Latest news with #KathrineSwitzer
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24-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
The first woman to complete the Boston Marathon is now 78 and runs most days. She shared 3 tips for getting fit at any age.
The first woman officially ran the Boston Marathon in 1967, despite an official trying to stop her. Kathrine Switzer has dedicated her life to making running more accessible to women. She thinks anyone can get fit at any age and shared her tips for doing just that. Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to run the Boston Marathon as an official competitor, despite a race official trying to physically stop her. Since that day in 1967, she has dedicated her life to other women experiencing the same feeling of empowerment from running, regardless of their age or ability. In the run-up to the race, Switzer, at the time a 20-year-old journalism student at Syracuse University, trained with her college's cross-country team for a year (it was against collegiate rules for a woman to compete in the sport). She couldn't keep up with most of the men on the team, so the assistant coach, Arnie Briggs, began training with her separately as he recovered from a knee injury. "We got better and stronger," Switzer told Business Insider. "We got up to five miles and then seven and then 11. The guys on the cross country team wouldn't come out with us after 20 kilometers, but that's when I could keep up with them because they didn't have the endurance I had." On their runs, Switzer and Briggs discussed marathons — Briggs had run the Boston Marathon 15 times but didn't believe that a woman could run that far. "But then he said, 'Look, if any woman could, I would believe it was you. But you would have to prove it to me, and then I'd take you to Boston.' I said, 'Hot damn, you're on,'" Switzer said. They did a trial marathon and ended up running an extra five miles at the end because Switzer suspected the course was shorter than the required 26.2 miles and still had energy. She and Briggs paid the $2 entry fee and signed up for the 1967 Boston Marathon. (The entry fee was $250 for the 2025 race.) About two miles into the race, things went awry. The race manager pulled up in a bus and ran after Switzer. "He grabbed me by the shoulders and threw me back. He tried to pull off my number bib and screamed, 'Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers,'" she said. When the official grabbed Switzer by the shirt, her boyfriend at the time, who was training to compete in hammer throw at the Olympics, charged at him and sent him flying off to the side of the road, she said. As she kept running, the press hounded her, asking if she was a suffragette and what she was trying to prove. "I wasn't trying to prove anything, I was just trying to run," she said. "But they stayed with me a long time and really hassled me, asking me, 'When are you going to quit?' Finally, I said, 'I'm going to finish this race on my hands and my knees if I have to.'" She did finish (and stayed upright). She said she felt empowered, and in 1972 organized the first women-only road race, which was 10-kilometer-long, and lobbied for the inclusion of a women's marathon event in the Olympics, which eventually happened in 1984. In 2024, she worked with Every Woman's Marathon to hold a women's-only marathon, which had 7,000 participants. Now 78, Switzer still runs six times a week, including one day where she focuses on 800-meter sprints and a day for a longer run that takes at least 1.5 hours. She ramps up her training when she's approaching a marathon. Switzer set her personal best at the 1975 Boston Marathon with a time of two hours and fifty-one minutes. It now takes her four to five hours, but it isn't about the time, she said. She's happy that she can run a marathon alongside other women, of every age, size, ethnicity, and religion, thanks to her efforts and those of other women who paved the way. "I believe you can start a fitness program at any age," she said, giving the example of a woman she knows who took up running at 72 and ran her first marathon at 81. Switzer shared her tips for getting fit, whether you can run for one minute or three hours. "Consistency is everything. You just need to keep running every day and build it up," she said. She started by running a mile a day around her garden at age 12 and gradually increased the number of laps over time. But it wasn't easy, she said. "I struggled through that summer, running that mile every single day. Pretty soon, this amazing sense of empowerment came over me," she said. "For some people, this process is going to be faster; for other people, it's going to be slower." Having a goal provides focus and will motivate you to "put the work in," Switzer said. Her motivation was to prove Briggs wrong and show that women could run marathons, but your goal doesn't have to be as big, she said. "There's going to be plenty of days when you don't want to go out," she said. She still has days when she doesn't want to run after almost 60 years of doing the sport. But having something to aim for means you're less likely to skip a workout. Switzer's final tip is to find a way to hold yourself accountable. You could get a training partner or keep a diary of your workouts, she said. "People should write their workout down every day because when you write it down, it keeps you honest," she said. "But a buddy is really a nice thing to have. I don't think I ever would have been a runner if it hadn't been for Arnie, my coach," she added. "And for a lot of women, safety is a really big factor. So run with other women — it also creates a really good community." Read the original article on Business Insider
