“But it slowly returned and by the end, I was feeling pretty good. “For a while after Semple intervened I was worried and nervous and had lost a lot of energy,” she said. PODCAST: Subscribe to The Runner’s World Show to hear an exclusive interview with Kathrine Switzer on April 13. Switzer continued on and finished in 4:20, becoming the first woman to do so with a bib number. She wore lipstick, earrings and burgundy shorts, but ended up wearing baggy sweats over her “feminine” running gear because of the wintry weather.Switzer’s coach, Arnie Briggs, and boyfriend at the time, Tom Miller, were running alongside her, and quickly ran interference. Switzer said she did not try to hide the fact she was a woman.

The Boston Marathon will retire number 261 in Switzer’s honor after she runs the race on Monday with supporters from around the world. Her bib number would come to represent fearlessness in the face of adversity for female runners ever since. cummings, seemed like a “cool, writerly” thing to do. Plus, she said she wanted to be a writer, and using her initials, like J.D. She said she used her initials because her first name was misspelled on her birth certificate, Kathrine, and she was tired of repeating the error. When Switzer completed the 26-mile trial, Briggs insisted she sign up officially. “No dame ever ran the Boston Marathon!” coach Arnie Briggs told her, according to her memoir, “Marathon Woman.” But if she could run the distance in practice he promised to take her to Boston. After all, another woman, Roberta Bingay Gibb, had completed the Boston Marathon the year before without a bib.īut the photo exposed the ugly nature of sexism in sports, thrusting Switzer into the spotlight and altering the course of her life. Switzer has said she did not intend to break barriers by entering the race. Now 70, with 39 marathons under her belt, it will be her first time running the Boston race since 1976 and her first marathon since 2011.

The incident was captured in an iconic photo that turned Switzer into a role model and launched her career as an advocate for women’s equality in sports. The iconic number is part of Switzer’s online running social community 261 Fearless. Now, 50 years later, Kathrine Switzer will return to the Boston Marathon starting line wearing the same number an official tried to rip off her clothing in the 1967 race. A 20-year-old Syracuse University journalism student made history in 1967 by becoming the first woman to officially enter the Boston Marathon.

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