Ultra-running legend Helen Klein turned 100 on November 27, 2022. A force of nature, she believes anything is possible if it is within your grasp. Few people have grasped as many accolades as she has. Over the course of her remarkable career, Klein amassed 75 national and world records, completed 90 marathons and 143 ultramarathons; and at age 66, was one of the first athletes to complete the Grand Slam of Ultrarunning which consists of four of the most demanding 100-mile trail races in the United States. At 72, she completed a 145-mile race in the Sahara Desert in Morocco. Just weeks later, she finished the punishing 370-mile Echo-Challenge in Utah. She also holds the marathon world record for women aged 80 and over in 4:31:32, which she set at the 2002 California International Marathon. Five years later she shattered the 85 and over record at the same race.

If Tish Hamilton is being honest, she doesn't consider herself a pioneer in women's running. She looks at titans of the sport like Kathrine Switzer and activists like Alison Mariella Desir—"They're legit," Hamilton says. But Hamilton's work in the sport—as the first female executive editor of Runner's World magazine—is nothing to sneeze at. Hamilton calls the marriage of her two passions—running and journalism—a privilege. She helped usher in the second running boom, one driven largely by women, one step behind the helm of the go-to magazine for runners. The mission was to broaden the coverage of the sport—from elites to weekend warriors doing incredible work—and with that, bring in a more varied audience, including women.

Anne Audain is a three-time Olympian and former professional runner for New Zealand. She had success as a very young athlete, qualifying for the 1972 Munich Olympics at age 16, though she wasn't able to compete until the 1976 Montreal Olympics, when she was 20. However, the road to discovering her talent wasn't without its challenges. Anne, who was adopted as a baby, was born with a bone deformity in both feet, which she wasn't able to correct with surgery until she was 13 years old. After more than a year of rehab and recovery, Anne hit the ground running, literally. Despite having competed in her first Olympic Games in 1976, she only went pro in 1981, and went on to have a storied career, breaking several course records on the US road running circuit and winning multiple Commonwealth Games medals. She retired from competition in 1990 and is now based in Evansville, Indiana.