The Running Life: History Girls
Women runners who changed the world
By Candace Karu
As featured in the September 2007 issue of Running Times Magazine
One recent Sunday, during a rain-soaked run, I passed a group of high school runners. The pack of boys and girls was strung out along the road, chatting amiably. It never gets old, seeing happy, fit young runners, training hard at times when most of their peers are still in bed. And for me, who grew up in an era when the things that teenage boys and girls did together did not involve sports, it just tickles me that the culture can change; things can get better.
After finishing that run, drenched and cold, I decided to take a real vacation day, no email, no phones, no trips to the market. I grabbed the next book on deck and vowed to read it cover to cover. Lucky for me that book was Marathon Woman by Kathrine Switzer. Kathrine, the first woman to complete the Boston Marathon as a registered runner, has written a memoir about her life as a runner and as an advocate and activist for women’s running.
Born in 1947, Kathy Switzer, as she was known then, came of age in a time and place ripe for revolution. Gender stereotypes were being challenged in the home, in business, and in sports. The times were changing and changing fast, and feisty, tenacious women like Kathrine Switzer were the agents provocateurs. During the first running boom of the late ’60s and early ’70s, overwhelmingly populated by very fast, very fierce, very male runners, a handful of female athletes endured ridicule, social ostracism, and verbal abuse so they, too, could be a part of the action.
It isn’t easy for young runners to imagine the climate of the running community in the late ’60s. Even older runners who came late to the sport have a hard time fully understanding just how much has changed since the 1967 Boston Marathon, when Jock Semple, in a moment captured on film and seen around the world, tried to rip Kathrine’s number off her sweatshirt and push her off the course. Because she signed up as K.V. Switzer, the Boston Athletic Association was unaware that they had registered a woman. When Semple saw her from the press truck, his legendary temper got the best of him. His assault on Kathrine was swift and extreme. Only a body block by her beefy boyfriend allowed Kathrine to continue.
Kathrine Switzer’s memoir is a testimony to her unwavering determination, her unflagging energy, and her unfailing, and often unwarranted, optimism. These characteristics served her running as well as they served her impressive professional career, a career devoted to giving women around the world access to athletic opportunities. Fighting for and winning her own place at the table wasn’t enough. Kathrine wanted other women to experience the satisfaction and confidence that comes with a strong, fit body, the fulfillment that only racing and competition can confer. Throughout her career in public relations and marketing, she persevered in a long and often frustrating quest to have the women’s marathon included in the Olympic Games. Her persistence was rewarded in 1984 when 49 women from 28 countries gathered to run the marathon for the first time. Over 2 billion people around the world watched as Joan Benoit, from Cape Elizabeth, Maine, came through the tunnel and into the Olympic Stadium.