She Was Attacked For Running The Boston Marathon?

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Exclusions apply. Hi, I'm Kristen Bell. Getting help from my anxiety made me feel like myself again. But we have all sorts of reasons for putting off taking care of ourselves. I thought I could just keep pushing through my depression symptoms.

Let's push through dinner with the in-laws, not life. I don't want medication to change who I am. Understood. But what if it helps you feel like yourself again? I hoped my depression would just go away after a while. Same.

But for me, it was kind of like wishing away my taxes. I've thought about trying medication for my anxiety before, but I don't know where to start. I've got you. Through HERS, you can get a prescription 100% online if a medical professional determines it's right for you. And through the HERS app, you can message them at any time. There shouldn't be a stigma about taking medication for anxiety. Start your free assessment today at 4hrs.com slash care. That's 4hrs.com slash C-A-R-E. Prescriptions require an online consultation with a healthcare provider who will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply. See website for details and important safety information. Subscription required.

Controlled substances like Adderall are not available through the HERS platform. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories. And we tell stories about everything here on this show, including yours. Send them to OurAmericanStories.com.

They're some of our favorites. Katherine Switzer was the first woman to run the Boston Marathon. This is her story of why she ran it and what happened when she did. I was the first woman to actually register for the race and pin on a bib and go to the start line and run the Boston Marathon. There was a woman the year before named Bobby Gibb who jumped in the race unregistered, and I don't want to take anything away from her.

But what is really amazing about my story, sometimes the worst things in your life can become the best things in your life. And that is that when I showed up at the starting line of the Boston Marathon, I was with my coach, my teammates, and it was a snowy, sleety, horrible day. And yet all the guys in the race were so wonderful and welcoming to me. And they were excited that a woman was registered and signed up for the race. And they would say, hey, I wish my wife would run. I wish my girlfriend would run.

Go for it. We're with you all the way. And they were extremely, extremely motivating. And it was a wonderful, wonderful time until the gun went off. And then down the street we went.

I was very, very happy to finally be running the Boston Marathon. And the official truck came by and the press truck came by at the same time. First was the press truck, and they were honking at us to move over because they were coming through and taking pictures, shooting from the back of the truck as we were running toward them. And the officials and the photographers just went crazy seeing there was a girl in the race wearing bib numbers. And they began teasing one of the officials on the official bus, and his name was Jock Semple. He was the co-race director of the race. And they began teasing him and saying, hey, Jocko, there's a girl in your race and she's wearing numbers.

I wonder what her mother calls her, you know, Kurt, Carrie, or Kim. And they were referring to the race program because I had signed up for the Boston Marathon with my initials, K.V. Switzer. But the reason that it incited the official was because they were teasing him about it. And he jumped off the press bus and went down the street after me and jumped on me and grabbed me and said, get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers, and tried to rip my bib numbers off. And my coach was trying to get him away from me, and he was saying, leave her alone, leave her alone, she's okay, I've trained her. And he swatted my coach away and said, stay out of this, and they came back after me. But my boyfriend was also running with me, and my boyfriend just happened to be a 235-pound ex-All America football player who was only running the Boston Marathon because if a girl could do it, he could do it.

But he came in very handy at that moment because he smacked the official and knocked the official out of the race instead. And my coach screamed, run like hell, and down the street we went. And we were really, really scared. I was absolutely terrified because I didn't know why this official had attacked me. I couldn't understand why he was so angry, and I began thinking, well, it's probably because he's the race director. He thinks I'm making a fool of him and trying to sneak into the race.

When all along, I officially registered because that's what the rules said you had to do. But anyway, the whole incident was captured in front of the press truck. And the pictures of this incident were flashed around the world. Even before I finished the race, people around the world were seeing these images of this girl running and girl being attacked by race director and then being saved by Burleigh Boyfriend.

