More Quotes by Kathrine Switzer
1967 race in Boston changed not just my life, but millions of women's lives. There are also things that, when you get older, resonate more.
All you need is the courage to believe in yourself and put one foot in front of the other.
When I forgave Jock Semple on Heartbreak Hill, I also got really cross with women. I couldn't understand why they didn't get it, why they didn't know that running was so cool and why they weren't in the race as well. Then I thought to myself "How stupid can you be? You've had so much encouragement and motivation and these women haven't."
I could feel my anger dissipating as the miles went by--you can't run and stay mad!
I do forgive people when they get it right, even people who in the past I thought were unforgivable.
At the finish line of the 1967 Boston Marathon, one crabby journalist said it was just a one-off deal and women weren't going to run. Only a 20-year-old who had just run a marathon and was shot full of endorphin would say this but I said that there's going to come a day in our lives when women's running is as popular and as men's.
A lack of forgiveness is a waste of time and it's very enriching to forgive and move on but those are things that come with time.
If you feel positive, you have a sense of hope. If you have hope, you can have courage.
When I was first running marathons, we were sailing on a flat earth. We were afraid we'd get big legs, grow mustaches, not get boyfriends, not be able to have babies. Women thought that something would happen to them, that they'd break down or turn into men, something shadowy, when they were only limited by their own society's sense of limitations.
I said that there's going to come a day in our lives when women's running is as popular and as men's. Looking back, I obviously had a great sense of vision. And I was right.
