# Run, Switzer, Run: The Women who Broke the Marathon Taboo (Classic)

An episode of [Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1484511465), 17 Apr 2026, 37 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdrl.fm/18db03/tracking.swap.fm/track/SxlTEPDY7xDg35RXkASs/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/c0ae8c6e-22f0-4e9b-ac1c-ae390037ac53/ee90f593-996f-44fa-a006-b42d00f54a25/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=7f5a4714-6b10-4ccf-a424-ae390037ac70

Tim is running the London Marathon on the 26th of April. To give him a week off to finish training, we're playing this running-themed classic from the archives. If you would like to donate to Teenage Cancer Trust, Tim's fundraising page is at tinyurl.com/HarfordMarathon - any support is very much appreciated. Until the 1960s, it was deemed too "dangerous" for women athletes to run distances longer than 200m - and a marathon would kill them, or leave them unable to have children. Rubbish, of course. But when Kathrine Switzer signed up for the 1967 Boston Marathon, it wasn't the distance that bothered her - it was the enraged race director trying to assault her. Thanks to pioneers like Kathrine, women have made huge strides in long distance running - and are now challenging the times of men in the very races they were banned from for so very long. See the show notes at timharford.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:15] Speaker 1: Pushkin. Today, you're about to hear a rerun of one
[0:21] Speaker 1: of our classic episodes about some truly heroic figures in
[0:25] Speaker 1: women's distance running. I loved writing this episode. It's a
[0:29] Speaker 1: quirky one and a favorite, but lately it's taken on
[0:33] Speaker 1: a new meaning for me. That's because in a few days,
[0:37] Speaker 1: on the twenty sixth of April, I'm about to take
[0:40] Speaker 1: on by far, the biggest running challenge of my life,
[0:44] Speaker 1: the London Marathon. Training for it has been hard, really hard,
[0:50] Speaker 1: and this story has made me think differently about endurance, courage,
[0:55] Speaker 1: and what it means to keep going. I'm also running
[0:59] Speaker 1: for a cause that means a great deal to me.
[1:03] Speaker 1: I'm raising money for the Teenage Cancer Trust in memory
[1:06] Speaker 1: of my cousin who died last year from cancer. She
[1:11] Speaker 1: was twenty. So if you'd like to support me, and
[1:15] Speaker 1: more importantly, support the Teenage Cancer Trust, I'd be enormously grateful.
[1:21] Speaker 1: We'll put a link in the show notes. It's TinyURL
[1:25] Speaker 1: dot com slash Harford Marathon. But in any case, thank
[1:31] Speaker 1: you for listening, and I hope you enjoy this classic
[1:34] Speaker 1: episode of cautionary tales. Run Switzer Run Jasmine Paris had
[1:45] Speaker 1: sworn she'd never attempt the Spine Race. She was a
[1:48] Speaker 1: champion long distance runner, but the Spine Race was something else.
[1:52] Speaker 1: Two hundred and sixty eight miles up the Pennine Way
[1:56] Speaker 1: the spine of England, carrying your bedding and all your
[1:59] Speaker 1: food and anything else you might need on your back,
[2:02] Speaker 1: Jasmin Paris have never raced over such a long distance.
[2:06] Speaker 1: The Spine Race is held in January, when it's dark
[2:09] Speaker 1: for sixteen hours a day. It's cold enough that the
[2:12] Speaker 1: route is often covered with snow, but not quite cold
[2:15] Speaker 1: enough to stay dry. Everything everything gets wet. It's easy
[2:20] Speaker 1: to lose your way as you wind through and over
[2:23] Speaker 1: the hills and moorlands of northern England, especially if you're
[2:27] Speaker 1: running at night. The race sounds hard, and in practice
[2:32] Speaker 1: it's nearly impossible. The first year it was held in
[2:36] Speaker 1: twenty twelve, eleven competitors tried their luck. Only three finished.
