Where’s Walda: Boston Marathon
This Walda: Kathrine Switzer (1967) registered for the Boston Marathon by signing her name “K.V. Switzer” (as women were banned). Because, in the words of the race director, women running is “impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect.” Switzer is pictured above, with a race official, capturing the official’s unsuccessful attempt to remove her from the course. She completed the race.
Bobbi Gibb, the first woman to run and complete the Boston Marathon.
But the real first is Bobbi Gibb.
And she was, and still is, so. freaking. cool.
[My elder millennial definition of cool by the way
[so we remain on the same page]:
Remember those people from high school who were just I don’t know — who they were supposed to be?
Like..themselves?
Not the “cool” people but the people who transcended the circles and bullshit and they just…never thought to think about…what others thought?
More refreshing than an Herbal Essences commercial. A Clearly Canadian beverage.
I think that was Bobbi’s vibe.]
Ok thanks for traveling with me on that one.
When she was 20, she drove across the country in her VW van. By herself.
Overtaken by the beauty of the Rockies, she would just pull over somewhere and run up and down the mountains for 20, 30, 40 miles a day. Chill.
Oh and in nursing shoes.
Because that was the only comfortable footwear women had.
But she was denied entrance into the Boston Marathon (1966) because women, according to organization’s leadership, were “not physiologically able to run a marathon” and the organization did not want to assume that risk.
But Bobbi is cool.
And she wanted to do the thing.
And prove their concerns unfounded and ridiculous.
So she did the thing.
She went to Boston.
On a cramped Greyhound bus for four days.
San Diego
to Boston.
3,000 miles.
Arriving at her parent's home (in a suburb outside of Boston) the night before the race.
That morning, she hid in a forsythia bush near the starting line, wearing her black bathing suit [remember, this is 11 years before the sports bra was invented] with her brother’s Bermuda shorts and his athletic shoes [barf]. She hopped in when the race began.
This is a forsythia bush. I just wanted you to get the full picture.
Three hours, 21 minutes, and 40 seconds later, Gibb finished the race ahead of two-thirds of the all-male field. That’s a 7:40 mile average. In a freakin’ bathing suit, her brother’s bermuda shorts, and his athletic shoes.
Gibb would go on to earn degrees in mathematics, philosophy and law. Now in her eighties, she is an artist and avid runner. When asked why she continues to run, she simply replies,
“When I run, I feel alive and part of the universe.”
Bobbi Gibb runs to the finish line of the Boston Marathon. She was the first woman to complete this race.
trailblazers today
Courtney Dauwalter Holy freakin’ moly. This woman.
This ultramarathoning master has won the Western States 100, Hardrock 100, and Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB).
She wasn’t the first female. She was the first person to cross the finish line in coed races.
And, she won them all IN THE SAME YEAR.
A feat no one else has accomplished.
Really take that in one more time. Ok. Now, rinse and repeat.
One of the coolest things about distance running is that the longer you run, the more the physiological benefits of gender diminish. In the words of ultramarathoning royalty Scott Jurek, he writes in his book Eat & Run that “the mountains and willpower equalize the genders.”
And, just one more.
Jasmin Paris became the first woman to finish the Barkley Marathons.
You can watch her journey here.
(And, if you don’t know about Barkley Marathons, you definitely need to watch this. It is WILD.)
