In this article, we use autoethnographical material alongside written and oral narratives of other race participantsin women only sports races. We analyse embodied and mental aspects of the participation of a specificrace, Tjejmilen, from start to finish, in relation to discursive conditions of women’s exercising. The title of the article,’side by side’ implies two things: on the one hand, that we empirically explore what happens when women dosports side by side in a race like this. On the other hand, and in line with analytical autoethnography (Anderson2006), we use our own experiences of the race participation side by side with the experiences of other participants,and analyse the entire empirical material with the same methods, theories, and concepts. We conclude thatthe autoethnography enables us to discover the embodied experiences of strength and empowerment incontrast to diminishing discourses of women’s activities and assumed capabilities.