08-05-2025
- Sport
Nearly 60 years after Boston Marathon run, Kathrine Switzer still inspires women to run
This Mother's Day, instead of flowers, breakfast in bed or a day at the spa, what if it were possible to give your mom the gift of running? An all-women's running group co-founded by Kathrine Switzer, who made history as the first woman to officially finish the Boston Marathon in 1967, is helping women break barriers and proving that running is for all women of all ages and abilities. "Who would ever have imagined that an official attacking me in the Boston Marathon and trying to rip off my bib number, 261, would result in a marvelous global nonprofit that helps women around the world?" Switzer told ABC News, referring to 261 Fearless, the running club she co-founded a decade ago in 2015. Switzer, now 78, signed up for the 1967 Boston Marathon, which until that point was predominantly run by men, as K.V. Switzer. While women were not officially barred from the course, people did not believe women were capable of running such a distance. Race officials did not know that Switzer was running until she entered the second mile of the race. That's when a race official ran up behind her and tried to rip off her bib in order to disqualify her. She was able to break free of his grasp, and kept running, finishing the marathon and becoming a symbol of girl power in sports. Switzer went onto complete 40 marathons in her lifetime of running and continued to fight for all women to have the opportunity to run. She created a women's-only international race circuit, which led to the women's marathon being included in the Olympics for the first time in 1984. She also worked as a television broadcaster, calling big running events including the Boston Marathon and the Olympic races. Whenever women learned of Switzer's Boston Marathon experience, she said it was her race number -- 261 -- that would resonate deeply with them. "People began emailing me and writing to me and saying, 'That number makes me feel fearless.' 'It makes me fearless in the face of adversity.' 'I'm wearing it on my back in the New York City Marathon tomorrow.' Or they inked it on their arm and they were showing me that. But when they started sending me pictures of their tattoos, that's when I had to take it seriously." Two decades ago, Edith Zuschmann, a swimmer turned runner in her youth, met Switzer at a race in Vienna, Austria. From there, a friendship -- and later the idea to form a running club called 261 Fearless -- was born. "I had this idea to create a women's-only running community to help women to feel more comfortable," Zuschmann, the CEO, president and co-founder of 261 Fearless, told ABC News. "And also, what running, or sports in general, brought to me was this feeling of fearlessness, of courage after a run or after exercising, and I wanted to give this also to other women." 261 Fearless has forged its own identity amid a surge of running groups. The global nonprofit organization's mission is to empower women through running and education programs, with a focus on creating a safe and supportive space for women in a non-competitive environment. Since its founding, the organization has trained over 500 women around the world to become running coaches, according to Switzer and Zuschmann. "We're finding out one simple thing. If you want to lift a woman up, show her how to run. And the second thing is if you want her to take control of her life, give her an education," Switzer said. "So we combine the running and the empowerment sense and the friendship in the community in a safe place with education so that they get knowledge on things that they can do to take control of their lives. And it's working." Sonnia Gallo Saavedra, a mom of two daughters, started a 261 Fearless club in Guayaquil, Ecuador. She started running in 2017 and discovered 261 Fearless three years later, when she did a search online and decided to be Kathrine Switzer for Halloween. "From that day, my life really, really changed a lot," said Gallo Saavedra, who uses the training she received from 261 Fearless' education program to coach other women. "I'm a woman who has two beautiful girls, so I want them to see a different world, to see a different way. Maybe they don't like to run, but they see their mom [doing] everything that she wants, that she enjoys," she said of the impact of 261 Fearless on her life. "That's the important part. That's what I have gained." Both Switzer and Zuschmann say the goal of 261 Fearless is to create a nonjudgmental, noncompetitive community encouraging women to be active and growing women to be leaders. There are currently 61 groups of 261 Fearless runners in 14 countries, including the United States, New Zealand, and countries in South America, Europe and Africa, uniting women of all different ages and abilities. "Running is the vehicle, or has become the vehicle, for 261 [Fearless], but it is much more than that," Zuschmann said. "For us, it's really important to help women to find this confidence and show them you can do much more than running a 5K. You can grow, you can do whatever you want, and you have support through the women within the community." Nearly 60 years after she experienced bias while running the Boston Marathon, Switzer said it's empowering to see women of all ages, abilities and backgrounds coming together to run. "I think the biggest thing is that w teach how to work together and how to be friends and colleagues with no prejudice. I'm not judging you in any way. I'm accepting you for what you are," she said. "That is really one of the key things that we are about."