Because in 1967, that's what people love to think is that if a girl did something and was a damsel in distress, she was going to get saved by the night on the white charger. And that's essentially what happened, but the whole story was bigger than that. The whole story was a much bigger one about why women weren't included in the Boston Marathon, why this official was so angry with me for running, what was the problem here. It wasn't the road of free and open space for everybody.

So certainly it was a moment that changed my life. I often say I started the Boston Marathon as a girl and I finished the Boston Marathon as a grown woman. Because the reality is you can't run 26.2 miles.

That's the distance of a marathon, 26 miles, 385 yards. You can't run that distance and stay angry. And through the next few miles, I tried to figure out why this official was so angry with me. And I was really furious with him and I was afraid of him.

But along about Heartbreak Hill, about 21 miles into the race, the anger really left me. And it left me with wondering why. And I said, well, that's because he's a product of his time. He's a man who doesn't believe women can do arduous things and shouldn't be allowed to do them for that reason. Because maybe he believes that it would make us unfeminine or there was something socially wrong with this. It was just not appropriate for women to be in what was traditionally a man's race.

Although, as I said, there were no rules written about this. And I sort of forgave him because he was just a product of his time. But then I got angry at women and I kind of wondered where they were. You know, the longest distance then in the Olympic Games for women was only 800 meters, twice around the track. And it was always assumed that if a woman ran more than that, that something horrible would happen to her. You know, like she would turn into a man or hair would grow on her chest or she'd turn into some behemoth and her uterus would fall out.

She'd never have children. I mean, the myths were just unbelievable. And I think all the women believed those myths. I didn't because I came from a family of great pioneers and homesteaders and people who had done very, very tough things.

Marathon was no big deal for the likes of my family. And so I was surrounded by the images of women who could do anything in my family. And I realized that the women weren't there in the Boston Marathon because they were afraid. They were afraid of those myths that they had heard and they believed those myths. And they didn't have any opportunities to prove otherwise or reinforcement to prove otherwise or, you know, belief and encouragement to prove otherwise. And then I realized if I could create opportunities for women so that they could feel as good as I felt, felt very empowered and strong.

If I could do that for them, then we could really, really change a lot of things. And you're listening to Katherine Switzer. I started the Boston Marathon as a girl and I finished it as a woman, she said. Her story continues here on Our American Story. Folks, if you love the stories we tell about this great country and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that all of our stories about American history from war to innovation, culture and faith are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all the things that are beautiful in life and all the things that are good in life. And if you can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free and terrific online courses.

Go to Hillsdale dot edu to learn more. Hi, I'm Kristen Bell. Getting help from my anxiety made me feel like myself again. But we have all sorts of reasons for putting off taking care of ourselves. I thought I could just keep pushing through my depression symptoms.

Let's push through dinner with the in-laws, not life. I don't want medication to change who I am. Understood. But what if it helps you feel like yourself again? I hoped my depression would just go away after a while. Same.

But for me, it was kind of like wishing away my taxes. I've thought about trying medication for my anxiety before, but I don't know where to start. I've got you. Through hers, you can get a prescription 100 percent online if a medical professional determines it's right for you. And through the hers app, you can message them at any time. There shouldn't be a stigma about taking medication for anxiety. Start your free assessment today at ForHers.com slash care. That's ForHers.com slash C-A-R-E. Prescriptions require an online consultation with a health care provider who will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply. See website for details and important safety information. Subscription required.

Controlled substances like Adderall are not available through the hers platform. Brought to you by Nissan. Designed to thrill. The art and science of designing a vehicle involves many stages, some of which include cutting edge technology. But at the very start, there's a step that has been around since the beginning of design itself. The two dimensional sketch and the designers at Nissan know that this involves much more than a technical drawing. The early finished sketches can be abstract. They might give a sense of shapes and colors, of lines and reflective surfaces. They're there to impart a feeling that this car was meant to go fast or this car is meant to take you on an adventure. Ideally, the sketch marries form and function. It looks like the type of vehicle that will take your breath away, but also be perfectly suited for its intended purpose. Brought to you by Nissan.

