Dale Greig
Athlete who set a world-best marathon time in 1964, when the race was seen as too long for women
DALE GREIG, who has died aged 81, was a pioneer of long-distance running who in 1964 set the first officially ratified best time for a woman in the marathon. Given that marathon courses differ widely, until 2004 athletics’ world governing body, the IAAF, recognised only world “best” times rather than world records. There was no Olympic women’s marathon until 1984, since the male running fraternity had for decades maintained that the distance was beyond mere womenfolk.
In 1964, Dale Greig, an experienced runner with Scottish national middledistance medals, wanted to test herself in a marathon. Her boss’s brother lived on the Isle of Wight and so would be able to put her up, so she decided to give the marathon there a go.
The sympathetic organisers of the Ryde Harriers club had her start a few minutes before the men – and assigned an ambulance to follow her round the course in case she cracked. Her mother, Anna, also trailed her in a car.
Dale Greig did not falter, however, and set a world’s best time of 3hr 27min 45sec. “I felt sorry for the men I kept passing in the closing stages,” she said. “They looked embarrassed.” In the 80-degree heat, 19 of the 67 men abandoned the race.
It was the fastest marathon run by a British woman until Paula Radcliffe’s world-record 2hr 17min 18sec in the 2002 Chicago Marathon.
But officialdom was not best pleased: the Southern Counties Amateur Athletics Association sent a stern letter to Ryde Harriers which concluded: “In athletics, women are not allowed to compete with men, and we feel that in future all possible steps should be taken to prevent a
repetition of this, particularly as the resulting publicity is not good for the sport.”
After the race Dale Greig danced until midnight, then in the morning went for an early swim before travelling back to Scotland.
Dale Sheldon Greig was born on May 15 1937 at Paisley, near Glasgow. Although she was a promising schoolgirl sprinter, she soon found that distance running was her métier.
Between 1956 and 1959 she won an 880 yards silver medal and two bronzes in the mile at the Scottish Women’s National Championships. But she then moved up to cross-country and road-racing, inspired by a meeting with the godfather of ultra-long distance running, Arthur Newton.
Dale Greig was one of 10 runners who set up the Scottish women’s cross country association, and as there was no local women’s athletics club she founded her own, Tannahill Harriers. She named it after the street she lived in and effectively ran it as a one-woman operation, paying affiliation fees to governing bodies out of her own pocket.
In 1960 she won the first of four Scottish national cross country titles, and went on to represent her country for 13 years.
She worked as secretary to Walter Ross, publisher of the magazine Scots Athlete, the job she was doing when she set her marathon mark; it was his brother, Herbert, with whom she stayed on the Isle of Wight. She contributed “Dale’s Diary” to the magazine and eventually became Ross’s business partner.
She maintained a brutal training regime: a typical session might involve heading out from Paisley at 7am, running to Bridge of Weir – “I’d stop there for an ice cream cone and walk while I ate it” – then carrying on to Largs.
By then she would have clocked up nearly 30 miles. She would swim in the outdoor pool, have a cup of tea and a scone, then return along the coastal route: “If I got thirsty I’d just drink from a stream, or sometimes I might stop for a coffee and a wee cake before finishing in Gourock.” It was a total run of about 50 miles.
In 1972, she infiltrated the 55-mile London-brighton race, which only officially opened itself to women seven years later. She set off an hour before the men, and though they caught up with her after 14 miles, organisers allowed her to finish, and recorded her time of 8hr 30min 4sec, though not in the official record books.
“I’d been to watch the race once or twice before, so I had some idea of the route, but I still needed a map. The men caught me anyway, so I had them to follow for most of the way.”
Her list of firsts grew over time. She was the first women to run the hilly 40-mile TT course in the Isle of Man, and the first woman to run up and down Ben Nevis in the annual 10-mile race (she described the experience as “body-shattering”).
In 1974 she won the inaugural World Masters Marathon in Paris; it was the first time men and women had run the same course together and it helped to pave the way for the mass participation in distance running that came later.
Her career stalled in 1982, however, when she jumped into the shallow end of a swimming pool and broke bones in both feet. “I was never quite the same,” she said.
Dale Greig, who described herself as “a loner”, lived for most of her life in the same house, which she eventually bought from the local council. As well as being a leading light in the nascent Masters movement for over-age runners, she helped set up a fund to assist Scottish women athletes.
Although she was a trailblazer, Dale Greig did not run for any political cause. “I never considered myself as championing women’s rights,” she insisted. “I ran because I loved being outdoors.”