[2:41] Speaker 1: The fastest took nearly a week. The race doesn't include
[2:48] Speaker 1: enforced rest breaks, so if you keep running while others
[2:51] Speaker 1: are eating or sleeping, you can gain an advantage. If
[2:56] Speaker 1: you can keep going. One runner described the effects of
[3:00] Speaker 1: sleep deprivation. I was totally confused. I didn't know where
[3:04] Speaker 1: I was, what I was doing, and I didn't know
[3:07] Speaker 1: I was taking part in this event. I simply followed
[3:10] Speaker 1: the footprints in the snow ahead of me. It slowly
[3:13] Speaker 1: dawned on me what I was doing, and I repeated
[3:15] Speaker 1: to myself a few times. The Spine Race. The Spine Race,
[3:22] Speaker 1: at least Jasmine Paris was used to sleep deprivation. She
[3:26] Speaker 1: had a one year old daughter, she was still breastfeeding
[3:29] Speaker 1: and planned to pump milk during rest stops. This was
[3:33] Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, at which time the race was a firm
[3:37] Speaker 1: fixture in the ultramarathon calendar. There were more than a
[3:41] Speaker 1: hundred entrants, each with a GPS tracker and an emergency
[3:45] Speaker 1: button to summon help. In the half darkness of half
[3:49] Speaker 1: past eight the morning of Sunday, the thirteenth of January,
[3:53] Speaker 1: the contestants lined up. Some of them had finished the
[3:57] Speaker 1: race again and again, such as the twenty thirteen winner
[4:01] Speaker 1: Eugenie Rossello Sole or the coarse record holder Ian Keith.
[4:06] Speaker 1: Both were favorites to win. Others had failed to finish
[4:10] Speaker 1: before but had come back to try again. The Spine
[4:15] Speaker 1: Race is brutal. Anyone man or woman coarse record holder
[4:20] Speaker 1: or breastfeeding mum. Anyone can qualify to start, but that
[4:26] Speaker 1: doesn't mean everyone is going to make it to the finish.
[4:31] Speaker 1: I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to cautionary tales for
[4:59] Speaker 1: sheer myth making about distance running. You can't beat the marathon.
[5:04] Speaker 1: After the Greeks unexpectedly smashed an invading Persian army at
[5:08] Speaker 1: the Battle of Marathon, a chap called Philippides ran twenty
[5:12] Speaker 1: six miles to Athens with the good news, and then,
[5:16] Speaker 1: so the story goes, collapsed and darked. Thus began the
[5:22] Speaker 1: legend of the marathon. This is a race so grueling,
[5:25] Speaker 1: a challenge so overwhelming that it could literally kill you.
[5:31] Speaker 1: The idea of the marathon as the ultimate test of
[5:34] Speaker 1: human endurance was embellished still further in the London Olympics
[5:38] Speaker 1: of nineteen oh eight, when a little Italian pastry chef
[5:42] Speaker 1: by the name of Durando Pietri entered the stadium for
[5:46] Speaker 1: the final lap with a comfortable lead. He stopped as
[5:50] Speaker 1: if stunned by the cheering, and began to stagger towards
[5:54] Speaker 1: the finish line, falling, blacking out, rousing himself and staggering
[6:00] Speaker 1: forward again. The creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan
[6:05] Speaker 1: Doyle was on hand to describe the scenes. It is
[6:09] Speaker 1: horrible and yet fascinating, this struggle between a set purpose
[6:15] Speaker 1: and an utterly exhausted frame. Pietry kept going and falling
[6:21] Speaker 1: and rising again. He was right in front of Doyle
[6:25] Speaker 1: when he fell for what seemed the last time. Amid
[6:30] Speaker 1: stooping figures and grasping hands. I caught a glimpse of
[6:33] Speaker 1: the haggard yellow face, the glazed expressionless eyes, the long
[6:39] Speaker 1: black hair streaked across the brow. Surely he is done now,
[6:45] Speaker 1: he cannot rise again. And rise again he did, with
[6:50] Speaker 1: the assistance of numerous onlookers, his final desperate stagger across
[6:56] Speaker 1: the finish line immortalized by the camera. Pietry was of
[7:01] Speaker 1: course disqualified for being helped to finish, and the legend
[7:05] Speaker 1: of the horrors of the marathon only grew. Philippides and
[7:12] Speaker 1: Dorando Pietri were, of course men. Women weren't allowed to
[7:17] Speaker 1: compete in the first Olympics, let alone in the marathon.