Designed to thrill. And by featuring these real life experiences, this podcast hopes to inspire the M.G. community, educate others about this rare condition and let those living with it know that they are not alone.

Listen to Untold Stories, Life with Myasthenia Gravis on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And we continue with our American stories we last left off with Catherine Switzer as the first woman to run the Boston Marathon. We return to Catherine's story and how she came to run the race in the first place. Running had given me just about everything in my life and that that I had felt great. I felt empowered and it reflected in many other areas of my life, not just running. So by the time I crossed the finish line, I already had kind of a life plan, which was to create opportunities for women in running and also for me to become a better athlete. I finished that first Boston Marathon in four hours and 20 minutes, and I knew people were going to tease me and not take me seriously, because in those days, in the late 60s, the only people who ran were people who ran well, or pretty well anyway, very few people just jogged. And people would say, oh, that's just a jogging time. And that's exactly what happened. The next day, the official himself who threw me, tried to throw me out of the race, said I could walk it that fast. I mean, that was really a horrible thing to say on top of everything else.

And the fact is, is that you can't walk it that fast, not even close. And so I said, OK, watch me. I'm going to try to become a good athlete. But let's go back and think about what got me there in the first place, because I think knowing a person's history and why they were motivated to do something and how and who changed their lives is the maybe the even the bigger part of the story. And in my case, I began running when I was 12 years old because I wanted to make the field hockey team in my high school.

And I was a little skinny girl, prepubescent, very nervous about going to a big high school with grown ups essentially there. And my father said, listen, if you want to make that field hockey team, you should run a mile a day. And if you'd run a mile a day, you'd be one of the best players on the team.

He was really a very motivating guy, very convincing. And so I said, oh, God, I could never run a mile a day. And he said, sure, you could. You could do it right now.

I know you could. And he helped me measure off our yard. It was seven laps. And all through Washington, D.C., stinking hot summer, I ran this mile a day in preparation for the autumn when I would go to high school to try out for the field hockey team. My dad was right. When I tried out for the team, it was really one of the best players, not because I had any skills. I mean, I never even had a stick in my hand, but because I never got tired and I was in great condition and I could just about outrun everybody.

So when I made that team, I felt really, really proud of myself. And so I kept running every day because I felt maybe it was magic. I didn't realize it was just conditioning.

I thought in my kind of little childish brain that this is pure magic. Well, my little brain was was actually 100 percent right because I've been running for 58 years and it is magic. You know, the the whole the whole thing about running is not really just about conditioning or getting faster, becoming a good athlete. It's really about the sense of empowerment and strength and confidence and accomplishment that it gives you. And so here I was now going into my teenage years and going into high school, feeling like I had a victory under my belt every day that nobody could take away from me. And if you feel really confident about yourself, it helps you make a decision that's that's a right decision and not a wrong decision in many cases. And it was phenomenal that also it perpetuated the concept for me is that if I could do that that like a mile a day, I bet I could run two miles a day.

If I could make the field hockey team, I bet I could write for the school newspaper. I've always used running as an empowerment tool for myself to give me confidence to take on some of the most insane challenges you can imagine. And things I would never imagine doing or things that have happened to me, I've been able to both endure, prevail over or continue on with even something better because I've had the confidence that the running has given me.

It's amazing. In a bigger sense, that's what's the most important part of this story is the transformational experience of running for women and how it changes their lives and helps them control their lives in ways they never believed they could and to take on responsibilities and make decisions that they were denied for many, many years. Because they say, you know, if I can run a mile, then I can run five miles and then they run 10 miles. And then when they run a marathon, 26.2 miles, they realize they can do anything. When I went to university after high school, I was running three miles a day and I wanted to naturally run at university as well.

But Syracuse University at the time had absolutely no intercollegiate sports for women, if you can imagine that. And I didn't know what to do. So I decided that I would ask the men's track coach and cross country coach if I could come and run on the men's team.

