Boston Marathon’s first women outran era’s sexism

BOSTON — One is a neuroscientist-turned-sculptor, the other an activist and organizer. Taking different paths to the same goal, Bobbi Gibb and Kathrine Switzer outran Boston Marathon tradition and trampled the notion that women were too frail for a 26.2-mile race.

“When you’re trying to overcome a prejudice and do something you’re not allowed to do, how do you do it?” Gibb said this week as she prepared to serve as grand marshal for the 121st edition of the race, which Switzer will run again on the 50th anniversary of her landmark entry.

“I was hacking through the jungle. There was no path at all,” said Gibb, who actually hid in the bushes before becoming the first woman to run Boston, a year before Switzer strutted up to the starting line as the first official female entrant.

The Boston Marathon traces its origin to an ancient Greek battle and has a rich history of its own. But the story of the race’s distaff division didn’t begin until 1966, when it was still a fringe footrace of ama- teurs running only for an olive wreath and a bowl of beef stew.

Told she was too pretty for medical school, Gibb trained for the race in solitude while on a cross-country road trip, then persuaded her mother to drive her to the starting line by saying: “This is going to help set women free.” Jumping out of the bushes after the gun, she joined a field of 415 men and began what has only recently been recognized as the “unofficial era of women’s participation.”

A year later, Switzer told her coach at Syracuse, Arnie Briggs, about Gibb and said she also wanted to run Boston. Briggs struck a deal with her: If Switzer could complete the distance on a training run, he would bring her himself. They ran 26.2 miles together three weeks before the race, and Switzer suggested they go 5 more. He passed out.

“And when he came to, he was so impressed,” she said.

The two pored through the race’s entry rules and found nothing about gender. Switzer signed up using her first initial, K.

Although Gibb was also in the race for the second year in a row, it was Switzer in official Bib No. 261 who so offended race director Jock Semple that he ran after her and tried to pull her off the course.

Switzer’s boyfriend pushed him out of the way. Semple couldn’t knock Switzer off the course but did change her path: After photos of the scuffle hit newspaper front pages, she found herself an unintended — but eager — spokeswoman for her gender.