[7:20] Speaker 1: If it could kill a man, can you imagine what
[7:23] Speaker 1: it would do to the fragile frame of a woman.
[7:27] Speaker 1: The International Olympic Committee were reluctant to let women compete
[7:31] Speaker 1: in any events at all, and when they were finally
[7:34] Speaker 1: persuaded to admit female athletes in nineteen twenty eight, the
[7:39] Speaker 1: longest women's race was eight hundred meters. It was a disaster.
[7:45] Speaker 1: The newspapers of the day reported the disturbing scenes the
[7:50] Speaker 1: New York Evening Post. Below us on the cinderpath were
[7:53] Speaker 1: eleven wretched women, five of whom dropped out before the finish,
[7:57] Speaker 1: while five collapsed after reaching the tape. Only six out
[8:02] Speaker 1: of eleven finishers. That's nearly as bad as the first
[8:06] Speaker 1: Spine race. The Chicago Tribune Une added that one finisher
[8:10] Speaker 1: collapsed into unconsciousness and required medical attention. A press syndicate
[8:16] Speaker 1: reporter commented it was not a very edifying spectacle to
[8:20] Speaker 1: see a group of fine girls running themselves into a
[8:23] Speaker 1: state of exhaustion. Other writers described the race as a
[8:27] Speaker 1: disgrace or dangerous, or opined that two hundred meters was
[8:33] Speaker 1: surely the maximum distance a woman could attempt without premature
[8:38] Speaker 1: aging and damage to her reproductive capacity. But this is all,
[8:44] Speaker 1: of course nonsense, not just the stuff about damage to
[8:49] Speaker 1: reproductive capacity, all of it. There weren't eleven women in
[8:53] Speaker 1: the race, there were nine. Not only did the gold medalist,
[8:56] Speaker 1: Lena Radkeerbatchawer, break the world record, but so did the
[9:00] Speaker 1: silver and bronze medalists and the three women behind them.
[9:04] Speaker 1: Which is, I suppose what happens when an event doesn't
[9:08] Speaker 1: have made any precedents. Nobody dropped out and nobody needed
[9:13] Speaker 1: a doctor no matter. Rather than celebrating the greatest women's
[9:19] Speaker 1: middle distance race in history, the pundits wrote whatever sensationalized
[9:23] Speaker 1: nonsense they felt like writing. The International Olympic Committee used
[9:28] Speaker 1: the fuss as an excuse to keep the women's eight
[9:32] Speaker 1: hundred meters out of the Olympics for the next three decades.
[9:39] Speaker 1: The Spine Race starts with a steep scramble uphill, and
[9:44] Speaker 1: at first there was a group of contenders, all moving together,
[9:49] Speaker 1: Eugenie Rossello, sole Ian Keith, Jasmine Paris and a few others.
[9:55] Speaker 1: At the top was the confusing and directionless peat moorland
[10:00] Speaker 1: of kinder Scout, the highest area in the peak district.
[10:04] Speaker 1: Eugenie made a break and accelerated off into the mist.
[10:08] Speaker 1: There days of running ahead of them, and the rest
[10:11] Speaker 1: of the group felt confident that they'd reeled him in
[10:14] Speaker 1: over time. It was tough going rain, a strong headwind,
[10:19] Speaker 1: a difficult terrain, and nearly fifty miles to the first checkpoint.
[10:25] Speaker 1: By the time they arrived, Paris and Keith had court
[10:29] Speaker 1: so let and all three had broken away from the field.
[10:33] Speaker 1: They unpacked food from their rucksacks, shoveling whatever they could
[10:36] Speaker 1: manage into their mouths. Jasmine Paris took a few minutes
[10:40] Speaker 1: to express some breast milk she really didn't fancy developing mastitis,
[10:45] Speaker 1: and then the three of them headed out together into
[10:49] Speaker 1: the darkness. The distance to the next checkpoint sixty one miles.
