Feisty Media

45% of us are experiencing "wellbeing burnout" — ie. we're exhausted from all the various pressures and directives to optimize our wellness. But despite all this pressure, our actual wellbeing hasn't improved over the last four years. This is according to a global report commissioned by lululemon that surveyed 16,000 people to understand trends in our physical, mental, and social wellbeing. Some of the issues: unrealistic social expectations, conflicting information, and a feeling of loneliness. One thing that can help with that last one? Don't go it alone! Do what sounds fun to you and do it with other people. Are you feeling the burnout? What are some of your coping strategies?

Dramatic, exciting, and record-setting WNBA Final: Women's basketball isn't slowing down The story goes that in middle school Sabrina Ionescu was told she couldn't play on the boys team and should be playing with dolls. So, instead, she went out and recruited enough girls for a girls team. At Oregon, she helped set attendance records. Then she was picked first in the WNBA draft by the New York Liberty. And on Sunday, the team won its very first championship. That win was also thanks to MVP Jonquel Jones' brilliant game & some controversial calls in the final minutes. But one thing was undisputed: The whole Lynx-Liberty Finals series was unmatched! (How many 15-point deficits can a team come back from?! How many buzzer beaters can we have??) And both attendance and viewership were at record highs. Liberty owner Clara Wu Tsai: "When we bought the team four years ago, they were playing at Westchester County Center to a crowd of 2,000. And the first thing we wanted to do was bring the team to Barclays Center so that they could have a bigger stage. And then we wanted to give them facilities and performance and nutrition and everything that they deserved, because they’re such elite professional athletes.” We can't wait for the 2025 season of the WNBA (Women's National Basketball Association) #womensports #basketball

Sara Gross, PhD's full acceptance speech from the World Triathlon Women’s Committee Award of Excellence. We've come a long way, but there is still work to do! Thank you again to USA Triathlon for nominating Sara for this award!

We are honored to celebrate our Founder, CEO and Feisty boss, Sara Gross, PhD this week! Thank you USA Triathlon for recognizing her work on behalf of women in triathlon!

History was made at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon this past weekend On Sunday, Ruth Chepng'etich set a new women's marathon world record — running 2:09:56 officially.  That's an average of a 4:57/mile pace for 26.2 miles. Chepng'etich started out aggressively on a day that turned humid and slower for a lot of the top athletes, going through the first 5K in 15:00 (!) and then halfway in 1:04:16 (which would have been the 5th best women's half-marathon time ever). Because the Chicago Marathon is one of the few major marathons that doesn't give the elite women a separate start ahead of the men, Chepng'etich decided to tuck in with some of the elite men and their pacers for the first half. (Which also meant it was hard to see her in the coverage and the broadcast didn't show any other women until near the last few miles!) It's hard to convey how impressive her run was. It broke the existing world record by almost two minutes — a record that, itself, had seemed unfathomable at the time and which had broken the previous world record by over another two minutes. For comparison: Here's  a chart of the progression of the women's marathon world record over time   Chepng'etich beat the next woman on Sunday by a stunning 7:36 and was also 11th overall — rare for a World Marathon Major And according to World Athletics' comparison tables, her performance is the best world record in existence and is the equivalent of a 1:59:37 men's marathon — something no man has run, to be clear! The Kenya doping crisis: Unfortunately, in this era, no impressive performance comes without a few question marks. While Chepng'etich has never failed a test nor faced suspicion, Kenyan running is in the midst of a doping epidemic and her manager also oversaw two athletes who were suspended in the past. All we can do is hope that the global anti-doping agencies are doing their jobs Other notable results from Chicago --Catherine Debrunner won the wheelchair race for the second year in a row and broke the course record --And full-time teacher Susanna Sullivan was the top American woman, in 7th place with a 2:21:56 — and she did it by ditching her assigned pacer and jumping on a more aggressive pace with a group of non-elite men! 

The WNBA playoffs attracted record viewers — and crazy plays 🏀 If you missed the first two games of the WNBA series, well, 1.14 million people didn't! (A WNBA Game 1 Finals viewership record.) And those fans got treated to an absolutely wild first game, with the Minnesota Lynx coming back from 15 POINTS DOWN to win over the New York Liberty by two points in the final seconds 😳 It's also worth nothing that these viewership records and amazing games have come *despite* hand-wringing from new fans that no one would watch once Caitlin Clark's Indiana Fever were eliminated. The WNBA is experiencing hockey stick growth this year and plans to increase the Finals to 7 games (instead of 5) next year, but it had been on the rise already — in both viewership and revenue. And that's true even when compared to where major men's leagues were at this point in their existence. A fact that has left a lot of players frustrated by their small slice of the pie, comparatively. As the WNBA players have always advocated for themselves, expect to see this conversation coming to the forefront before the 2025 season begins.

