Don’t get all excited – YESTERDAY was Honest Tuesday so today you only get a minor confession from me. Check back next Tuesday, that will be a good one. It involves celebrities, lies and me – oooh, did I just write my first blind item? Anyhow, I’ve been neglecting you. And I feel really bad about it. Honestly I do. It’s just… there’s something new in my life and I can’t help myself. It’s a personal flaw. I always get this way when I have a new book.
Yup. Somebody start the intervention now because I canNOT put this book down! It’s Marathon Woman by Kathrine Switzer. Those of you who run (or are just entertained by watching a 2+ hour race), will know Kathrine Switzer immediately as one of the first female long-distance runners. She helped make the woman’s marathon an olympic sport. She set several world records.
And she was the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon in 1969. She registered under her initials only, as it was strictly a man’s race back then. The conventional wisdom of the day was that long-distance running would either a) make a woman into a man or b) make her uterus fall out thus preventing her from the making of the babies. When race officials realized that she was actually a woman and actually running the race, they tried to take her out. As in physically. An official tried to drag her off the course but was stopped when a fellow male runner side tackled him, sending them both into the crowd. In the picture here, Kathrine is in bib number 261 and the man in 390 was the tackler. She finished the race and proved to the world that a woman could run just as far as a man. In subsequent years, she had to hide in the bushes and then jump into the stream of runners as they passed her by at the start.
Can you imagine?? Seriously, running was a lot more exciting back then. Today we have women-only clubs and races. Women are represented in all levels of competitive running. But a mere 40 years ago, you could get physically assaulted just for having the audacity to run more than 3 miles. Unchaperoned.
In addition to some of the craziest sports anecdotes I’ve ever read (she was in Munich during the terrorist attacks at the Olympics!), she’s also full of awesome observations, like this one: “Women didn’t run, so shorts would not be cut to take a woman’s wider hips and fleshier thighs into consideration. The uniquely female fatty bit at the top of the inner thigh was especially vulnerable to chafing.” This will probably shock all of my female readers but all these years I have honestly thought that I was the only one with the “fatty bit” at the top of my inner thigh! Supermodels sure don’t have them. Most Hollywood actresses are air from their kneecaps up to their crotch. And yet, Kathrine, an elite athlete, has them! And they chafe her too!! I’ve never been so excited about chafing.
So, if you are looking for a good read to keep you busy on these cold nights (the buzz at the gym this morning was that it got down to -70 last night here. It’s currently -30 with the windchill.) definitely check this one out. Even if you aren’t a running afficionado, just the commentary on how far women’s rights in professional sports have come will be worth it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to it. You know it’s a good book if it wins out over my beloved Internet!!
This book sounds wonderful! Love the story about the tackling. Thanks for the recommendation.
The saddest thing about her story, though, is that her uterus DID fall out (you can kind of see it in the picture) and she eventually became a man. The woman on the book cover is her life partner. Such a shame…
Very cool! I’ll definitely have to read! That is exciting about the chafing too – I’m so glad I’m not the only one with fleshy thighs! Thanks goodness for products like Body Glide!
So if a uterus falls out and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?
Of course women have fleshy thighs, they can’t call them child bearing hips anymore can they? And the supermodels are airbrushed out anyhow. Charlotte, how many times have you told me to stop believing all the pictures I see on the Magazines and Internet? For a while I thought Bert was evil
Bert is evil
but you since showed me the way. and I will never forget it.
Mark, next time you post a comment, leave your full name, so we can all mock you.
Seriously, though congrats to the Marathon women and all the other groundbreakers who paved the way for women in sports. Now if we could just get a Womens basketball team at our church.