Now, I never would have had the courage to do that if I hadn't had that base all through high school of running. But I did. And he was very nice. But you could see he was trying hard not to laugh at me. He said I couldn't run officially on the team.

It was against NCAA rules, but he would welcome me if I wanted to come and work out with the team. And I did. And he was very, very surprised that I showed up. And I thought when I went out to run with the men that they would think I was trying to be in their face, that I was trying to, you know, show that I was tough and I deserved to be on the team. And I wasn't that way at all.

And they didn't perceive that. They really encouraged and motivated me and were very happy to see me and very, very welcoming. One guy in particular was the volunteer coach for the team who was an ex-marathoner. He was 50 when I met him.

And I always joke that he was really ancient, you know, 50 years old. I was 19. And he felt really sorry for me because all these boys that were running were scholarship boys and they were fast.

I couldn't keep up with them at all. I was running three miles a day. They were running like six or eight miles a day. And this guy, his name was Arnie Briggs, had been an ex-marathoner and he was now injured.

Bad knees, bad Achilles. So he decided to start just jogging with me. And as we jogged along, he would tell me stories of his ancient running days, including 15 Boston marathons. And every night out running together after classes, he would tell me another story about the Boston Marathon. You know, here I was, you know, I had heard of the Boston Marathon and kind of in the back of my mind, I always thought that that would be kind of a dream goal to one day have. But here I was every day learning about Clarence DeMar and Tarzan Brown and Johnny Kelly, the elder, and Johnny Kelly, the younger.

All these heroes of the sport became sort of my Olympian gods, if you see what I mean. And pretty soon, as it always does in Syracuse, even by late October, it began snowing and the snow was coming down. All the men in the cross-country team finished their season and they went inside to run in the fieldhouse on the indoor track.

And it was so stuffy and smelly and hot in there. I said to Arnie, my coach, now he's my coach, my running partner, let's stay outside and run. And he said, have you ever run through a Syracuse winter? You've never been here before. And I said, well, it can't be that tough.

Well, you have no idea. I mean, it was like a hundred and what, 90 inches of snow that year. And there were days and nights that it was 30 and 40 degrees below zero. It was absolutely incredible. But I kept hearing the stories of the old Boston marathons and Arnie and I would plow through the snow and plow through the darkness together.

And he would tell me all these stories again and again. And finally, one night in January, I said, I'm so sick of hearing about the Boston marathon. Let's just run it. And then this was the first big turning point. Arnie, my beloved coach and friend, said, a woman can't run the Boston marathon.

Women are too weak and too fragile. And I burst out laughing. I said, we are out here running 10 miles in a blizzard in the dark. I mean, you're telling me I can't run a marathon? And he said, 10 miles is not 26. And I reminded him that I had read in the newspaper that Roberta Gibb had run the Boston marathon the year before. And he just burst out in anger. And he said, no, Dame ever ran no marathon. He just couldn't believe, get his mind around the fact that a woman could do this, this ultimate distance.

And when we come back, we'll hear Catherine prove her coach wrong and run that marathon here on Our American Story. I don't want medication to change who I am. Understood. But what if it helps you feel like yourself again? I hoped my depression would just go away after a while. Same.

But for me, it was kind of like wishing away my taxes. I've thought about trying medication for my anxiety before, but I don't know where to start. I've got you. Through hers, you can get a prescription 100 percent online if a medical professional determines it's right for you. And through the hers app, you can message them at any time. There shouldn't be a stigma about taking medication for anxiety. Start your free assessment today at ForHers.com slash care. That's ForHers.com slash C-A-R-E. Prescriptions require an online consultation with a health care provider who will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply. See website for details and important safety information. Subscription required.

