Silent Stride: Breaking Gender Barrier

In 1967, Kathrine Switzer made history as the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon. But it wasn’t without drama — a furious race official tried to drag her off the course in front of photographers. This episode dives into Switzer’s groundbreaking run, the earlier efforts of Bobbi Gibb, and the lasting impact they had on women’s sports worldwide. Then we chat with Comedian and Storyteller, Natasha Samreny! Did you know The Internet Says It’s True is now a book? Get it here: https://amzn.to/4miqLNy

The history of sports is full of people who had to bend, break, or outright ignore the rules to do what they loved. It’s not unusual — sports rules are often a reflection of social norms, and when society itself is unjust or exclusionary, so are the games we play. That’s why history has these incredible moments where individuals decide to step outside those boundaries, forcing the rest of us to re-examine what’s “normal.”

When it comes to running, those moments are especially powerful. Running is about as basic as it gets — something almost everyone does as a child, without rules, without limitations. Yet when running was codified into competition, barriers were set. Not everyone was allowed to step onto the starting line.

Before we dive into the story of Kathrine Switzer — the first woman to run the Boston Marathon with an official bib — let’s start with a side road. Because the year before Kathrine pinned on her race number and made history, another woman had already done something extraordinary.

That was Roberta “Bobbi” Gibb.

In 1966, Bobbi Gibb applied to run the Boston Marathon and received a letter back from the Boston Athletic Association. It said, bluntly, that women were not physiologically capable of running 26.2 miles. At the time, this was the official stance of both the BAA and the Amateur Athletic Union. The longest distance women were officially allowed to compete in was 1.5 miles. Anything beyond that was considered dangerous.

But Bobbi knew better. She had been running long distances on her own for years. She had even trained for the marathon distance, running 40 miles at a stretch while living in California. She was not only capable — she was over-prepared. So she decided she wasn’t going to let a letter stop her.

On the morning of April 19, 1966, Bobbi Gibb put on her brother’s Bermuda shorts, a hoodie to hide her hair, and slipped into the bushes near the starting line in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. When the race began, she jumped in. She wasn’t disguised as a man, but she blended into the crowd of male runners. People noticed eventually — she took the hood down once it got hot — but instead of jeers, she got encouragement. Runners clapped her on the back. Spectators cheered. Three hours, 21 minutes, and 40 seconds later, Bobbi crossed the finish line.

The world hadn’t ended. She hadn’t collapsed from exhaustion. She had proven the BAA wrong. She had also become the first woman ever to complete the Boston Marathon. It wouldn’t be recognized officially until much later, but the impact was immediate. She returned in 1967 and 1968, running unofficially again, slowly chipping away at the idea that women didn’t belong.

That was the side road — the quiet act of rebellion that set the stage.

The main story, though, is what happened in 1967. That’s the year Kathrine Switzer entered the race, not by sneaking onto the course, but by signing up officially.

Kathrine Switzer was a 20-year-old journalism student at Syracuse University. She had been running since high school and had taken up longer distances under the mentorship of Arnie Briggs, a 50-year-old postal worker who loved to talk about his days running the Boston Marathon. Briggs often told Switzer stories of the race’s history, of Johnny Kelley the Elder and Johnny Kelley the Younger, of Heartbreak Hill, and of the prestige of Boston as the oldest annual marathon in the world.

One night, Switzer challenged him: “Let’s stop talking about the Boston Marathon and run it.” Briggs laughed. He told her that women couldn’t run a marathon. She insisted she could. To prove it, she ran 31 miles with him one snowy night. When she finished, she turned to him and said, “I told you I could do it.” Briggs was convinced.

Together, they made a plan to enter Boston. Switzer filled out the application, using her initials — K.V. Switzer — which she had been doing for years as a byline in journalism. It wasn’t a trick; she wasn’t disguising her identity. But it had the effect of slipping past the BAA officials who assumed “K.V. Switzer” was a man. She received an official bib number: 261.

On April 19, 1967, Switzer lined up at Hopkinton with Briggs, her boyfriend Tom Miller, and hundreds of other men. She was wearing a baggy gray sweatshirt over black shorts, her hair tied back. At first, no one paid much attention. As the race got underway, however, photographers noticed there was a woman in the pack.

And then came the moment that changed everything.

Around mile 4, a race official named Jock Semple spotted her. Semple was known for his fiery temper and his belief in protecting the “purity” of the race. Furious that a woman was wearing an official number, he leapt onto the course. In front of photographers, he lunged at Switzer, grabbed her bib, and tried to yank it off. “Get the hell out of my race!” he shouted.

The scene was chaos. Switzer’s coach, Arnie Briggs, tried to shield her. Her boyfriend Tom Miller, a 235-pound hammer thrower, lowered his shoulder and slammed Semple away from her. Switzer kept running, shaken but determined. She later said: “All of a sudden this guy had me by the shoulders, and I was just so scared. Then he was gone, and I was free.”

The photos of that moment were splashed across newspapers the next day. There was Kathrine Switzer, eyes wide in terror, as Semple tried to rip her out of the race. And there was Miller, sending Semple flying. Those images became an instant symbol of both the exclusion women faced and the courage to resist it.

Switzer finished the race in 4 hours and 20 minutes. It wasn’t her best time — she had run faster in training — but it didn’t matter. She had crossed the finish line as an official entrant, bib number 261 still pinned to her chest.

The reaction was explosive. Some praised her courage. Others condemned her as reckless or inappropriate. The BAA tightened its rules, explicitly banning women. But the seed had been planted.

The Boston Marathon didn’t officially allow women to enter until 1972. That year, eight women ran as official participants, including Nina Kuscsik, who became the first official female winner. Bobbi Gibb’s earlier runs were later recognized retroactively as the women’s wins for 1966, 1967, and 1968.

As for Kathrine Switzer, she became one of the most visible advocates for women’s distance running in the world. After the 1967 Boston Marathon, she finished her education and launched a career in both journalism and sports management. But she never stopped running. In 1974, she won the New York City Marathon.

She also started organizing. In the 1970s, Switzer worked tirelessly to convince the International Olympic Committee to include the women’s marathon as an Olympic event. For decades, the IOC had refused, claiming women couldn’t handle the distance. It wasn’t until 1984 that the women’s marathon was finally added — and the inaugural winner, Joan Benoit Samuelson, credited pioneers like Switzer and Gibb for making it possible.

Switzer also founded programs to encourage women’s running around the globe. Her organization, 261 Fearless — named after her Boston bib number — builds running clubs for women in countries where female athletes still face cultural barriers. She’s continued to run marathons well into her seventies. In 2017, exactly 50 years after her famous Boston run, she returned to the starting line in Hopkinton and ran the marathon again. This time, she wasn’t alone. She was surrounded by thousands of women wearing the number 261 in solidarity.

Looking back, Switzer often reflects on the moment Jock Semple tried to pull her off the course. She has said that at the time, she was humiliated and terrified. But later, she realized that photo of Semple grabbing her shoulders became the best thing that could have happened: it made the injustice visible to the whole world. Without that photo, perhaps progress would have taken longer.

Today, women make up nearly half of the field in the Boston Marathon. It’s hard to imagine that only 50 years ago, they were banned. That change didn’t happen overnight. It happened because of Bobbi Gibb sneaking in, because of Kathrine Switzer running with a number, because of women who refused to accept “no” for an answer.

The story of Kathrine Switzer isn’t just about running. It’s about the long, exhausting race toward equality. Like a marathon, it requires endurance, persistence, and the courage to keep going when others try to push you off the course.

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