MARATHON WOMEN
HOPKINTON, MA — April 18, 1967 — A stable of runners, long and leggy, gathers in a light snow to start another Boston Marathon.
With its 26-mile distance set by the ancient run from Marathon to Athens, with traditions preserved by the Boston Athletic Club, the Boston Marathon is America’s most prestigious distance race. Today, however, one runner wears lipstick.
Despite the feats of Babe Didrikson and others, men knew women couldn’t run long distances. Men raced from 5K to 10K to 26 miles, but the AAU capped women’s races at 1.5 miles. “Women can't run in the Marathon because the rules forbid it,” said race director Will Conley. “Unless we have rules, society will be in chaos.”
With the starting gun, the chaos begins.
The previous year, Bobbi Gibb crashed the marathon. Told that women could not possibly run 26 miles, Gibb was turned away when she tried to register. So she tucked her hair under a hat, jumped out of the bushes after the gun, and joined the pack.
A few miles in, Gibb removed her hat. Crowds cheered. Wellesley students spread the word “like a spark down a wire, one recalled. A woman was running the Boston Marathon!
Gibb finished in 3:21, faster than two-thirds of the world’s best runners. Massachusetts’ governor shook her hand. Race officials scoffed.
“There is no such thing as a marathon for a woman,” Conley said. “She may have run in a road race, but she did not race in the marathon. She was not at any of our checkpoints and none of our checkers saw her." Still, the barrier had been broken. But Kathrine Switzer wanted to run the Marathon officially. And for the joy of running.
Growing up in Virginia, Switzer excelled at “girls’ sports.” Field hockey. Lacrosse. But when she turned to cheerleading, her father objected. “You shouldn’t be on the sidelines cheering for other people,” he told her. “People should cheer for you.” On Dad’s advice, Switzer began running a mile a day. “People would see me out running laps around our yard and ask me, ‘Is everything all right at home?’ And then they would knock on the door and ask my mother if I was okay.”
Running made Switer feel “strong, all there.” She called it “my Secret Weapon.” Then in college, recruited to run on the men’s cross-country team, Switzer revealed her secret goal — Boston.
“No dame has ever run the Boston Marathon,” her coach said. “If any woman could do it, you could, but you would have to prove it to me. If you ran the distance in practice, I’d be the first to take you to Boston."
Switzer was soon running backroads, 15-20 miles. Her coach got the registration form. She signed “K.V. Switzer.” Her official “bib” read No. 261.
On race day, Switzer tucked in her hair but defiantly wore lipstick. She ran unnoticed until her hoodie slipped off and her hair tumbled out. A journalist spotted her.
“What are you trying to prove?” He shouted.
A stupid question in 1967. When women were marching, organizing, changing society. When only a “male, sexist pig” would think women couldn’t run.
One such sexist was longtime Boston official Jock Semple, described in Sports Illustrated as “Mr. Boston Marathon himself.” At mile four, Semple spotted Switzer. Seconds later, she spotted him.
“I jerked my head around quickly and looked square into the most vicious face I'd ever seen. A big man, a huge man, with bared teeth was set to pounce, and before I could react he grabbed my shoulder and flung me back, screaming, ‘Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers!’”
Switzer’s coach shoved Semple aside but he caught up, groping for her number. Finally Switzer’s boyfriend sent the old man flying.
Switzer slowed but kept on. “I knew if I quit, nobody would ever believe that women had the capability to run 26-plus miles.” Her time, 4:20, was an hour behind her best and an hour behind Bobbi Gibb, who again crashed the race.
“I think it’s time to change the rules,” Switzer told the New York Times, whose profile was laced with hissworthy terms — “girlish enthusiasm. . . Winsome look.” “I think the AAU will realize this and begin to put in longer races for women.”
But the AAU banned women from all men’s races. Gibb and three others ran Boston in 1968 but women were barred until 1972. K.V. Switzer kept running.
Switzer won the 1974 New York Marathon in 3:07. The following year she broke the three hour mark in Boston. She ran Boston nine times, along with 30 other marathons. And in 1984, when the women’s marathon entered the Olympics, Switzer won an Emmy for her TV commentary. But it was her number — 261 — that proved to be tireless.
In her memoir, Marathon Woman, Switzer thanked all the women who had written, telling her “how you found yourself with nothing left in life but running and yet it was running that gave you the path to get your kids back, finish a degree, and get a worthwhile job.”
Many women still run with 261 written on a wrist or tattooed on an ankle. In 2017, when nearly half the marathon’s qualifiers were women, Boston officials retired the number. Switzer ran that day, at age 70, finishing only slightly slower than in 1967.
Despite inspiring generations of women, Switzer’s favorite marathon story involves Jock Semple. The old man made a fool of himself in 1967 but five years later, he welcomed women to “my race.” Semple and Switzer became lifelong friends. In 1988, when Semple was dying of cancer, Switzer spent a day at his bedside.
“The fact that someone could change so dramatically,” Switzer said, “gave me hope that the rest of the world could be so big and broad-minded.”