The Road to Women’s Marathoning
After running the 2022 Chicago marathon, I was hooked. The experience of training for the race, reaching the starting line with fifty thousand other people, and the accomplishment of crossing the finish line and wearing the medal felt almost magical. It was like I had participated in something larger than myself, yet the experience was very personal. However, the running industry has not always utilized the mysticism and magic of the race I experienced positively. The opinion that “all you need is a pair of shoes” follows the belief that running is one of the most egalitarian sports in the world. However, that sentiment does not account for external societal systems that have created divides and restrictions on beliefs such as who is allowed to run, where you are allowed to run, and how far you can run. For instance, before 1972, the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) prohibited women from officially racing marathons or any races greater than 1.5 miles in the United States.
Prior to the women’s marathon equality movement, there was brewing activism surrounding the lack of respect and representation that Black men received in marathoning despite their successes in the sport. A vital example of this is that the recognized pioneers of long-distance running, Bill Bowerman, Steve Prefontaine, and others at the University of Oregon, receive the credit for starting the long-distance running craze. However, in New York, Ted Corbitt, the man credited with coining the term “ultra-marathon,” often goes underappreciated despite being a 1952 Olympic marathoner and the co-founder of the New York Road Runners, one of the largest distance running groups in the nation and the organizers of the NYC marathon. Corbitt’s influence in the running world was often not fully acknowledged until his son Gary made an effort to document and archive the work that his father and other African American runners in the U.S. did to grow long-distance running participation. I do not intend to say that people like Bowerman and Prefontaine have no place in history, but they should not get all the spotlight alone. Across the country, men and women of different races, ages, and socioeconomic statuses influenced the history and trajectory of long-distance running. Due to this, running history is ever-changing and developing. Even the first woman, Arlene Pieper, to have a recorded marathon time in the U.S. did not know she made history until the President of the Pikes Peak marathon in 2009 tracked her down to inform her of the fiftieth anniversary of her historic race.
Early Women’s Marathoning
Pictured here is former BAA organizer Jock Semple attempting to pull Switzer out of the race when they discovered she was a woman. Her boyfriend Tom then punched him while the surrounding runners urged Semple to leave Switzer be. Paul Connell, The Boston Globe, via Getty Images
Within recent years, there has been a resurgence of celebrating women’s marathoning pioneers, which has coincided with the rapid increase in women’s marathon participation. Prime instances of this are the celebrations of Roberta Gibb and Kathrine Switzer’s historic Boston runs. Gibb was the first woman to run the Boston Marathon course in 1966. When she applied for the race, Gibb received a response from the organizers saying she couldn’t officially run since she was a woman, so instead, she jumped into the race shortly after the start. The following year, Switzer registered as K.V. Switzer for the race and ran with an official bib number. During the race, when the race co-director Jock Semple realized she was a woman, he tried to pull her off the course forcefully. However, Switzer persevered and completed the race as the first woman to “officially” do so. The media covered women in newspapers and on television during the effort to officially permit women to run marathons. However, the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) and other women’s marathon advocates have increasingly showcased their legacies in recent years. The BAA has since attempted to make amends with these female athletes by recognizing them as marathon pioneers and reckoning with their history of discrimination in the sport by honoring these women in official capacities. In her memoir, Marathon Woman, Switzer commented that she was not aiming to make a gender commentary by running Boston in 1967; she simply wanted to run a marathon and did not recognize the magnitude of her presence. However, Switzer went on to embrace her position as a female marathon pioneer and dedicated her life to female activism in the sport, being the primary advocate for including a women’s marathon in the Olympics through her position in organizing the Avon International Women’s Running Circuit. Gibb, however, did not pursue a career so aligned with marathoning but rather was an artist. Thus, Switzer’s long history in the marathon world often unintentionally overshadows Gibb’s story. Yet, in 2021, fifty years after Gibb ran her first Boston Marathon, she was commissioned to create a sculpture of herself to be placed along the race course, which features other sculptures of primarily male runners. The honoring of Gibb and showcasing female marathon pioneers at races, in documentaries, and elsewhere mark a shift in how marathon history is perceived.
Gibb is pictured unveiling her statue for the Boston Marathon course in 2021. Daily News and Wicked Local Staff Photo/Ken McGagh.
