Running with her were 125 women from 261 Fearless.Īfter the race, the Boston Athletic Association retired her number in her honor. In 2017, the 50th anniversary of the Jock Semple incident, Switzer ran the Boston Marathon at 70, finishing in 4:44:31-only about 20 minutes slower than she had in 1967. “And once you feel empowered, you can leave a bad relationship, you can ask for a raise, because you have the strength to do it.” “It results in self-esteem, in confidence, in fearlessness,” she says. Switzer has started a nonprofit, 261 Fearless, that seeks to empower women through running. Today, slightly more women than men participate in running events, according to the International Association of Athletics Federations, and the defending women’s marathon record has fallen to 2:14:04, set by Brigid Kosgei at the Chicago Marathon in 2019. But she was just as intent on breaking three hours in a marathon as she was on shattering barriers for women, and she did that the next year in Boston, with a personal-best time of 2:51:37.
Switzer won the New York City Marathon in 1974, in 3:07:29. Photo Credit : Harry Trask (Boston Traveler/Boston Herald) How the infamous 1967 encounter played out, from left: Boston Marathon codirector Jock Semple charges at Kathrine Switzer … then tries to rip off her bib … before being knocked aside by runner Tom Miller. By 1984, the Olympics had added a women’s marathon, which Switzer also helped to push for, and for which she provided color commentary.
Then, as organizer of the Avon Running Global Women’s Circuit, she spread the women’s running gospel worldwide. Switzer was back, among eight women (she came in third) in that epochal year for women athletes, when Title IX would also pass. The incident helped pave the way for formal acceptance of women in the race in 1972, the first time women were invited to participate in what had been a male-only sports event.
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