On April 19, 1967, 741 runners stood at the starting line of the Boston Marathon in Hopkinton Massachusetts. One of them would change the sport of running forever. 

Listen in for the story of how Katherine Switzer became the first woman to ever officially run the Boston Marathon, and how she changed the sport of running forever. 

Drink of the week….Rosie's Return 

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The 88th running of the Boston marathon took place on April 19th, 1967.

It was a cold and overcast day with snow squalls, greeting the

participants and spectators.

The field of runners approach.

The start line eager to tackle the 26.2 miles from Hopkinton to Boston.

There were 741 runners that day.

740 men.

And one woman.

Dawning bib number 2 61.

Welcome to episode one 50 of this shit works a podcast dedicated to all things.

Networking relationship building and business development.

I'm your host, Julie Brown.

Speaker author and networking coach and in today's episode, I am discussing how

one woman changed the sport of running.

In 1967, women were not allowed to run marathons.

There were lots of reasons for banning women from running such great

distances, not the least of which is that it was thought that women's

bodies were not capable of such.

Physiological stress.

That indeed the act of running would cause a woman's uterus to fall out.

Rendering her in fertile.

No.

I'm not making that up.

We have a long and storied history of men who have no fucking clue

how a woman's body works, governing their agency in determining what

they are and are not capable of.

But that's another story.

Back to this one.

Katherine Switzer.

Uh, 20 year old.

Journalism student at Syracuse at the time had a passion for

running, but there wasn't a women's cross country team at Syracuse.

So she was invited to run with the men.

While running with them.

She caught the eye of coach Arnie Briggs, who during their runs would

tell her stories of his experiences running the famous Boston marathon.

One day.

Catherine told Arnie that she wanted to run the Boston marathon.

His response was women are too weak and fragile to run 26.2 miles and that quote.

No Dame never ran no marathon.

Which is completely not true because.

Roberta Gib was actually the first woman who ever unofficially ran the Boston

marathon when she ran it as abandoned from start to finish in April, 1966.

Katherine called them out on his statement saying that she wouldn't train

with him anymore, unless he believed that women could do the distance.

His response was that he did believe that she had it in her and that if she

proved it to him in practice, He'd be the first person to take her to Boston.

As I mentioned, women were not technically allowed to run marathons in 1967.

Therefore the application to run the Boston marathon did not

contain a checkbox for gender.

It's simply wasn't needed.

So Katherine Switzer filled out the application with the name.

K the Switzer.

And she was assigned bib number 261.

As I mentioned, it was a cold gray flurry filled morning.

So Katherine clad in gray sweatpants and sweatshirts

pulled her hoodie over her head.

As the race officials went by and checked the runner's numbers against the log book.

Her race was uneventful.

For two miles.

Until the press bus carrying reporters and race director, jock Semple pastor.

It was then that Franklin Z of the New York times spotted

her and yelled to jock simple.

There's a woman in your race.

Jock infuriated yelled, stop the bus.

Stop the bus.

And jumped off and ran toward Katherine screaming at her.

Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers as he lunged for her bib.

As he lunged at her jock knocked over Arnie Briggs, her running

coach, who was trying to protect her.

It was at this point that Thomas Miller Catherine's, then boyfriend

laid a shoulder into jock.

Semple tossing him off the race course and onto the side of the road.

Arnie looked at Catherine and said, run like, hell.

Katherine said, I realized that if I quit this race, which I felt for

split second, like doing, because I was so scared and embarrassed.

If I quit that race.

nobody would have believed women deserve to be there or that

they could do the distance.

And turn to Arnie and said, Arnie.

I'm going to finish this race in my hands and my knees.

If I have to.

So it's R went on to finish the race in four hours and 20 minutes.

She ran when they told her it was impossible.

She ran for equality.

She ran for me and she ran for you, even if you'll never run a marathon.

And she ran for countless generations of women.

That one moment, that one altercation between jock and Catherine two miles

into the 26.2 mile distance was captured by the press bus photographers, and is

one of the most galvanizing photographs in the women's rights movement.

Today women make up almost half of the registered runners in the Boston marathon.

I myself have had the honor of running the Boston marathon three times.

And.

It is not lost on me that I might never have had the chance if it weren't for

Katherine Switzer together with her coach.

And ally Arnie Briggs and her boyfriend and ally Thomas Miller.

Sometimes I look at the gender inequality in this nation and I struggled to be

optimistic, but then I am reminded of stories like this, and I know that change

can happen when we believe in ourselves.

When we have allies, when we foster strong relationships and networks.

And when we know that what we are doing will have ripple

effects through generations.

Because remember.

No Dame never ran no marathon.

And Toshi did.

Okay.

Onto the drink of the week, which.

Just absolutely love.

If you know anything about Boston marathon lore, you are probably familiar with

another famous woman who kind of ran it.

Rosie Ruiz, who on April 21st, 1981, the Boston marathon.

And she didn't even break a sweat.

Her face was hardly even flushed.

Katherine Switzer was covering the race that day as a television commentator

and grew suspicious when she interviewed Rosie and asked her what her intervals

during the marathon had been in.

Ruiz replied.

What's an interval.

When witnesses came forward a few days later to say that.

They'd seen her run onto the course from the sidelines, just

a mile from the finish line.

Her metal was revoked and she admitted that she had indeed

taken the T to the finish line.

So.

The drink of the week is Rosie's return.

Here's what you're going to need.

Two ounces raspberries plus.

Other kind of a few raspberries for garnish.

Three or four ounces of gin, a half ounce of simple syrup, a half ounce of lemon

juice, two dashes of orange bitters, and two drops of ruse flavored water.

And four ounces of sparkling Rosa.

Here's what you're going to do.

You're going to add the two ounces of raspberries to a cocktail shader, shaker,

and muddle gently at the gin, lemon juice, simple syrup, bitters and ice to the

shaker and shake, shake, shake, shake, shake until chilled and then strain.

Into a chilled flute glass, and then top wood, sparkling, Rosie, and

garnished with a few extra raspberries.

All right friends.

That's all for this week.

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Okay.

Until next week.

Thanks guys.