Kathrine Switzer: The Boston Marathon

Throughout history, women have been treated poorly and denied their rights to many things, such as freedom to vote, owning a land, have custody over goods and even running a marathon. Many fearless women have risen up to the challenge and demanded their rights, such as Kathrine Switzer. Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to run the Boston marathon in the United States. She was violently asked quit the marathon and she strongly refused. Due to her courage and boldness, women can freely participate in running marathon nowadays. Although she created an uproar in the 1967 Boston marathon, Kathrine challenged the all-male tradition of the Boston Marathon and became the first woman to officially enter and run the event.
Kathrine was born January 5th 1947 in Amberg, Germany. At an early age of her life, she was fascinated with runners and began to train and eventually become a marathon runner. During this time, it was unheard of a woman running a marathon, a race. Although they were no laws indicating that women could run, it was looked upon as “improper”. Though they have the right to vote, they were still looked upon as housewives and not athletes.
She trained personally for years before approaching Arnie Briggs, the men cross country coach. When she told him of her requests to train her for the Boston Marathon, he forcefully replied: “No dame ever ran the Boston Marathon!” he shouted, as skidding motorists nearly killed us. Then he added, “If any woman could do it, you could, but you would have to prove it to me. If you ran the distance in practice, I’d be the first to take you to Boston.” (Switzer) Three months before the marathon, they had their trial. Kathrine ran the twenty six marathon miles plus and extra five miles. While her coach was completely winded and passed out, she stood tall and grinned in