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Kathrine Switzer: The First Woman To Officially Run The Boston Marathon

After being told that "no woman could ever run the Boston Marathon", Kathrine Switzer broke boundaries to become the first woman to run the Boston Marathon as an officially registered competitor.

Video Transcript

KATHRINE SWITZER: I'd wanted to be a cheerleader. And he said, you don't want to be a cheerleader. Cheerleaders cheer for other people. You want people to cheer for you. He said life is to participate, not to spectate. It was the most amazing thing for a little girl to hear from her father.

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I'm Kathrine Switzer. And I guess I'm a revolutionary runner. I was the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon-- wear a bib number-- in 1967. And I'm happy to say that I ran the Boston Marathon again 50 years later in 2017. I had a marvelous start with running, because it was my dad who encouraged me at age 12 to run a mile a day.

I was a really prepubescent gangly kid. And I think he saw somebody who really needed a sense of self-esteem. And he said, you know, you have a field hockey team in your high school. I don't know what it is, but I know it's about running. And you could run. And if you ran a mile a day, you'd be the best player on the team.

I went out, and I ran a mile every day. And I did make the team. And I was a good player. But the point is this is that the mile a day gave me a sense of empowerment and fearlessness. I felt like I had a victory under my belt every day that nobody could take away from me. And this was magic to me. I swear to you I have been running now for 62 years. And it's still magic.

If you can imagine. I went to Syracuse University. And I knew there wasn't going to be sports after university for me. So I wanted to study to be a sports journalist so I could write about it and stay close to sports. By that time, I was running a lot-- 3 miles or so a day. That seemed a lot at the time. And I felt, at least, I can do this by myself.

But when I got to Syracuse, there were no intercollegiate sports whatsoever for women. And there were 25 for men. I decided I'd try out for the men's team. The coach said I could not run officially on the team. But he would welcome me to come and train with the team, thinking I would never show up. And I did show up.

And you know what. The most interesting things is that guys were wonderful to me. And this was 1966. So it was really right at the beginning of that first great women's feminist movement. One guy was there who was really old. He was 50. He was a volunteer coach. And he had been an ex-marathoner. And he actually took me under his wing, because I was really quite slow compared to these guys.

And he kind of cajoled me and coached me every afternoon and said, you know, you're growing great. You're terrific. And he inspired me to want to run my first marathon. That first marathon was the Boston Marathon in 1967. His name was Arnie, and we argued, because he said no woman could ever run a marathon. And I reminded him that about six women in history had run a marathon, including one at Boston. She jumped out of the bushes and ran.

And he said, no dame ever ran no marathon. And I said, I can't believe you're saying this to me. And he said, you'd have to prove it to me that you could do it. And he said sort of offhandedly, if you showed me in practice, I'd be the first person to take it. And so, you know, hot damn. I went ready to show you.

We trained like crazy. And one day when we went to run 26.2 miles, I didn't think it was long enough. So we ran 31 miles. And he passed out at the end of the workout. And when he came to, he said women have hidden potential in endurance and stamina. And he was just all over it, proud of me-- insisted I sign up for the race.

I look back on that now. I'm 73 now-- and Arnie's long passed away-- that this guy having run 15 Boston marathons was willing to put himself on the line for a girl. And so he helped me sign up, insisting that I do this officially. I signed my name KV so when the entry form went in, it obviously was thought that I was a guy.

But the important thing is we checked the rule book. There was nothing against women running the marathon. There was nothing about gender on the entry form. And I'll never forget this, because I said, I'm going to be noticed at Boston. And he said I know. And I'm proud of you.

And when we got there, what happened-- the guys were wonderful just the same as when I came out for the cross-country team. I said, this is a great sport. And I was so pleased and proud. And everything was going great. The weather was terrible. About a mile and a 1/2 into the race, you know what happened.

The race director jumped off the press truck, attacked me, and tried to rip off my bib numbers. Here's the old bib number, right? You can see where he got the corners. My boyfriend decked the official. So the official went out of the race, and I went on to finish. And I really went to Boston, not to make a political statement. I went to run the race.

But when that happened to me, I knew I had to finish. And I knew-- I knew no matter what, I had to finish. Or my hands and knees, I had to finish. But I also knew that the reason other women weren't there was because of some reason. And I at first thought it was their fault again. And then I realized that they'd never had the opportunity.

And they didn't have the opportunity, because somewhere along the top point, when I was told to go run a mile a day, they were told to stop climbing trees and to stop running around and to behave themselves and put on makeup and become cheerleaders. You know, I think that the pressure in the race was pretty tremendous after the attack happened, because after something like that happens, you go into a real gentle drop.

And I kind of thought, oh, my gosh, I'm exhausted. We were all exhausted, actually. But then we came out of it. And then I was getting stronger and stronger as the race went on. When I finished, I was-- I have this feeling better than I did at any other point in the whole race, actually. But the interesting thing was is, the constant pressure of one wondering if I was going to be pulled from the race at a point where there were no spectators or press.

I think I would tell Kathrine at 20 who started that race, that you have everything it takes to do this. And don't ever doubt yourself. I didn't doubt my ability to finish, because I hadn't done 31 miles in practice. And I would have told myself, you know you've got that under your belt. But I would also tell myself that no matter what happens, you're going to be able to do this. And it will serve you really well for the rest of your life.

One of my greatest accomplishments, personally, I feel has been my role in getting the women's marathon in the Olympic games. I created a global circuit with Avon Cosmetics. And we had programs in 27 countries and lobbied the IOC to get the marathon into the Olympic games in 1984. Every Olympiad, the women's marathon is the thing I am most riveted to. Well, and men's too for that matter, but the women's especially because I had such a part in it.

And it's wonderful to see the excellence. And it was wonderful to see the opportunity emerging, especially from underprivileged places to see this easy, cheap and simple sport of running can transform somebody's life in a poor girl from an obscure country can come up and win the Olympics.

With women's marathon running and distance running, I think we have reached really parity, because actually, 58% of all the runners in North America are women now. We have equal pay, and we had from the moment prize money was introduced. That's really, really important. And we really have support from the men. We need this to happen in other sports.

We need men in professional sports to support women in professional sports to get them there. And we need to fill stadiums. I am so excited that my book "Marathon Woman" as been optioned now to Chastain Film Capital for a film. And there's been a lot of excitement about it. Everybody knows that book could be a fabulous film. And we are looking now for female director and female screenwriters.

I want to make this film as female-centric as possible. You know, there are a lot of wonderful actresses out there. But I also want the whole behind-the-scenes people to be women if possible. I would say to the young girl or the older woman who wants to start running. I've always said I can't. I don't want to be last. Everybody's looking at me.

They all say that. And all you need to do is put one foot in front of the other. Go out and walk for 10 minutes, jog for 1 minute. Go out and walk for 10 minutes, jog 2 minutes. Just take it slowly. You can get there. Every woman I have met lately is running a marathon, comes up to me and said, I never believed I could do this. You can do the unimaginable.

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