Controlled substances like Adderall are not available through the hers platform. Brought to you by Nissan. Designed to thrill. The art and science of designing a vehicle involves many stages, some of which include cutting edge technology. But at the very start, there's a step that has been around since the beginning of design itself. The two dimensional sketch and the designers at Nissan know that this involves much more than a technical drawing. The early finished sketches can be abstract. They might give a sense of shapes and colors, of lines and reflective surfaces. They're there to impart a feeling that this car was meant to go fast or this car is meant to take you on an adventure. Ideally, the sketch marries form and function. It looks like the type of vehicle that will take your breath away, but also be perfectly suited for its intended purpose. Brought to you by Nissan.

Designed to thrill. People living with the debilitating muscle weakness and fatigue caused by this rare disorder. Each episode will uncover the reality of life with myasthenia gravis from early signs and symptoms to obtaining an accurate diagnosis and finding care. Every person with MG has a story to tell. And by featuring these real life experiences, this podcast hopes to inspire the MG community, educate others about this rare condition and let those living with it know that they are not alone. Listen to untold stories.

Life with myasthenia gravis on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And we return to the story of Catherine Switzer here on our American stories. She had been told by so many that women shouldn't be running marathons. Her coach and mentor, Arnie Briggs, had told her there's no way dames should be running any marathon.

Let's hear Catherine's rebuttal. Finally, he said, look, if any woman could do it, I believe you could do it, but even you would have to prove it to me. And he said, in fact, if you'd run the distance and practice, I'd be the first person to take you to the Boston Marathon. And I said, hot diggity.

There you go. I've got a coach. I've got a goal.

I've got a dream. And best of all, I've got a running buddy and I'm going to show him that we can do this. So we trained and trained and trained and trained and oh, gosh, I would say it was late March and came the day we were going to do 26 miles in practice. When we were finishing up the 26 miles, Arnie, my coach, was so impressed. He said, wow. He said, I can't believe it.

You look great. He said, I'm convinced. He said, you know, I'm really, really, really impressed that you can do this distance. And I said, you know, I think we mismeasured the course. And he said, what do you mean?

I said, I think it's short. I think we should do another five miles just to make sure when we go to Boston that nothing can stop us, that we can finish that whole race. And he said, oh, come on, you're serious about running another five miles? He said, yeah, let's just keep going. Let's do another loop. So we're running now 31 miles. And in the last mile of this workout, Arnie began passing out during the course of the workout. And I said, come on, Arnie, we can do this.

We can do this. And he was just gone on his feet, just weaving all over the road. I said, come on, one more mile. Come on, come on. I put my arm through his. I pulled him along. I said, come on, come on, one more mile. We can do it. And when we finished this last piece, came across our imaginary finish line, I threw my arms around him. I said, we did it.

We're going to Boston. And he passed out. And when he came to, he said, women have hidden potential in endurance and stamina. It was an amazing moment. It was an amazing moment because both of us had discovered something really interesting, that the longer it got, the better I got. That when we went out to run eight or ten miles and the guys on the team would come and run with us, you know, they were always pushing the pace and I couldn't keep up with them. But when it got to 12, 15 miles, we were pretty evenly matched. And then after that, they said, you know, the hell with you guys.

We don't want to run any further than this. This is crazy stuff. And really what was happening was that as the distance got better, my natural attributes, the female natural attributes of endurance and stamina were really kicking in. The ability to have fat, more fat than men, convert that fat to a fuel source, to stay warm and have still energy over the long haul, really, really paid off. Even to the point where Arnie himself, a trained marathoner, couldn't take the distance.

And it was an amazing moment to realize that. And now it's something that's changing the way we're looking at female athletes in general. You know, for 3,000 years, the Olympics have been about strength, speed, power. Men excel in those things, in jumping higher, throwing further, hitting harder, going faster. But when it comes to flexibility, balance, stamina, endurance, women have it all over the guys. The problem is, is that for 3,000 years, we haven't had the opportunity to have sports. So, I mean, until very, very recently, in terms of the world's history of sport. It's only been in the last 75 to 100 years that we have been able to participate in sports and have sports in competitions and in the public, etc. So, what we're looking at now is really an exciting era.

