Running Before the Wind is a young adult novel by American screenwriter and film producer Linda Woolverton, published in 1987 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

But when she is invited to join the junior high track team, Kelly's father dashes her hopes with a blunt "No".

After quitting her job as a CBS executive in 1984, Linda Woolverton began working as a substitute teacher; it was during that time that she penned Running Before the Wind.

[2] It was due to Running Before the Wind that Woolverton got the screenwriting job in Disney Animation's Beauty and the Beast in the late 1980s.

She had taken a copy of the book to the studio, which ended up being read by then Disney Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, who then called her for an interview.