Stadium,” which she wrote with licensed marriage and family therapists Katie Steele and Tiffany Brown, Ph.D.

Few journalists have poured the time, passion, and thoroughness into women’s distance running as Erin. (You only have to scan the hundreds of articles cataloged on this site alone to appreciate the impact she has made.)

But don’t just take it from me. Kara Goucher—two-time Olympian, NBC broadcaster, beloved podcast co-host, NYT-best selling author—writes: “Erin has been an excellent journalist and a lifeline for women’s athletics. She has done so much to elevate women’s sports in the media. Running has been so lucky to have her!”

I recently had the chance to catch up with Erin by phone from her home in Flagstaff, Arizona. Although a bit apprehensive (“I do not like being on the other end of an interview!” she said jokingly), she opened up about her dynamic career, her own experience as a runner, and her rewarding new book project.

Erin Strout on Running, Writing, and Women’s Sports

[This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.] 

Women’s Running: You’re a career journalist with decades of experience—and you are currently enrolled in online classes like statistics at Penn State University. What prompted that?

Erin Strout: “I’m writing so much about mental health, and just felt like I needed a basic understanding so that I can write with authority on it. I feel like a lot of people write about mental health and they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. I don’t want to be one of those people, so that’s why I just started taking classes. But because of my previous college credits, my academic advisor was like, “You really don’t have to do that much to get an undergrad degree in psychology.” So who knows where I’ll end up. I’m just trying to educate myself.”

WR: Alright, let’s go back to the beginning: Why journalism?

ES: “You know, I was always interested in creating, even in elementary school. I remember one Thanksgiving—I must have been in first or second grade—going around to everybody in our house and asking what they were thankful for, and then writing a story based on everybody’s answers. So it was really early on that I knew I wanted to be a writer.”

WR: Did you always know you wanted to get to running journalism or did you have other plans initially?

ES: “I initially wanted to be a political reporter. Then, one summer between my junior and senior year of college, I was an intern at U.S. News & World Report and got a little taste of political journalism and decided I actually didn’t like it. (So for any of the young people reading, do your internships because they’re very informative!) During that summer, I also got to work on their ‘96 Olympics guide. It was in Atlanta that year, so there was more attention in the U.S. toward the Olympics than usual. I got a little taste of sportswriting, which I enjoyed. So it wasn’t running specifically that I was attracted to, I think it was more sports in general.

“But I took a long and winding path to where I ended up: I worked at a small-town newspaper and covered the police beat; I went to school board meetings at a daily newspaper; I went to New York City and worked at a business magazine; and then I went to [Washington, D.C.] and covered higher education. It was in D.C. that I started getting a few assignments from Runner’s World—and actually started running a lot more myself. That’s how I ended up in the whole running journalism realm, which I didn’t even really know existed.”

WR: You started running more, but you were a runner growing up, right?

ES: “Yeah, I ran cross country in middle school and high school. I was actually more of a competitive swimmer growing up, but, you know, parents wanted us to do something else in the offseason. I picked cross country because that’s what my [big] brother did. I loved it. I was the slowest, but I loved the team and just the whole vibe of it. When I went to college, I did run on my own, but not very consistently—and I didn’t do road races or anything like that.

“It wasn’t until I moved to New York City, where I worked with Sarah Lorge Butler at the business magazine that I referenced earlier. She saw a pair of running shoes under my desk one day and was like, “Oh, do you run?” And I was like, “Hmm, I don’t know if we’d call it running, but…” She really took me under her wing, because she ran at Columbia University and had worked at New York Road Runners before she ended up at the magazine.

“She introduced me to the whole world of road races. My first race was the Super Bowl race that NYRR put on every year; it was a 5K back then. Gradually, she was like, ‘Oh, you should try a half marathon.’ So I did. Back then it was the Bronx Half Marathon, and I thought that was the farthest I would ever run. Then she was like, ‘Oh no, you’re going to do the New York City Marathon.’ And I was like, ‘No, I’m not. I am drawing the line here.’ But somehow she coerced me, and created a monster.’”

WR: You were at it for a number of years, right? How many marathons have you run?

ES: “I look back and think, ‘How did you have the time and energy?’ But that’s like your twenties and thirties, I guess. I don’t actually know, I would say in the range of 15 marathons probably. But it was in a sort of condensed timeline and then I stopped.”

WR: Did it come naturally to you? You qualified for Boston, you were a fast runner!

ES: “Well, I wouldn’t say fast, I would say I was pretty good for a recreational runner. I trained really hard. I think that just comes from the upbringing of year-round competitive swimming. You just know how to train. So once I understood how you train for a marathon, it was pretty addictive. All those years that you keep PR’ing, it becomes something that is kind of hard to quit when you’re still doing well. I also joined NYRR’s Team For Kids in those early days, and that created this huge community of people that I’m still super close with today. We were training for marathons together, but more than that we were going to Monday Night Football together, and going out for breakfast, and just becoming a really close group of people.”

WR: OK, so during that time you start diving into the running space a lot more. What was your perception of the running media landscape when you started?

ES: “When I first started freelancing, I was writing a lot of really basic service pieces about ‘best recovery strategies’ or ‘how to start running.’ It had nothing to do with pro running at all, it was more geared toward the kind of runner I was. It came naturally, because you can come up with so many story ideas when you’re doing it yourself.

“Then around 2012, I ended up as a senior editor at Running Times. I remember the first assignment that [former editor Jonathan Beverly] gave me was to do a profile on Meb [Keflezighi]. So I got in the car and drove to Mammoth and spent three days with Meb. That was my first taste of covering the sport of running, which is crazy—just throw me right into the fire.