The next 50 years are going to be very, very exciting when sports, perhaps, and events will be created that you and I can't even imagine, that take advantage of women's unique capabilities. I would say getting attacked by the official in the Boston Marathon was, at that point in my life, certainly the worst thing that had ever happened to me. I was humiliated. I was embarrassed. I was made to feel ashamed. And I was second-guessing myself and my worthiness to be in this race. And it wasn't until I had that split second of, should I quit? Should I step out of this race?

Am I doing something wrong? It was just a split second of fear where I wanted to really go home to my mother. And then I realized if I did that, nobody would believe that women could run a marathon. Nobody would believe that women deserve to be there.

They would say, oh, these women are just barging into places where they're not welcome and they can't do it anyway. And I knew then that I had to finish that race. And that was the biggest and most important decision I think I've ever made in my life because it changed the whole rest of my life. People often say, oh, Catherine, you were destined for this moment of running this race, of colliding with the official, of the photographs of the incident going around the world.

Those photographs probably would have gone around the world, but the bigger story is what happened afterwards. Things happen to everybody, but often people don't act on what happens. I acted on what happened. I made the decision to finish the race, even if I was going to finish on my hands and my knees if I had to. And I wanted to prove to the world that women could do this. But it was the actualization then in the race itself with the time I had to think that I realized that if women only had the same opportunities that I had, an encouraging father, an encouraging men's team, a coach named Arnie who ran with me and encouraged me.

All of these things really helped me, and most women didn't have those. So when I finished the race, as I said, I wanted to become a better athlete and I wanted to create these opportunities. Becoming a better athlete was the easiest part of the conversation.

Maybe not easy, but simple anyway, because training works. I trained very hard. I trained really hard. Sometimes I trained over 100 miles a week, twice a day workouts, a 27 mile run every Sunday, and I got to be pretty good. In fact, I won the New York City marathon and I was second in Boston with a two hour and 51 minute marathon performance, which even by today's standards is excellent.

And for a long time it was an Olympic qualifier. But I realized then that I realized if I could do that, how much talent existed out there that wasn't getting the same opportunity or didn't have the same drive or the same confidence to do that kind of training and that kind of work. So I then decided the most important thing is to get women official into events. A group of women, myself included, worked hard at Boston to get women official in Boston. We were successful with that in 1972. And then we organized the first ever women's road race in Central Park, the mini marathon.

And that was such a success. I realized that women maybe wanted their own events so that they wouldn't be intimidated by being around stronger, faster people. And I began organizing and getting sponsorship for a series of women's races around the world, ultimately becoming known as the Avon International Running Circuit. And this became a career for me where eventually we organized 400 races in 27 countries for over a million women. And the data and statistics that we got from those races allowed for the marathon to be included in the Olympic Games, because the Olympic Committee had the data on performances, the data on international participation. And with sponsorship money, we were able to get some doctors to write up reports showing that women actually were better at endurance events than power events.

So with this evidence in hand, we went to the International Olympic Committee and were admitted into the Olympic Games as an official Olympic event for the first time in 1984. And you're hearing Katherine Switzer and what a story she's telling. It just keeps getting better.

We're about to find out more when we come back here on Our American Stories. Understood. But what if it helps you feel like yourself again? I hoped my depression would just go away after a while. Same.

But for me, it was kind of like wishing away my taxes. I've thought about trying medication for my anxiety before, but I don't know where to start. I've got you. Through hers, you can get a prescription 100% online if a medical professional determines it's right for you. And through the hers app, you can message them at any time. There shouldn't be a stigma about taking medication for anxiety. Start your free assessment today at ForHers.com slash care. That's ForHers.com slash C-A-R-E. Prescriptions require an online consultation with a health care provider who will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply. See website for details and important safety information. Subscription required.