[10:59] Speaker 1: If women couldn't be allowed to run eight hundred meters
[11:03] Speaker 1: until nineteen sixty, you can imagine what the male dominated
[11:07] Speaker 1: athletic establishment of the nineteen sixties thought of the idea
[11:11] Speaker 1: of women running a marathon. But there were a few independent,
[11:15] Speaker 1: spirited women who liked to run. Then, naturally enough, their
[11:19] Speaker 1: thoughts turned to that iconic distance. One of those women
[11:24] Speaker 1: was Catherine Switzer. As a girl, she told her father
[11:28] Speaker 1: she wanted to be a cheerleader. You don't want to
[11:31] Speaker 1: be a cheerleader, honey, he told her. Cheerleaders cheer for
[11:35] Speaker 1: other people. You want people to cheer for you. He
[11:39] Speaker 1: encouraged her to run a mile each day to get
[11:42] Speaker 1: fit for sports, and she did. She became a journalism
[11:46] Speaker 1: student at Syracuse, where there were no women's sports teams
[11:49] Speaker 1: at all, so she asked to train with a men's
[11:52] Speaker 1: cross country team. Sure, said the head coach, and then
[11:57] Speaker 1: she heard him laughing with the other coaches behind her back.
[12:00] Speaker 1: That only made her more determined. More encouraging was volunteer
[12:05] Speaker 1: coach Arnie Briggs, the university mailman and, at fifty years
[12:10] Speaker 1: of age, the veteran of fifteen Boston marathons. He was
[12:15] Speaker 1: full of stories about the classic marathon, which had first
[12:17] Speaker 1: been held in the late eighteen hundreds, and one December night,
[12:22] Speaker 1: on a miserable training run through a snowstorm, as cars
[12:26] Speaker 1: skidded and honked around, Catherine heard one too many of
[12:31] Speaker 1: those tales. Let's quit talking about the Boston Marathon and
[12:35] Speaker 1: run the damn thing. No woman can run the Boston Marathon.
[12:40] Speaker 1: Why not? I'm running ten miles a night, Arne relented.
[12:45] Speaker 1: No dame ever ran the Boston Marathon. If any woman
[12:48] Speaker 1: could do it, you could, but you'd have to prove
[12:51] Speaker 1: it to me if you ran the distance in practice,
[12:54] Speaker 1: I'd be the first to take you to Boston. Now
[12:56] Speaker 1: you're talking, she thought. A few months later, and three
[13:00] Speaker 1: weeks before the marathon, they ran thirty one miles in training.
[13:06] Speaker 1: Arne turned gray and passed out. Katherine was feeling great.
[13:11] Speaker 1: The next day, at Arne's insistence, she signed up for
[13:14] Speaker 1: the race, signing her name as she always did, Kay V. Switzer.
[13:24] Speaker 1: She and Arnie checked the rule book. There was nothing
[13:26] Speaker 1: forbidding women to enter. Arne signed up too, as did
[13:30] Speaker 1: Catherine's boyfriend, Big Tom Miller, all two hundred and thirty
[13:35] Speaker 1: five pounds of him. He was a promising hammer thrower,
[13:38] Speaker 1: had been a serious college football player, and no, he
[13:42] Speaker 1: wasn't planning on training. He was pretty fit anyway, and
[13:46] Speaker 1: if a girl can run a marathon, I can run
[13:48] Speaker 1: a marathon. On Wednesday, April nineteenth, nineteen sixty seven, race dawn,
[13:55] Speaker 1: it was snowing. Most of the field were running in tracksuits.
