Cold weather forced her to don gray sweats for the beginning of the race, and Switzer admits they probably kept her from being noticed any earlier. There were no women’s running clothes in those days, so Switzer dyed some men’s shorts maroon (“It was a popular color that year,” she says.) and had a coordinating singlet. Briggs said that if Switzer proved herself in training, she could run Boston as a reward for her hard work.Īnd she worked hard, even logging a 31-mile training run in the weeks leading up the marathon. It was during one of her 6-mile runs that she made her Boston Marathon announcement to her coach. Her miles crept up to between 6 and 10 a day. Switzer transferred to Syracuse in 1966 only to discover she wasn’t allowed to run on the men’s cross country team - and there was no women’s team - but she could train with them, and Briggs was her coach. That race turned into a media sensation, landing her on the pages of Sports Illustrated. In college, she took her first steps in competitive running, when she ran the mile for the Lynchburg (men’s) track team in 1966. She worked her way up to a mile a day, then 3 miles a day before leaving home to play field hockey at Lynchburg College. She instantly lost track of the laps and got lost in running, “I knew it was magic,” she recalled. Little did Switzer know she would still be leading the race for women in running almost 50 years later.Įncouraged by her father, Switzer began running at the age of 12 to get in shape for the high school field hockey team. She knew Roberta Bingay ran it unofficially in 1966, proving that, even if it wasn’t “acceptable,” it was possible. Switzer, admittedly ambitious and willing to work hard, liked running long and decided it was time to write her own Boston Marathon story. She was running with her coach Arnie Briggs one night in the snow and grew weary of hearing him tell his Boston stories. And so it was when Kathrine Switzer decided to run the 1967 Boston Marathon. Many a great idea is born from frustration. The women’s running pioneer is launching a new clothing collection with Skirt Sports this summer.
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