The Glass Podium

Former Pro Cyclist Kathryn Bertine Launched a Nonprofit to Give Female Riders a Will It Make a Difference?

- Axie Navas

THE FIRST alarm goes off at 5 A.M. Anayantzi Guzman Fuerte, 30, leaves her room and heads to the kitchen to prepare breakfast to fuel the day’s ride—a 29-mile climb up Mount Lemmon, outside Tucson, Arizona. One by one, her five housemates follow suit. By 6:30, there’s chicken, quinoa, and kale cooking on the stove.

“Looks like the usual,” says 20-year-old Mackenzie Green, a cyclocross racer from Cincinnati, Ohio. As they eat, the athletes compare upcoming training blocks provided by their respective coaches.

“Ugh, I have four hours today, with one hour of tempo,” says 34-year-old Meghan Grant, who rides for the Canadian national track team.

“You’re screwed,” says Mel Beale, 24, a road racer from Colorado.

Once the meal is over, they wheel their bikes up the driveway and head off to bang out another workout.

This is how a typical day begins at the Homestretch Foundation, a Tucson nonprofit that was cofounded by former pro cyclist Kathryn Bertine last November. Its mission is to provide temporary housing for female athletes trying to make ends meet. From January through May, the foundation puts up between six and eight women (cyclists, primarily, but occasionally runners) for several weeks at a time in its 3,000-squarefoot ranch house. It’s like a writing residency for athletes. “What if all the pro women had an opportunity to do this?” says Bertine, who is 42. “To put all their energy into their careers. The whole sport would move forward.”