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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."
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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
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.
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.
Women were afraid and they would never even imagine running a marathon in 1967.
Life is for participating, not for spectating.
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.
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.
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.
