Journalist Rhea Dadinath in conversation with Kathrine Switzer, An Emmy Award–winning broadcaster and the first woman to officially register for and run the Boston Marathon, Kathrine Switzer’s life changed the course of women’s sport forever. Her historic 1967 run — and the courage to keep going in the face of resistance — became the starting point of a global movement for equality, opportunity, and fearlessness.
In this conversation for Great Stories, Switzer reflects on the moments that shaped her journey and the legacy she continues to build — reminding us that true change often begins with a single, determined step.
On a cold, sleeting April morning in 1967, Kathrine Switzer stood at the start line of the Boston Marathon feeling exactly what any runner would feel before a big race.
“I was excited to finally be there,” she has said. “I’d dreamed all through my training of this magnificent race, it was like a pilgrim going to a shrine. I was only wanting to run, not to prove anything.”
At 20, Switzer had trained rigorously. She had run over 50 kilometres in practice. She knew she could finish. What she did not know was that within minutes, her run would become one of the most recognisable moments in sporting history.
She was the first woman to officially register for and run the Boston Marathon — at a time when women were excluded from long-distance races by tradition, assumption, and fear. About a mile and a half into the race, an official tried to physically remove her from the course.
“I was very frightened and was just trying to get away from him,” she later recalled.
The photographs of that moment travelled around the world. But Switzer kept running.
“If I Dropped Out, No One Would Believe Women Could Do It”
At the time, Switzer says, she did not yet realise the scale of what was happening.
“Not until that night on the long drive back to Syracuse University from Boston,” she has explained. “We stopped for coffee and saw the newspapers, and my story was everywhere.”
During the race itself, her thinking was simpler — and more urgent.
“I knew if I did that no one would believe women could run distances and deserved to be in the Boston Marathon; they would just think that I was a clown,” she said. “I was serious about my running and I could not let fear stop me.”
So she finished the race.
That decision, she has said, gave her something more than a medal.
“When I finished, I felt like I had a Life Plan.”
From One Finish Line to Many Open Doors
In 1967, women were barred from racing distances longer than a mile and a half. The Olympic Games allowed women to run no more than 800 metres. Even the idea of women running a marathon was treated as dangerous.
Switzer understood that one run was not enough.
“I knew when I crossed the finish line of the 1967 Boston Marathon that I had to do what I could do create opportunities for women in running,” she said. “I knew it would empower them but they didn’t know that, so I had to create welcoming events and push for official inclusion.”
Change came slowly. In 1972 — five years later — women were finally officially admitted to the Boston Marathon, provided they could meet the men’s qualifying time.
Eight women qualified. Eight women ran. All eight finished.
Switzer was one of them.
She went on to run 42 marathons, win the 1974 New York City Marathon, and achieve a world-ranked personal best of 2:51:37 in Boston. But for Switzer, competition was never the end goal.
“I was always more interested in creating the opportunity than being a competitive athlete anyway.”
Taking the Fight to the World Stage
Switzer’s most far-reaching work came through the creation of a global series of women’s races across 27 countries, involving more than a million women.
“In some countries, these races were often the first sports events of any kind for women,” she has said.
The scale of participation — combined with medical data and international representation — helped convince the International Olympic Committee to include the women’s marathon for the first time at the 1984 Olympic Games.
“When the world saw women in the most difficult of all running events,” Switzer said, “it would change world attitudes about women’s capability.”
When the first women’s Olympic marathon took place, Switzer was not on the course.
“I was in the broadcast booth, doing commentary.”
“Running Has Given Me Everything in My Life”
Switzer went on to become an Emmy Award–winning television commentator, covering Olympic Games, world championships, and hundreds of races. She also authored books, including her memoir Marathon Woman.
But running, she says, has always been about more than sport.
“Running has given me everything in my life—health, fitness, career, creative, fearlessness, husband, religion… most of all, it’s given me myself.”
That philosophy took on new meaning decades later.
In 2017, exactly 50 years after her first Boston Marathon, Switzer returned once more — at the age of 70.
“It was a challenge for sure,” she said. “But Boston was the real triumph.”
That run inspired the creation of 261 Fearless, named after the bib number an official once tried to tear away.
“It has come to mean ‘fearless in the face of adversity,’” Switzer explains.
A Movement Still in Motion
Today, 261 Fearless empowers women around the world through running clubs, training programmes, and community support — especially women living in fear, poverty, or exclusion.
“Most of the women in the world live in a fearful situation,” Switzer has said. “Think about that.”
Her message remains simple and urgent.
“Talent is everywhere. It only needs an opportunity.”
In 2024, Switzer served as the honorary starter for the women’s Olympic marathon in Paris, where men and women competed in equal numbers for the first time in Olympic history.
Yet she insists the heart of her story has never changed.
“It’s not about running,” she says. “It’s about changing people’s lives.”
And decades after she first pinned on bib number 261, Kathrine Switzer is still doing exactly that — one fearless step at a time