Athletics Ontario Running Podcast · John Shep

EP 200: Lanni Marchant - Lanni 3.0: Proving Herself Right

·52 min·3 clips

Marchant says her eating disorder was about control, not sport, and “I will beat you at the Hunger Games.”

1. Athletics Ontario Running Podcast episode 200 centers on Lanni Marchant’s path from figure skating laps to Olympic marathon racing. 2. Host John Shep interviews Lanni Marchant, a Canadian runner known for UT Chattanooga, Rio 2016, and a national marathon record. 3. The episode asks how Marchant moved from running as “punishment” to running as a career she wanted to own. 4. Marchant says running began in a figure-skating family, where she was sent to laps in the parking lot instead of the ice. 5. She explains that in high school she learned a scholarship could pay for school, which mattered because she is one of seven kids. 6. Marchant describes NCAA progress at UT Chattanooga, where she made NCAA championships twice in track and once in cross country. 7. She says injuries, eating disorders, and bad coaching kept breaking her down before Dave Mills at London Western helped rebuild her. 8. Marchant points to a redshirt season after tonsil surgery as the first time her body had enough rest to catch up. 9. She says a fifth-place finish at the Canadian 10K road race championship during law school showed her she could compete with national-calibre runners. 10. She says the 2012 Olympic standard attempt with Krista Deschenes, her third marathon, made her realize she could be truly good at marathon running. 11. Marchant frames 2012 to 2013 as a shift from external doubt to internal conviction, with “proving myself right” becoming the key idea. 12. She says a bad 2013 world championships race was followed six to eight weeks later by a marathon national record and the fastest Canadian woman mark. 13. Marchant says that record mattered because it confirmed she had earned her spot after being told she was not good enough in 2012. 14. She gives concrete warning signs for college programs: team friendships, injuries, girls being cut, and recruiting classes that shrink quickly. 15. Marchant says athletes should ask whether a school cares about education or mainly wants points on the board. 16. She recounts Rio 2016 as a logistics and advocacy challenge, because her marathon spot was not final until July and a petition to remove her was filed the same day as the CBC announcement. 17. Marchant says she handled Rio by focusing on the 10,000 metres, carb-loading, then switching to the marathon, where she still competed every step. 18. She explains that recovery from eating disorder, illness, surgery, and toxic relationships has changed her training tools from race-focused motivation to daily habits like eating salmon for breakfast. 19. The tone is candid, direct, and conversational, with John Shep pushing for specifics about selection drama, recovery, and training. 20. Listeners who like elite running, recovery stories, and athlete advocacy will get the most from this episode, while people wanting only race recaps may skip it.

As heard by us

A candid running conversation about control, resilience, and the cost of showing up.

Episode 200 opens on family, skating, and the running that came after, then settles into the Lani 1.0 setup that gets the conversation moving. John Shep keeps the tone easy and unforced, and Marchand gradually opens up on performance, control, food, and self worth.

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Why you'd press play

You want a runner-to-runner conversation that turns personal fast and stays grounded.

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