EP 106: Kathrine Switzer, The First Woman to Officially Run the Boston Marathon

Hashtag History

This week on Hashtag History, we are discussing Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon. When she did this in 1967, let’s just say that men were not ready for women to have this much equality. Because during the race, the race manager Jock Semple assaulted her by running up behind her and attempting to rip her bib number off of her shirt in order to disqualify her from the race. Switzer’s boyfriend who was running alongside her was able to shove Semple to the ground and Switzer was able to finish the race.

Following this incident, the Amateur Athletic Union (the governing body) would officially ban women from competing in long-distance running until 1972! Although we will be spending a lot of time talking about this infuriating setback in History, I do want to give a sneak peek to the ending so that we can all at least look forward to the eventual light at the end of the tunnel: Switzer would continue to run competitively and would even win the New York City Marathon in 1974, she would be named Female Runner of the Decade by Runner’s World Magazine, she became an author, was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2011, would actually end up becoming good friends with the race manager that tried to kick her out of the race, and - finally - in 2017, on the 50th anniversary of running the Boston Marathon that first time around, Switzer would run the race again - for the ninth time! - and would be assigned the same bib number that she had when she ran it that first monument, groundbreaking time in 1967.

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