How 100 Women Trained for the LA Marathon with ASICS

March 8, 2026

It’s September 2025 in Tokyo, and Meaghan Murray and Meghann Featherstun are hosting the final night of the ASICS Move Her Mind Event Series. The 13-stop journey took them across the United States—and now to Japan—in just six short months. In each city, the two co-hosted a live podcast focused on movement and closing the gender exercise gap. Hundreds of women have joined them live, and thousands have downloaded the episodes. Tonight is the grand finale, but “the Megs” are ready to keep the momentum going.

As their conversation with marathon legend Deena Kastor winds down, Murray makes the big announcement: “We will be taking – in partnership with ASICS – 100 lucky women to the LA Marathon with us.”

The plan was something the Megs had been brainstorming since before the Move Her Mind Event Series. “We have wanted to bring together both our expertise in running and nutrition coaching for a couple of years,” Featherstun reflects. “We often found ourselves plotting this out on runs together. So we thought, ‘who better to pitch this to than ASICS as a continuation of the work we did in 2025?’”

Details were announced in October: 100 women would be randomly selected for a 16-week marathon training program, complete with a race bib and ASICS running gear. As a certified run coach, Murray would design a training plan for runners of all experience levels. Featherstun, a registered sports dietitian, would provide her expertise through recorded nutrition education modules. The program would end with a VIP race-day experience on March 8th—International Women’s Day.

When applications first went live, Featherstun hoped to get 1,000 total responses. In just 10 days, they were up to 5,000. “[It] blew us away,” she says. “This was a true testament to how much this group's approach to training was needed in the women's running community.”

The need for community was a key finding in the global study underpinning Move Her Mind. According to the research, friends were women’s most important exercise influencers; in other words, women were best motivated to exercise by women like themselves. Despite being strangers at the start, the 100 selected runners quickly became a team, connecting with each other through dedicated chats and virtual meetups.

“The overwhelming feedback was the sense of community this program provided,” says Featherstun. “Many of these women train alone and don’t have a network of runners in their lives. Providing the structure for communication within the group allowed them to support each other while we supported their running and nutrition. It was beautiful to watch these relationships grow.”

Today, the lucky “LA 100” will line up outside Dodger Stadium for an International Women’s Day celebration like no other. Ninety-six of them will be running the Los Angeles Marathon for the first time, and nineteen will be running their first marathon ever. For the Megs, it’s the perfect way to close this chapter of the Move Her Mind journey. For the runners, it’ll be something new—a new experience, a chance for new personal bests, and a new example of what’s possible when women empower each other to move.