WR: What was that experience like?

ES: “When I got to Mammoth, I had no idea what to expect. Thankfully, I was a runner who trained a lot at the time, because I got there and Meb’s like, ‘We’re going running.’ I was like, ‘Wait, what? I’m not going running with you. That’s crazy.’ But that became a normal way of getting to know some of these pro runners—just going on an easy run with them. And thankfully for most of my career covering pros, I was in decent enough shape to go on an easy run with most people.

“He and his family couldn’t have been more inviting. Of course, now that I know who Meb is, that’s exactly what I would’ve expected, but I didn’t really know him at the time. He let me come to all his runs, I would do a little warm up with him; we went to the gym and I saw his whole routine there; I got to know his coach Bob Larsen. He had a tempo run one of the days that I was there, and so I got in the car with Bob and just observed how they go about doing things. That really became an outline of how I would go about doing any other profile of pro runners—it was just kind of based on that awesome experience in Mammoth with Meb.”

WR: ​​That obviously has been a constant through-line in your career—your amazing profile and cover writing about these athletes. Why were those profiles so important to you?

ES: “Well, back then there weren’t a ton of podcasts or social media at the stage it’s at now, so I think there was an even bigger disconnect between recreational runners and pro runners. I didn’t really pay attention or even really comprehend the pro side of running, because you just didn’t read about it all that much or talk about it all that much as a recreational runner. It wasn’t like we were out on our long runs talking about Shalane Flanagan; I would say that 99 percent of us probably didn’t know who Shalane was.

“I think that’s what was really attractive to me–-I could get to know these people and write about them, and now more people will understand what they do and who they are. It’s a lot different now because you can just get on Instagram and find out, but even then—which wasn’t that long ago—that disconnect was huge. I think writing those cover stories and bringing a slice of pro runner’s lives to other people, it just kind of made them more human.”

WR: You’ve also been instrumental in highlighting the dark underbelly and problems within the sport. How did that become such a big part of your career?

ES: “I think one regret—I mean, I’m still in it, so I don’t know that it’s a regret, but I do think there’s so much more to do as far as holding the sport accountable. Whether it’s the resources necessary, or the time commitment, or so many other factors that go into that kind of journalism; I would love to do more of it, it’s just kind of impossible in some ways. But I do think that when you come up in different areas of journalism, especially local journalism, your job is to hold people accountable. And I don’t think you ever lose that instinct.

“There are probably issues within every industry and every sport that need to be uncovered, talked about more, or just amplified. I think there’s a lot in running that doesn’t get covered because first of all, there aren’t that many journalists covering just running. So it’s a privilege to be able to do that. But it takes time, and money, and a commitment of media outlets to be able to do justice to things related to safe sport, or doping and drugs, that just don’t exist within the special niche of what we cover.”

WR: As you began focusing more on the women’s side of the sport, did you have a lot of women coming to you and opening up, or did you have to poke at stuff you were noticing to try to get answers?

ES: “Sadly, a lot of women have come to me with stories. I tell them I’m always willing to listen and I believe everyone. Their stories, sadly, aren’t that unique when it comes to abuse in sports (I would say primarily that is what women come to me with). A lot of times, their stories don’t end up being stories for the reasons I just said. I give credit to people like Kara [Goucher] and Mary Cain who have been able to get their stories out there. Because first of all, it takes a lot of courage on their part; but it also takes a lot of documentation, corroboration from other people—you need so many different pieces to make it printable. And I think a lot of times, for the outlets that I’ve worked for, often those resources just aren’t available.”

WR: How did all of those experiences and conversations lead to your latest book project, ”The Price She Pays,” and how do you think readers will readers find it useful?

ES: “I have written a lot about different aspects of mental health in women’s sports, and that’s how I ended up with this project helping two therapists who have also had a lot of experience—not only in sports, but helping female athletes through some of the things that they go through as athletes. They had an idea and they needed somebody to help them write it. It’s been a year-long process, and it’s been exhausting and really hard at certain points, but I think in the end we have come up with something that will be super helpful for a lot of people. I think it’s going to be a great resource for parents, especially, whose kids are getting into sports. I think that’s part of the problem—you don’t know what you don’t know when your daughter starts excelling in athletics.”

WR: You spoke to a lot of real athletes for this as well, right? It’s not just coming from a therapist perspective.

ES: “Yeah, it’s told through the stories of real athletes. It’s illustrating a lot of the things that female athletes go through, from the earliest stages—like gymnastics when there are five—to post-career if they got that far, like what happens when it’s all over. We’ve talked to six-year-olds, and we’ve talked to pro athletes; and it’s all different sports—we have acrobatics and soccer and basketball, and we do have a fair share of runners in there, too. So it really goes through the whole life cycle of a female athlete.”

WR: OK, last question. You still have a lot of career left and a lot of important things you’re going to do, but eventually when you look back on it all, what impact do you hope to have had?

ES: “I hope I’ve brought more attention to the pro side and helped to bridge that gap. Because I think it’s important. The sport of track and field and distance running, it has so much to offer and I know it struggles to reach a mainstream audience. I’m not sure that I’ve helped on that end, but I do hope that I’ve brought more people into the fold, at least. I always do the mom test: My mom was not a track and field fan before I started writing about it; but if she can name, you know, Nikki Hiltz, I’ve done my job.”

RELATED: Discover all of Erin Strout’s articles on Women’s Running