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The first time I stepped foot into my local rock climbing gym with my husband, my immediate thought was, Screw this. I watched my six-foot-tall husband easily reach and grab moves that seemed downright impossible for me.

It’s been a momentous couple of years for women in sports. Between the and high-profile fights for better pay and working conditions, to pro runners , we’ve entered an era where female athletes across sports are standing up, speaking out, and demanding their fair share.But today’s impassioned athletes aren’t the first women to fight for a better future in sports—and they won’t be the last.

I’ve always possessed the type of unbridled ambition that pursues perfection—to a breaking point. Drive is, most of the time, a good thing.

“Do you want to go to an adult gymnastics class?”my friend Jenn asked 36-year-old me. The idea seemed crazy—I’d been a competitive gymnast as a kid but now I was an out-of-shape appellate lawyer who worked a truly absurd amount of hours and had three children under the age of six.

The World Cup champion had it all planned out: train full-throttle to be ready for the Tokyo Olympics less than three months after she gives birth this spring. She didn’t plan for an Olympic postponement, or the reality of giving birth in the midst of a global pandemic.