Last week history was made when women rode the Red Bull Rampage for the first time. Thanks to Alexandria Antonacci for helping us capture the energy of this special day.

🏃♀️ Is the Chicago Marathon harder to get into than Boston? This weekend, over 50,000 runners will take on the Chicago Marathon. While entry into the marathon isn't *only* by qualification — ie. there are a number of ways to get to run it, including a lottery open to anyone! — there are qualification times that *guarantee* you entry into the race. Those guaranteed qualifying times for 2025 have now gotten even faster than Boston Marathon qualifying times The Boston Marathon had to lower its times by 5 minutes across the board for every age-group under 60 because so many people kept applying that they weren't getting in anyway. The Chicago Marathon, though, did a couple things differently for 2025: 1. They moved from 10-year age-groups (30-39) to five-year (30-34 & 35-39), so some people saw bigger changes than other, and 2. They decreased the times by more than five minutes — especially for some age-groups. For example: A 52-year-old woman used to have to run a 4:20. Now she has to run a 3:50 to get into Chicago! (And she has to run a 3:55 to get into Boston.) But those in their 30s only saw a 10-minute drop in times. Of course, it's not exactly the same, because any runner can still just enter the lottery for Chicago. In the same way, the New York Marathon actually has some of the hardest qualification times if you want a guaranteed entry — but most people get into New York by just throwing their name in the ring! Along with all those everyday runners, there are also 29 pro women taking on the Windy City this weekend. And breaking the American record is certainly the goal for a number of them. Along with 2x champion, Kenya's Ruth Chepngetich, Americans Keira D’Amato, Betsy Saina, Sara Hall, and Emma Bates are definitely aiming for a fast time in what should be fast conditions.

🔥 For the first time in its history, the most famous freeride mountain bike competition in the world will include women — and the best female riders go off this Thursday! After 18 years, the iconic Red Bull Rampage will feature women this week. Why did it take so long? Organizers have historically said they didn't exclude women, it's just that women "weren't good enough to be invited" because of the challenging terrain and crazy jumps. Instead, Redbull Formation was started in 2019 to help grow women's freeriding. But Formation, which didn't have prize money, continued to be overshadowed by the big show at Rampage — and then Formation was cancelled. When the announcement came that Rampage would finally add women it was the culmination of years worth of work from long-time advocates and riders. Some of whom now get their shot This week's Rampage women's line-up Camila Nogueira (ARG) Casey Brown (CAN) Robin Goomes (NZL) Vaea Verbeeck (CAN) Vero Sandler (UK) Vinny Armstrong (NZL) Georgia Astle (CAN) Chelsea Kimball (USA) How it works: Riders are right now choosing and building their lines out in the desert in Virgin, Utah (near Zion National Park). The women's competition rides then happen on Thursday. The 18 men go off on Saturday. Judges will score the riders' two rides on: difficulty of line, air amplitude, control and fluidity, and tricks and style. 📺 WATCH LIVE: Thursday at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN+, Red Bull TV, and Red Bull Bike’s YouTube channel. Highlights will air on ESPN2 on Sunday afternoon. And stay tuned on our Feisty Media Instagram channels for some fun coverage from the ground! And if you're looking for more women's sports in your inbox, we break down 3 big stories like Red Bull Rampage every week. Get it here: https://lnkd.in/g4br-t8d

🏀 The WNBA has a lot of new fans this year. If you're one of them, here's your guide to the playoffs Who's playing in the finals? NY Liberty v. Connecticut Sun/Minnesota Lynx After best-of-three games in the early rounds, the semis went to best-of-five — and it was dramatic! Sunday night, the 2x defending champs, the Las Vegas Aces, were ELIMINATED after four games against the New York Liberty. What happened? The Aces still had their core line-up from last year's win, including Kelsey Plum, Chelsea Gray, and both this year's MVP A'ja Wilson and Player of the Year Tiffany Hayes. But a slow start early in the season (and a number of controversies) left them ranked just #4 going into the playoffs and had them facing off against favorites, the Liberty, in the semis. Then, the Aces' offense simply couldn't overcome the Liberty's strong defensive lineup. Sun v. Lynx New York now gets a few days rest, while on the other side of the semi line-up it's tied two games each Minnesota Lynx v. Connecticut Sun — which means it all comes down to Game 5 tonight at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN2. Whoever wins will then play the #1 seed Liberty in a best-of-five finals series! 📺 WATCH: Game 1 of the Finals - Oct. 10 @ 8 p.m. ET on ESPN2 on DirectTV, Hulu with Live TV, Fubo, or WNBA League Pass