Kathrine Switzer brings iconic story to Louisville for KDF marathon relay – Courier Journal
Kathrine Switzer brings iconic story to Louisville for KDF marathon relay Courier Journal
Women’s running pioneer Kathrine Switzer is in Louisville to promote her participation in the Kentucky Derby Festival’s mini-Marathon and Marathon.
Weather conditions were brutal the morning of the 1967 Boston Marathon, but 20-year-old Kathrine Switzer was determined not to let freezing temperatures, a bitter wind or the 26-mile course distance keep her from finishing the race.
What Switzer, runner #261, couldn’t have known was that a few miles down the road something would take place which would drastically change the course of her life and would rewrite the role of women in sports.
In 1967, the Boston Marathon only accepted male entries. There was a general rule of thought that distance running was too rigorous for the female body.
Switzer didn’t think so. She registered as “K.V. Switzer” and was a few miles into the course when word spread that a “girl” was running with the men.
Soon a press truck filled with photographers pulled in front of runner #261. Race official Jock Semple was also onboard and he was not happy a woman was running in his race. He wanted her out.
What happened next made history. And it’s a story Switzer doesn’t mind telling when she talks to interested runners – like the Kentucky Derby Festival’s Norton Sports Health training team, who meet Thursday at Cherokee Park. Switzer is in town to promote her participation in the Humana Marathon Relay, part of the Kentucky Derby Festival’s mini-Marathon and Marathon held April 27.
She says people who were alive when she ran in 1967 are as interested in the story as 25-year-olds today who have never experienced a time when women weren’t welcome in races.
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“I was running right behind the press truck when (Semple) jumped off yelling ‘get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers,'” remembers Switzer. “And while he was yelling, he was grabbing at my sweatshirt and trying to rip off my race numbers. Of course, everyone on the press truck was right there and got it all on film.”
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The infamous series of photos show Switzer breaking free from Semple’s grasp after another runner pushed him off balance. Tom Miller, Switzer’s college boyfriend, gave Semple the shove that set her loose and allowed her to finish the race.
The incident garnered worldwide attention and would go onto to become one of Time-Life’s “100 Photos that Changed the World.”
“I didn’t know it at that moment, but that day changed my life forever,” Switzer told Courier Journal.
She will always be best known as the woman who challenged the all-male tradition of the Boston Marathon and became the first woman to officially enter and run the event.
But a wider view of Switzer’s participation in the race was that it pushed the idea of women’s long-distance running into the spotlight, eventually breaking down an age-old assumption that women weren’t physically strong enough to run long distances.
Jump forward five decades and women have become the largest group of participants in distance races in the United States. According to Running USA, the number of female runners made up 57 percent of the 17 million U.S. races finishers in 2015. That includes everything from 3.1-mile races to 26.2-mile marathons.
Locally, the Kentucky Derby Festival estimates over half of runners in the festival’s half and full marathon are women. The 2019 event, which will be held Saturday, April 27, will include between 6,000 and 6,500 female athletes.
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13 of 13One of those 6,000-plus participants will be the pioneer who got the women’s movement started. Switzer plans to run the first leg of the Humana-sponsored Marathon Relay. As a representative for the Louisville-based health and well-being company, Switzer promotes the idea of active aging.
Now 72 years old, Switzer relishes the opportunity to run the first 3.1-mile leg of the relay as an example of the benefits of staying fit and active as a person ages. On a more personal note, she’s thrilled to return to the city where her parents traveled to attend the 1966 Kentucky Derby.
“I was born nine months after they spent the weekend at the Kentucky Derby,” Switzer laughed. “I was born with long legs. I was 23 inches, which is considered long for a newborn, and my dad said I looked like a little racehorse. Of course, that was years before I made a name for myself as a runner.”
After the 1967 Boston Marathon, Switzer drove back to Syracuse University, where she was studying to become a sports journalist.
“There were no opportunities for me to make a living as an athlete or to even play sports in college in 1967 so I decided to become a sports writer so I could be close to sports, which I loved,” she said.
But the confrontation with the angry Boston Marathon race official made Switzer famous and soon she was advocating for women’s sports participation throughout the world. She became known a pioneer for the sport of women’s running.
Besides a career in writing, broadcasting and sports marketing, Switzer created the Avon International Racing Circuit. The series of 400 women’s only races drew female runners into the sport in 27 countries on five continents. Switzer was also instrumental in making the marathon an official event in the Olympic Games, first staged in 1984 in Los Angeles.
More recently she started “261 Fearless,” a global non-profit movement that empowers women through running.
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Still fit and taking part in races around the world, Switzer has completed more than 40 marathons, including a win in New York City in 1974. In 2017, she raced the Boston Marathon exactly 50 years after her gender-barrier-busting run. After the marathon, her original race number from the 1967 competition — #261 — was retired. Switzer said #261 has come to symbolize the idea of “fearless in the face of adversity.”
Her famous race bib may be retired ,but Switzer is nowhere close to hanging up her running shoes. She has simply adjusted how she stays active as she has gotten older.
Her diet is focused on protein and a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. Her training routine has also shifted to running for about an hour every other day. When she was younger, Switzer trained twice a day.
“It was hard at first to adjust to taking a rest day,” said Switzer. “But for an older person, I find it makes a lot of sense to balance the stress of running with a day of recovery and there’s an added benefit — I enjoy running more, I look forward to it.”
Her “off days” from running are for stretching and core strengthening exercises.
“Oh I really sweat when I doing the core work,” she said. “I am doing all sorts of planks and one-legged wall squats. It’s hardcore.”
She admits she’s been fortunate to have good health and a body that can sustain the distance and extreme amount of training required to race the marathon distance but it’s not for everyone.
Switzer advises anyone new to fitness to make a commitment to exercise and just keep moving. Stay motivated by joining a group or get a friend to be your training partner. And it’s important to be realistic. A distance like a 3.1-mile race is a good starting point for most newbies to begin.
At the beginning of her running career, 20-year-old Switzer entered the male-only Boston Marathon simply because she believed women were capable of more. In 1972, five years after Semple tried to yank her out of the race, women were officially allowed to compete in the Boston Marathon.
Half a century after her solo run, Switzer has proven fitness has the power to change lives. It’s a simple truth played out in hundreds of distance races by millions of women who are empowered by the simple act of running.
If you want to run along with Switzer in the 2019 Kentucky Derby Festival miniMarathon or Marathon or the Humana Marathon Relay, enter online and find details at KDF.org.
Reach Kirby Adams at kadams@courier-journal.com or Twitter @kirbylouisville. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/kirbya.
- Inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in October 2011 for creating positive global social change.
- Winner, 1974 NYC Marathon
- Broke gender barrier at 1967 Boston Marathon
- Emmy Award-winning TV commentator
- Author, “Marathon Women” (DaCapo Press), “Running and Walking for Women Over 40, the Road to Sanity and Vanity” (St. Martin’s Press), co-author “26.2 Marathon Stories” (Rodale Press)
- Founder and former director of the Avon Running Global Women’s Circuit – 400 races, 27 countries, 1 million women
- Winner of Abebe Bikila Award for Global Contribution to Sport of Running from New York Road Runners
- First class of inductees into the National Distance Running Hall of Fame
- Named one of the Visionaries of the Century (2000) and a Hero of Running (2012) and Runner of the Decade (1966-76) by “Runners World” Magazine
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