While they ran for all women when they tested entry onto the Boston course, the immediate result of Switzer and Gibb’s races primarily impacted white women. Runners like Marilyn Bevans, the first African American woman to win a marathon in 1975, followed the Boston runners by a few years but fought even stricter restrictions to enter marathoning and distance running. These heightened barriers come from racist roots in running culture, which pushes Black runners toward shorter distances and white runners toward longer distances, creating a segregated environment in the sport. In understanding women’s marathon history, it is essential to remember and consider the many women around the United States and the world who were simultaneously participating in this movement. The impact of the early activism in the sport very much mirrored other movements in second-wave feminism. Female activists were breaking down barriers to participate, but many women of color did not feel immediate acceptance into this new social movement.
Bevans is pictured accepting an award. She won the Maryland Marathon in 1975 and finished second at the Boston Marathon in 1977. Black Marathoners Association
The First Olympic Women’s Marathon
An early turning point in Women’s distance running was Joan Benoit Samuelson's 1984 victory in the first Olympic women’s marathon. Viewers worldwide tuned in to watch the race live, making it the first time mainstream media provided global coverage of a women’s marathon. This event dramatically opened the public’s eye to the athleticism of female distance runners. Before this first Olympic marathon, women marathoners continued to face discrimination surrounding their capabilities compared to men. In her memoir, Switzer lists the medical falsehoods that race organizers and others used to justify their exclusion of women from the sport, such as that running a marathon would cause fertility issues or that the training would make their physical appearance more masculine. The underlying belief of these claims was that running or intense physical activity was unfeminine. Throughout running history, the social norms around women’s femininity have hindered women’s involvement in the sport. In 1928, after the Amsterdam Olympics, viewers protested women’s 800m race distance, the then-longest racing distance for women, after seeing the “extreme fatigue” on the women after they completed the race. Medical experts at the time argued that women were too delicate to run such a distance, and the International Olympic Committee then removed the women’s 400m and 800m from the games until 1960. Vestiges of these medical beliefs persisted through the twentieth century, making it difficult to institute a women’s marathon at the Olympics. As Samuelson broke away from the pack at that first women’s Olympic marathon in 1984 and made her historic finish in the Los Angeles Coliseum, she became an American hero and icon no matter her gender. Her victory led to an increase in the professionalization of women’s running at all distances.
Benoit’s 1984 gold medal race popularized long-distance running in the US, especially for women. Benoit became an icon seen on cereal boxes and posters across the country. Tony Duffy, Getty Images via Runner’s World
The Modern Day Marathon
For many athletes, speed and time dominate conversations around running. Especially when it comes to marathoning, within the last decade, a push for elite male marathoners to break the two-hour barrier has become an obsession of the sport. Nike and other running shoe brands have thrown money into designing super-shoes to aid an athlete in cutting a few seconds. The INEOS 1:59 project has spent years sponsoring Eluid Kipochege in breaking this barrier. Similarly, women’s elite times keep dropping yearly, with the recent world record of 2:11:53 by Tigst Assefa at the 2023 Berlin Marathon. However, despite the enthusiasm surrounding breaking world records at most of the world’s major marathons, the average finishing times keep increasing. The Washington Post states, “Last year, the average time at the New York City Marathon was 4:50:26, nearly 23 minutes slower than the 4:27:45 average in 2000.” The increasing finishing time indicates that a broader range of runners are completing marathons. In its early years, women’s marathoning primarily consisted of more elite and faster athletes due to the limitations on entry and lack of accessibility. However, entering the 1990s, celebrities like Oprah Winfrey began training for marathons and documenting their process in Runner’s World and other outlets, as some of the first examples of amateur runners getting media attention. Over the past two decades, there has been a significant increase in the number of people participating in the marathon race at the non-elite level, particularly women. In 1980, women comprised 11 percent of American marathon participants; according to a 2017 RunnersClick report, they now make up 45.7 percent of the total.