Controlled substances like Adderall are not available through the hers platform. Brought to you by Nissan, designed to thrill. The art and science of designing a vehicle involves many stages, some of which include cutting edge technology. But at the very start, there's a step that has been around since the beginning of design itself. The two dimensional sketch and the designers at Nissan know that this involves much more than a technical drawing. The early finished sketches can be abstract. They might give a sense of shapes and colors of lines and reflective surfaces. They're there to impart a feeling that this car was meant to go fast or this car is meant to take you on an adventure. Ideally, the sketch marries form and function. It looks like the type of vehicle that will take your breath away, but also be perfectly suited for its intended purpose.

Brought to you by Nissan, designed to thrill. For each person living with myasthenia gravis, or MG, their journey with this rare neuromuscular condition is unique. That's why Untold Stories Life with myasthenia gravis, a new podcast from iHeartRadio in partnership with Argenics, is exploring the extraordinary challenges and personal triumphs of underserved communities living with MG. Host Martine Hackett will share powerful perspectives from people living with the debilitating muscle weakness and fatigue caused by this rare disorder. Each episode will uncover the reality of life with myasthenia gravis. From early signs and symptoms to obtaining an accurate diagnosis and finding care, every person with MG has a story to tell. And by featuring these real-life experiences, this podcast hopes to inspire the MG community, educate others about this rare condition, and let those living with it know that they are not alone.

Listen to Untold Stories Life with myasthenia gravis on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we return to our American stories. Katherine Switzer was the first woman to run the Boston Marathon back in 1967. She went on to do much, much more. She had successfully gotten the marathon to be part of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, California. When Joan Benoit Samuelson won that race, the American from Maine, when she came into the stadium, 90,000 people stood on their feet and screamed and cheered. It was utterly, utterly fantastic. It was something to me that was the ultimate in acceptance. But more than that, it was a television broadcast to 2.2 million people that showed convincingly that women could run heroically, strong, deserve to be in the Olympic Games, and deserve their equality.

It was an absolute game changer, absolute leveling of the playing field in running. Everybody knows how far 26.2 miles or 42.2 kilometers is. Everybody understands distance because they've walked it or they've ridden a bike over the distance or driven it or even ridden a donkey in some countries. And when people from around the world saw women running and running so well, they all understood what that meant. It meant that they had underestimated women's capacity for achievement and even heroism. So that to me was as important as giving women the right to vote because the vote was about our social and intellectual acceptance. And this was about our physical acceptance. The Olympics are the ultimate, really, in sports recognition. And now we were running the toughest event in the highest forum, just like the men. And there isn't a tougher event in the Olympic Games than the marathon. So that to me was about the physical equality. And that's why it was, to me, comparable to giving women the right to vote. One was about intellectual and social acceptance, the other about the physical acceptance. He has done it.

Joan Benoit, the winner of the first ever Olympic Women's Marathon. When you think then about the future, which I think about all the time now, you say, wow, we've achieved that. The rest is going to be easy.

Well, the rest is never easy. Even now, all these years later, there are women in the world who are not allowed to go out of the house alone, not allowed to have their own passport, not allowed to drive a car or get an education. All the old myths still prevail. And women believe them because they have no opportunity to believe anything else. You only know what's around you.

You can dream of some things, but you really only understand what's closest to you. So with that in mind, who would have ever imagined that my old bib number, 261, the number that the race official tried to pull off of me way back in 1967, suddenly became this magic number around the world quite virally. And it was really amazing. It became a number meaning fearless in the face of adversity. People were sending me pictures of themselves running their first race and on their front, they would have their official bib number from, you know, the Tokyo Marathon or the New York City Marathon or whatever.

But on their back, they would be wearing 261. And when people started sending me pictures of their tattoos, I began to take this really seriously. I didn't know what kind of movement was occurring from my old bib number. So I got together with some friends of mine and we decided, what are we going to do with this? We created a business and actually what we decided to do is to create a nonprofit. We created the nonprofit 261 Fearless as a way of empowering women around the world to take the first step in running or even walking, because we know if they go out and walk or run and have somebody with them who believes in them and encourages them, they can overcome so much else in their life. Because, as I said before, running itself is transformational. And if they have the courage to take that first step and we can help give them the courage to take that first step, they too can become empowered and aspire to so much more in their lives.

