Run Like A Girl: The Written History of Women in the Boston Marathon

photo courtesy of http://www.letsrun.com/
Kathrine 'K.V.' Switzer keeps running the marathon, despite officials'
attempts to physically force her out of the race.

This year marked the 114th Boston Marathon, but only the 38th year that women have been allowed to compete, as women were not allowed to officially enter until 1972.

Before 1972, however, several women made valiant attempts to run the race, despite the gender bar.

In 1966, Roberta ‘Bobbi’ Gibb was the first woman to run the entire race. The 23-year-old Californian, wearing her brother’s clothing and boys’ shoes, hid behind a bush during the start of the marathon, and snuck into the race without registering. (Sneaking into the race is still something that happens to this day; these athletes are called ‘bandit runners.’) Gibb had attempted to officially register, but her application was returned with a note saying that women were not physically capable of running a marathon. Gibb finished the course with a time of 3:21:40, which would be her first of three unofficial victories.

 In a 1996 interview, she said, “I was crouched in the bushes with the hood of my blue sweatshirt over my face and I didn’t know if I was going to be arrested, or if people would laugh.”

But people didn’t laugh. They did just the opposite.

Despite Gibb’s anxieties, a fellow runner told her that he and others would protect her should anyone try to eject her from the marathon. Gibb then removed her sweatshirt and finished the race, amid cheers from a surprisingly accepting crowd.

She went on to run and win the next two years.

In 1967, Katherine ‘K.V.’ Switzer was the first woman to run with a number, registering under the guidance of her trainer, Arnie Briggs, an unofficial manager of the Syracuse University cross country team. Briggs had run the marathon 15 times, and took Switzer under his wing. After Switzer had trained and proved that she could run the 26.2 miles (and then some), Briggs brought her a race entry form, claiming that she had to follow procedure and enter like a true marathon runner. While the Amateur Athletic Union listed differences in gender categories for track and field events, the handbook listed nothing about the marathon, implying that they never suspected a woman would be able to complete one.

The next step of the entry form was a medical certificate. Switzer opted to have a physical at Syracuse instead of on-site in Boston. Later, Briggs would present her certificate to officials and pick up her race number.
The last step was to fill out the form itself, including her name. In her story of the race, Switzer describes why she chose to sign as ‘K.V. Switzer’:

“Now, the reason I signed K.V. Switzer instead of Kathrine is because I always signed my name that way. Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to be a writer and K.V. was going to be my signature name. It seemed to my young mind then that all the good writers used their initials like J.D. Salinger, E.E.Cummings, T.S. Elliot, W.B. Yeats -- so ever since I was twelve I signed all my papers K.V. Switzer, thinking I was totally cool. It was my signature.”

During the beginning of the race, race director Will Cloney and race official Jock Semple attempted to rip off her numbers and eject her, yelling, “Get the hell out of my race and give me that race number!” Switzer finished the race with an estimated time of 4:20:00. Of course, it helped that she had the protection of Briggs, a friend from the Syracuse University cross country team, and her 235-pound All-American football player boyfriend.

Photographs like the one above ran in newspapers throughout the nation, bringing light to the issue of women’s long-distance running. Race officials replied to the controversy by saying that they had only been maintaining the status quo; up to this point, men and women were not allowed to compete in the same race and women were barred from competing in any races of more than one and a half miles.

Later, Switzer would run the 1972 marathon wearing a skirt and a bow in her hair, emphasizing that women could run as fast as, and even faster than, their male competitors.

It was Sara Mae Berman who took the next three championship titles, winning in 1969, 1970, and 1971, and setting a course record of 3:05:07 in 1970.  Berman ran as an unsanctioned competitor, like Gibb, and encountered no difficulty with the race officials. But that didn’t mean handling the politics of the race was easy.

''[The reporters] were just so patronizing. There were headlines like 'Mother Runs' or 'Housewife Runs.' Those kinds of attitudes. They were just there."

In 1972, the Boston Marathon became one of the first long-distance running events to open its doors to women. Even the Olympics wouldn’t allow women to run the marathon as part of the summer games until 1984.

In 1972, only eight women qualified for, registered for, and finished the marathon. In 1979, over 500 women entered the race. American Joan Benoit captured the title that year, and would go on to win the first women’s Olympic marathon in 1984.

Later, in 1996, the Boston Athletic Association retroactively recognized the unofficial women’s leaders from 1966 to 1971 as champions.

These three women, as well as many more unsung heroes, paved the way for the Boston Marathon women of today. Women like Margaret Okayo, who holds the current Boston Marathon course record for women at 2:20:43. Women like Catherine Ndereba, known as Catherine the Great, who won the Boston Marathon four times in six years. These women persevered through gender barriers and hills alike, all the while believing that their only limit was the one that they set themselves.

In her story, Switzer recognizes that she was lucky in having such a strong support system, but ultimately, only one thing matters.

“All you need is the courage to believe in yourself and put one foot in front of the other."