The Amazing, Inspirational Kathrine Switzer!

When I go to the Boston Marathon now, I have wet shoulders – women fall into my arms crying. They're weeping for joy because running has changed their lives. They now feel they can do anything!

Kathrine Switzer

A while ago I wrote about several women in sport that have inspired me personally, one of those women was Kathrine Switzer – marathon pioneer and campaigner. I knew a little about her and in particular the infamous incident in the Boston Marathon in 1967. Recently I read another article about her and came to realise she’s even more inspirational than I’d thought, here’s her story;

Quick Biography

Born Kathrine Switzer on 5th January 1947 in Amberg, Germany where her father was serving in the US Army. Since 1987, she has been married to Roger Robinson, who competed internationally in athletics for Great Britain and New Zealand.

What Makes Her Special!

Kathrine Switzer is one of the most famous endurance runners of the twentieth century – not for her performances but for a milestone event. In 1967 when marathon running was reserved for men, she managed to get an entry for the Boston Marathon, one of the longest-established marathon races in the world. There was a press truck at the race and, once they heard a woman was in the race, the photographers wanted pictures of her. This led to a famous series of photographs showing the moment when the enraged Race Director, Jock Semple, realised that a woman had entered the race and tried to push her off the course, only to be pushed away himself by Kathrine Switzer’s boyfriend, Tom Miller.

These dramatic shots still shock people today! The ensuing media coverage made this a defining moment in women’s struggle to be admitted to the all-male preserve of distance running.

Switzer went on to devise and run the Avon International Women’s Running Circuit which held women-only races in countries around the world. She was one of the people who successfully made the case for the women’s marathon to be included in the Olympic Games – Go Girlfriend!

Early Years

Switzer started running a mile a day aged 12 because she wanted to get into the school hockey team! Running quickly became an important part of her life:

“It was the running every day that gave me a sense of empowerment. It gave me a victory under my belt every day that nobody could take away from me and to grow up with that is a very powerful thing.”

In 1967, Kathrine Switzer was a 20-year-old journalism student at Syracuse University, New York. She started training with the men’s cross-country coach, Arnie Briggs, and persuaded him that she would be able to complete the marathon distance. She had run 31 miles in training! At the time women were still excluded from distance running. The longest permitted road distance for women in the USA was 1.5 miles and the longest distance in the Olympics programme was 800m, Men can be total arseholes!

The Infamous Boston Marathon 1967

In 1966 Bobbi (Roberta) Gibb had applied to enter the Boston Marathon but had been turned down on the grounds that women were not physiologically capable of running marathon distances. She ran the race anyway, hiding in the bushes and joining the race as it started. Her time was not officially recorded but was around 3 hours 20 minutes, attracting attention from the press. She was said to have finished ahead of two-thirds of the men.

In 1967, Switzer registered for the race as “K. V. Switzer” which was the way she usually wrote her name and she got a male runner to pick up her numbers. When Jock Semple, the Race Director, realised that she was in the race, he ran up behind her and tried to rip her race numbers off. Switzer was running with Arnie Briggs, another male student from the university and her boyfriend, Tom Miller, a hammer thrower. Miller who was so enraged at what he was seeing flattened Semple, (Yay!!).

It was a frightening experience and Kathrine could easily have given up at this point but it made her more determined to finish the race to show that women could be serious runners. Switzer realised that what had happened to her had a wider and deeper significance. She made a commitment to enabling other women to race.

More Marathons

Kathrine Switzer continued to train for and run marathons in the early days of elite women’s competition, several of them unofficially. When the Boston Marathon finally officially admitted women in 1972, she was there along with seven other women who all completed the race. She ran the New York City Marathon four times, winning it in 1974. Eventually she decided that she wanted to concentrate on her career and her campaign, and this meant giving up training at an elite level.

The Avon International Women’s Running Circuit

Kathrine went on to campaign for women’s right to compete in distance races. Working with her employer, Avon Cosmetics, as sponsor, in 1977 she established Avon International Running Circuit, a series of women-only races. Four hundred races took place in 27 countries across the world! They included seven international women’s marathons held between 1978 and 1984. These marathons attracted top female marathoners from several countries and played a role in getting the women’s marathon included in the Olympics.

Post 1984

Now 75, Switzer is still running races and in 2017 she ran the Boston Marathon again on the fiftieth anniversary of her first race there!

In 2015, Kathrine established the 261 Fearless Foundation, a global non-profit network that encourages women to run and sets up running groups. 261 was her bib number she wore at the 1967 Boston Marathon!

What’s the significance of this today… well… I applied for a place in the London Marathon in April next year through the ballet process a few weeks ago, I’ve applied a few times before only, this time…… I’m in. (eeeeeeek!!). If it wasn’t for the bravery of people like Kathrine Switzer, people like me, may not have been allowed to run the London Marathon!

What’s on this week?