Winfrey documented her journey training for the marathon and her goal of exercising for better health in the media. Her race inspired many women to take up running for similar reasons. Marine Corps Marathon
Despite people of all levels signing up, the culture around time and speed has persisted. Many races still include qualifying times to permit entry or have official cut-off time barriers. If the cut-off time is 6 hours and 30 minutes, and a person finishes in 7 hours, the race won’t officially include the participant's time. While many runners do not just participate for the accolades and medals, a culture of cutting off athletes after specific time barriers or restricting entry to only the faster runners can appear contradictory to the egalitarian sentiment running likes to exude. Not all marathons function this way, and even the races with a cut-off do not intend to discourage athletes but rather control the time duration of their races, especially in major cities that close streets for the race. However, this is the double-edged sword of increasing participation. Possibly the most popular and alluring races for marathoners, the Abbott World Majors Marathons have to enact admission systems such as lotteries or charity fundraising and only qualifying time entry options in a few races. However, there are roughly 1,000 marathon races annually in the United States, many of which have no barriers to participation.
The Marathon For Everyone
In order to better understand the non-elite runners who are increasingly participating in marathons, I interviewed ten female marathoners of all competitive levels to ask them how they started their marathon journey. Many women I spoke to, primarily from the Chicago area, were drawn to the sport to take control of their physical, emotional, and mental health. Many of These women had never before participated in the sport. Still, they began running every day and eventually set the same goal for themselves—to run a marathon.
Artisha Harrison shared her realization about the marathon after joining a stranger running the same pace as her on a morning run. “I only knew about the Chicago Marathon, which you could not just sign up for.” Harrison continues, “I thought you had to be this serious super athlete. I thought it was like this elite thing. So when I met this regular lady, I was like, oh, I want to do this too because I know now that it is also just for regular runners.” These women are part of the modern marathon craze; it appears that every year, race sizes grow, covering every level of athlete, from more Olympic qualifiers than ever to larger groups of run/walkers. The rise of running clubs nationwide that have specific missions of targeting marginalized groups in the sport has helped provide training groups and a sense of community in marathoning.
Organizations, such as Black Girls RUN!, have been formed out of a need to address the health disparity and inequality in the United States. Their goal is to create safe places for people in their communities to start running and getting daily exercise. In conjunction with the focus on health, these groups are combating a stigma in the American long-distance running world: that it is only for white people.
Alison Désir speaks to this unspoken culture in her book Running While Black, expressing that the dominance of whiteness in distance running creates a space where People of Color do not feel an immediate sense of belonging, and running culture perpetuates this problem by not addressing the systemic racism that exists within it under the perception that “all you need to run are running shoes.” Désir immediately felt that whiteness was the norm in distance running when she participated in a large New York City run club training for her first marathon. She wanted to create a community that felt safe and welcoming to her in the sport, which led her to start Harlem Run in 2013.
Leading up to the Women’s March on January 21st, 2017, five Black women (including Harlem Run founder Alison Désir, pictured here) ran a relay of the 252 mile distance from Harlem to D.C. to raise money for Planned Parenthood. The Outside
Harlem Run and other running groups that aim to counter white supremacy in the sport by creating environments for people to feel safe and included when running. The restrictions that have made this segregated culture still exist in both elite and recreational running, primarily due to a lack of acknowledgment of the problems in the sport. Young women, mainly women of color, drop out of athletics at twice the rate of their male counterparts by age fourteen, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation. Retired professional distance runner Lauren Fleshman advocates for more research into the reasons for this drop-out rate and has found that young women face more access, safety, and social stigma issues than young men in the sport. They also lack resources such as sports bras and menstrual supplies. There are also tangible steps that the running industry can take to combat the lack of diversity and early gender drop-off in distance running, such as donations of sports bras and shoes and participation in local chapters of Girls on the Run and other organizations that aim to keep young girls running.
Chicago Area Runners Association Senior Development Manager of Community Development Dominique Sabbs comments on everyday runners' motivation for the race: “I don’t think it prevents people from getting into the sport because if you are going to do something, you will do it no matter what is available.” Sabbs comment could echo the “all you need is a pair of shoes” belief, but it goes deeper than having the equipment. As an organizer of running groups and races in the Chicago area, Sabbs has witnessed the determination of runners of all levels. Especially when it comes to a marathon, at the end of the day, no matter your pace, everyone feels that sense of accomplishment when they complete a long run or hit their weekly mileage goal. Running a marathon is a universal achievement that people of all backgrounds and speeds can relate to. In future posts, I will look at what makes the marathon such a unique experience for runners, why people love the race, and how the running industry has supported and failed its female athletes.
