I did not want to mess up this prestigious race. That was how scared I felt, as well as deeply humiliated, and for just a tiny moment, I wondered if I should step off the course. “Now he’s hurt, we’re in trouble, and we’re going to get arrested. However, Switzer recalls feeling “puke-ish” when this happened. Miller shoved Semple aside and sent him flying to the pavement.
“a big man, a huge man, with bared teeth was set to pounce, and before I could react he grabbed my shoulder and flung me back, screaming, ‘Get the hell out of my race and give me those Switzer was running alongside her boyfriend, Tom Miller, a 235-pound ex-All American football player and nationally ranked hammer thrower. Since women weren’t allowed to participate, the only logical thing for him to do was to pull her out of the race (little did he know…). He was a man with a record of being really intense about marathons, harassing and even getting violent with participants he didn’t consider took the marathon seriously, like unregistered runners. Don’t miss: 9 GoT Characters Inspired By Real Badass People In HistoryĪbout six kilometers into the marathon, though, an enraged race official called Jock Sempler tried to stop Switzer from running. So Switzer ran with the entry number 261, she trained, lined up at the start on Apand went for it. Race officials apparently committed an oversight and didn’t realize their mistake until much later on. She could either run unregistered, like Bobbi Gibb had done in 1966 and was about to do so again in 1967, or she could register and hope for the best. Switzer knew she wanted to do one thing and one thing only: finish the bloody 42.2 kilometer course. In fact, back in 1967 women weren’t allowed to race at all, but Kathrine Switzer wasn’t having any of this bullshit, specially after her own coach insisted the Boston Marathon was too far too long for “a fragile woman,” which was the reason behind not allowing women to race in the first place. This is specially true for women runners, and specially true for Katherine Switzer who was determine to bust the dumb idea that women weren’t physically capable of running a marathon. You could say women and women’s rights have come a long way.
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