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In ’67, Switzer was ‘Magellan’ in sweats

Tennis champion Serena Williams does. Olympic gold medalist and two-time Boston Marathon winner Joan Benoit Samuelson didn’t, and still doesn’t. And when actress Katie Holmes crossed the finish line of the recent New York City Marathon, she may have, judging by some photos.  Some female athletes leave their healthy glow to nature; others resort to…Read More

In ’67, Switzer was ‘Magellan’ in sweats

Kathrine Switzer wonders what would have happened if that April day in 1967 had come up warm and sunny in Hopkinton. “History might have been different,” she muses. “I would have had a really cute outfit on, shorts and a top, and I would have been stopped at the starting line.” Or if she’d entered…Read More

Switzer to Launch Autobiography at Boston Marathon

Although not the first woman to complete the Boston Marathon –that was Roberta “Bobbi” Gibb who ran unofficially in 1966 and clocked 3:27:17– Switzer was the first woman to run the race with an official number issued by the Boston Athletic Association.  Entered only as “K.V. Switzer” in the 1967 edition of the race, her…Read More

The Girl Who Started It All

On a dark six-mile run in a wild snowstorm in mid-December 1966, I had a terrible argument with my otherwise kindly old coach, Arnie Briggs. It was in Syracuse, New York, where God first invented snow and never let up. I was a 19-year-old journalism student at Syracuse University, and since there was no women’s…Read More