First female competitor in Boston Marathon returns to race
The first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon has returned to the race 50 years later.
Kathrine Switzer, 70, is running the Marathon today under the number 261, the same number she wore when she entered the race in 1967 as a 20-year-old Syracuse University student.
The last time Switzer ran the Boston Marathon was in 1976 and it's her first marathon since 2011.
Women weren't allowed to enter the race until 1972, but Switzer side-stepped the sexist rule by registering under the gender-neutral name K.V. Switzer.
Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to compete in the Boston Marathon, returned to run the race on Monday at the age of 70
When officials realized she was a woman, one tried to actually force her off the 26-mile route, yelling: 'Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers!'
A famous photo shows Switzer's then-boyfriend Tom Miller pushing the official off the road so she could finish.
She finished the race in about four hours and twenty minutes.
'To the guys it was a one-off event. But I knew it was a lot more than that. A lot more, 'she recalled in her memoir.
Today, women make up more than half of all marathon runners.
Switzer was a 20-year-old student at Syracuse University when she entered the race in 1967 under the gender neutral name K.V. Switzer. Women weren't allowed to enter the race until 1972. Above, Switzer is seen running the race while her boyfriend pushes an official out of the way who tried to remove her from the race
While at Syracuse, Switzer trained with the men's cross country team because there was no women's team.
She says she started training for the marathon when her coach, Arnie Briggs, said that women were 'too fragile' to run the marathon.
Speaking ahead of today's race, Switzer told NESN: 'I’m so excited about Monday. It’s going to be great.'
Switzer is running the race with 100 female runners from 261 Fearless Inc, a non-profit she founded to inspire women runners.
Switzer also plans to run the New York marathon this year. She won that marathon in 1974 with a 3:07:29 time.
The race's organizers honored Switzer with a firing gun start this morning, usually reserved for elite competitors.
Her bib number is also only the second number to be retired by the Boston Athletic Association in the race's 121-year history.
She started the race at 11:15am and finished the first 5 kilometers in 33:30 - a bit better than a six-hour pace.
Switzer has competed in nearly 40 marathons. Among her other accomplishments was a second place finish at the 1975 Boston Marathon, with a time of 2:51:37.
Switzer isn't technically the first woman to finish the Boston Marathon. That honor belongs to Bobbi Gibb, who ran the race unofficially in 1966. But Switzer was the first woman to run the race with an official number.