#Quote
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.
Facebook
Twitter
More Quotes by Kathrine Switzer
There is an expression among even the most advanced runners that getting your shoes on is the hardest part of any workout
Five years after Boston 1967, I went to the Munich Olympics. I realized that major sponsorship could help me create the opportunity. I wrote a big proposal to Avon cosmetics on how creating a global series of women's races could lead to getting women in the Olympic marathon. People thought I was smoking poppy at the time. The longest event in the Olympic Games was 800m.
If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon.
Triumph over adversity that's what the marathon is all about. Nothing in life can't triumph after that
A picture, of Jock Semple kissed me,appeared in The New York Times the next day after Boston Marathon in 1973, and the caption was "The end of an era.
Jock Semple and I were at daggers drawn for five years, even though I kind of forgave him from the get-go. I knew he was an over-stressed race director, I knew he was protecting his race. It took five years because we had to do our homework - meaning we women - we did our legislative work and we officially got into the Boston Marathon. Then, all was forgiven by Jock Semple.
What I've done in this older part of my life is I started foundation called 261 Fearless, named after my old ,1967 Boston Marathon, bib number.I thought we could create training and a communicative, non-judgmental platform, in a movement to let them know they're not alone. Then fearless women can reach out to help women who are fearful and take that first step using the vehicle of running because it's transformational. It works for every woman every time.
Women were afraid and they would never even imagine running a marathon in 1967.
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.
I could feel my anger dissipating as the miles went by--you can't run and stay mad!
