FEARLESS 261
K.V. Switzer attacked by race director Jock Semple at the Boston Marathon in 1967. ©Boston Herald
I consider running a feminist practice; an act of resistance. Not too long ago, we were warned that the repeated impact of each step would cause hair to sprout on our chests. Worse: our uteri, our very raison d’être, would fall out. Mysteriously, the same experts declared the prostate entirely unaffected by the bouncing motions, although the cremasteric reflex hardly keeps their jewels in place. Nevertheless, men reserved the right to run long distances competitively, outside a stadium, in front of the public, entirely to themselves.
In 1967, when 20-year-old student Katherine Virginia Switzer trained with the men’s cross-country team at Syracuse University, Switzer, a journalism major, decided to run the Boston Marathon with her fellow team. Her coach Arnie Briggs was initially skeptical that she would make it through the entire 26.2 miles but conceded: “If any woman could do it, you could.” Only a year earlier, fellow lady runner Bobbie Gibb crashed Boston by hiding in a bush near the start line. Gibb participated illegally, without a number, hood pulled down over her face. Switzer did little to hide her femininity, and she wore subtle make-up and hair tamed with a band. Her only maneuver was her abbreviated signature on the application: her initials KV, a habit she’d adopted in her teens. She defiantly pinned the number 261 on her sweatshirt and, surrounded by her team and boyfriend Big Tom Miller–an ex-football player and nationally ranked hammer thrower– marched to the starting line. It was a cold day in April.
A mile and a half into the race, the press pickup overtakes Switzer and her team. A flurry of flashbulbs ignited, the journalists cracking unfunny jokes. Among them is Boston Marathon’s co-director, Jock Semple. At the sight of a girl in his marathon, the hot-headed Scot’s fuse blew. He jumped off the truck bed and chased after Switzer, not an easy feat for the 64-year with hypertension. Switzer heard the clacking of his leather shoes on the pavement and turned to Semple's manic face, teeth bared, to a grimace of bloodshot terror.
The famous pictures taken by a photographer for the Boston Herald appear like carefully staged dramatizations. There’s an uncanny resemblance to the movie baddie, child murderer Schrott in Ladilao Vajda’s It Happened in Broad Daylight (1958), played with chilling naïveté by Gerd Fröbe. That day in April, Semple-Schrott showed less restraint. He bumped into Switzer and grabbed the bib on her chest with his stinky fingers but managed only to pull off one of Switzer’s gloves, cursing. Switzer bravely keeps going, Semple trailing her, clasping the hem of her sweater. Coach Briggs attempts reasoning with the aggressor but is knocked down by a livid Semple. Witnessing the unsportsmanlike behavior, boyfriend Big Tom lost his patience. With the force of his 235-pound body, he rammed Semple and catapulted him off the racecourse.
Big Tom regretted the whole thing a few miles later and accused Switzer of costing him the Olympic Games in Mexico. He turned out to be Little Tom, after all. With more at stake for Switzer than her boyfriend’s bruised ego, she was determined to outperform him and finished at 4 hours and 20 minutes.
On the long night drive home, she stopped at a gas station and found herself on the front pages of the newspapers.
It took another five years until, in 1972, women were officially allowed to run in the Boston Marathon. Switzer’s act of resistance changed the sport forever. Switzer became a fierce advocate for women’s running, and her bib number 261 has become synonymous with courage and perseverance for female long-distance runners. Coinciding with the 40th anniversary of the historic race, she published her story in Marathon Woman: Running the Race to Revolutionize Women's Sports.
Sometimes, when someone mansplains the world to me, or I’m confronted with middle-aged dudes who don’t want to grow up, I repeat the three numbers two - six - one like a mantra. To remind me what we’re capable of.
January 2022