Running can change everything. It has already around the world. We've created a social revolution in North America. There are more women runners now in North America than men. These women are not running to be Olympic athletes. These women are running because it empowers them. And this movement is going globally. And we are hoping that 261 Fearless will reach places, we're working very hard on this, to reach places where women have no opportunities whatsoever.

And they're going to be difficult to reach in some places and difficult to engage, perhaps. But, you know, running has done it before and it will do it again. You know, you're never too old, you're never too slow, you're never too big, you're never too unathletic to put on a pair of sneakers and let running, walking, jogging change your life. I've seen it a million times. And every time you go out and you watch a marathon, you will see people who you couldn't ever imagine could do this event.

26 miles, 385 yards. There are people without arms or legs who are blind, people in wheelchairs, people who push themselves along, people who take a day or two or even five to cover the distance, but they do it. The capacity for human achievement is absolutely astonishing. One of the greatest moments in my life happened April of 2017, which was when I decided, hey, you know what, I'm still in pretty good shape, I'm going to run the Boston Marathon for my 50th anniversary.

And no other woman has ever done that. There are plenty of 70-year-old, 80-year-old, even 90-year-old women who run marathons, but nobody has run one 50 years after she first did, which is just testimony to how few women ran 50 years ago. But to go through the streets of Boston 50 years later and to have all of those thousands and thousands of spectators cheering for you, many, many hundreds of whom knew my story and had big posters that they held up, said, go Catherine, go 261 fearless, go women, equality for women was really, really phenomenal. And it was amazing how easy the race was. Every mile got faster for me. And when I came across the finish line in 444, I was really only 24 minutes slower than I was when I was 20 years old.

And I love telling this story because I just really want to encourage people to realize you're never too old and you're never too slow to get it back, to feel that sense of health and optimism, and to realize that the future of good health for all of us really may be staying active all your life. People always ask me about Jock Semple and what happened to him and did he ever apologize? Well, frankly, no, he never apologized. But after five years, we became best of friends. And people are astonished to hear this, but here's the point. He was a man of his time. And when we became official in the Boston Marathon five years after I ran in 1972, he suddenly became very aware. He had to become aware of the fact that women were taking running seriously, that we loved running. And that's what he saw finally. And he came up to me on the starting line of the Boston Marathon the following year and gave me a big kiss on the cheek.

He was a Scotsman and he said, come on, lass, let's get a wee bit of notoriety and turn me to these TV cameras. And the photographs of Jock Semple and Catherine Switzer making up on the starting line of the Boston Marathon was a photograph that really spoke volumes about how people can change and to me how important forgiveness is. Because I really forgave Jock Semple when we came over Heartbreak Hill in the 1967 race. You know, I realized he was a product of his time in a way it wasn't even his fault. I visited him in fact a few hours before he died and people said, whoa, that's a lot of forgiveness. And I say, yeah, you know, life is actually too short not to forgive. And over the years we had become good friends. And I wanted to see one last time and say goodbye to a man who completely not only changed my life, but changed millions of women's lives. So he was in fact a guy who helped the women's running movement probably more than anybody else in spite of himself. And what a story and what a voice. Sometimes the worst things in life become the best things in life. By the way, don't forget, send your stories to OurAmericanStories.com.

They really and truly are some of our favorites. The story of women in sports in America, Katherine Switzer's story here on Our American Story. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. I live way out in the country. I drive everywhere.

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Say free this week into your Xfinity voice remote. For each person living with myasthenia gravis, or MG, their journey with this rare condition is unique. That's why Untold Stories Life with myasthenia gravis, a new podcast from iHeartRadio in partnership with Argenix, is exploring the extraordinary challenges and personal triumphs of underserved communities living with MG. Host Martine Hackett will share these powerful perspectives from real people with MG so their experiences can help inspire the MG community and educate others about this rare condition. Listen to find strength in community on the MG journey on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.