Queenstown, South Island, New Zealand: One of running’s most iconic women will be attempting her first marathon in 34 years at the Mototapu Icebreaker 26.2 mile / 42.2 kilometer run on March 13.
Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to officially run the famous Boston Marathon in 1967 and who is credited with championing the equality of women in long distance running, has chosen the challenging off-road Mototapu Icebreaker for her ‘comeback of sorts’ in the marathon event.
Switzer is not afraid of challenges: in her debut Boston in 1967, the race director was infuriated at seeing a woman in the race and attacked her mid-stride, trying to rip off her bib numbers and throw her off the course. She prevailed and finished, vowing to change the status of women in the sport. Photos of the incident were flashed around the world and became one of Time-Life’s “100 Photos that Changed the World.”
On March 13, Switzer will be wearing bib number 261 to celebrate the occasion.
“I attended my first Mototapu in 2007 when I launched my book Marathon Woman here in Queenstown. I fell in love with the event and the beautiful land, and vowed to run it someday. Then I realized I was over 60! If not now, when? I didn’t want to miss out on seeing that incredible landscape; this kind of magical event did not exist even just a few years ago. I’ve been training as hard as I can, but wow, this body is not the same one I had in 1976! I keep forgetting that and wonder why I come in from my runs and do a face plant on the sofa! Already, the process has been, shall we say, extremely enlightening.”
Switzer was one of the best women marathon runners in the world when she ran her last marathon in 1976. “By that time, I’d helped women become official in the sport, I’d run 35 marathons and won the New York City Marathon, and I had achieved a 6th in the world ranking,” said Switzer. “So I turned my energies into leading the drive to get the women’s marathon into the Olympic Games, and that consumed my life.”
With her Avon International Running Circuit, she organized over 400 races in 27 countries for a million women; the resulting global participation and results were the main reason the women’s marathon was included in the Olympic Games in 1984 in Los Angeles. By that time, Switzer was also a television commentator and author, but she still ran every day and competed casually in shorter events. “The marathon training just took too much time,” she said. “If I didn’t have to do those long Sunday runs, I could write another book.” (In addition to Marathon Woman, Switzer is the author of best-selling Running and Walking for Women Over 40, and is co-author of 26.2 Marathon Stories).
“I live in Wellington, so I think I’ll be ok on the hills, commented Switzer when asked about the course, which is over a mountain range. “It’s just the distance; at my age, it takes me twice as long as it did to cover the ground so I’ll be out there quite awhile. Still, if I can do it, I’ll be thrilled. Thirty years ago I said the wonderful thing about this sport is that it’s for everybody, at any age…and now that includes me.”
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