[14:00] Speaker 1: There were seven hundred and forty one entrants, and Katherine
[14:04] Speaker 1: pinned her number to her sweatshirt with pride Kay Switzer
[14:09] Speaker 1: two six one. From the other runners, she got a
[14:12] Speaker 1: few looks of surprise, but a warm welcome. Hey, you're
[14:16] Speaker 1: gonna go the whole way. Gosh, it's great to see
[14:19] Speaker 1: a girl here. Can you give me some tips to
[14:21] Speaker 1: get my wife to run? She'd love it if I
[14:24] Speaker 1: could just get her started. Arnie was beaming. Big Tom
[14:29] Speaker 1: unmissible in his bright orange Syracuse sweatshirt, wasn't happy that
[14:33] Speaker 1: Catherine was wearing lipstick, which might attract attention. Take it off,
[14:38] Speaker 1: he said, I shan't, she replied. The crowd of runners
[14:42] Speaker 1: squeezed closer and closer together because they approached the start,
[14:47] Speaker 1: and then they were off and feeling great. Just four
[14:53] Speaker 1: miles later, the fun would stop. Cautionary tales will be
[14:59] Speaker 1: back after the break. Catherine Switzer was running with her
[15:11] Speaker 1: little group, including coach Arnie and boyfriend Big Tom, feeling
[15:16] Speaker 1: good and acknowledging the encouragement of the other runners. But
[15:20] Speaker 1: the four mile mark, the press truck pulled alongside the
[15:23] Speaker 1: little group to allow photographers a good shot of that
[15:27] Speaker 1: dame who was running the marathon. Then Switzer recalled a
[15:32] Speaker 1: man with an overcoat and felt hat was there in
[15:34] Speaker 1: the middle of the road, shaking his finger at me.
[15:37] Speaker 1: He said something to me as I passed, and reached
[15:39] Speaker 1: out for my hand, catching my glove instead and pulling
[15:42] Speaker 1: it off. He was it a tester, a crank, but
[15:49] Speaker 1: he was wearing an official's ribbon. Moments later, I heard
[15:53] Speaker 1: the scraping noise of leather shoes coming up fast behind me.
[15:57] Speaker 1: When a runner hears that kind of noise, it's usually danger. Instinctively,
[16:01] Speaker 1: I jerked my head around quickly and looked square into
[16:04] Speaker 1: the most vicious face I'd ever seen. A big man,
[16:07] Speaker 1: a huge man with her teeth was set to pounds.
[16:11] Speaker 1: But before I could react, he grabbed my shoulder and
[16:13] Speaker 1: flung me back, screaming, get the hell out of my
[16:16] Speaker 1: race and give me those numbers. Katherine was terrified. She
[16:21] Speaker 1: realized she had wet her pants in fear, and she
[16:24] Speaker 1: turned to sprint away as the furious official tried to
[16:27] Speaker 1: rip the number off her sweatshirt. The press truck was
[16:30] Speaker 1: still there, the cameras were whirring and clicking, and then,
[16:35] Speaker 1: seemingly from nowhere, two hundred and thirty five pounds of
[16:40] Speaker 1: orange clad college football player and crashed into the official,
[16:45] Speaker 1: flew sideways, landed on the roadside in a crumpled heap.
[16:50] Speaker 1: Oh God, thought, Katherine, big Tom's killed him. We're in trouble.
[16:56] Speaker 1: Run like hell, yelled Arnie, and they sprinted away from
[16:59] Speaker 1: the scene, with the press truck in pursuit, cameras still clicking.
[17:04] Speaker 1: It was an extraordinary scene, and perhaps the strangest about it.
[17:10] Speaker 1: Catherine Switzer wasn't the first woman to run a marathon.
[17:15] Speaker 1: She wasn't the first woman to run the Boston Marathon.
[17:18] Speaker 1: In fact, she wasn't even the leading woman in this race.
[17:22] Speaker 1: A mile ahead of her, ROBERTA. Bobby Gibb was making
[17:26] Speaker 1: serene progress without an irate race official insight. Bobby Gibb
[17:34] Speaker 1: hadn't exactly been welcomed into the Boston Marathon. She'd applied
[17:38] Speaker 1: to run in the marathon the previous year, nineteen sixty six,
[17:42] Speaker 1: and been firmly rejected with a letter that explained to
[17:45] Speaker 1: her women are not physiologically capable of running a marathon.
[17:51] Speaker 1: GiB crumpled the letter and hurled it to the floor.
[17:54] Speaker 1: It was ridiculous. Bobby Gibb was regularly doing forty mile
[17:58] Speaker 1: runs in the countryside near Boston. I didn't know what
[18:02] Speaker 1: to do. I didn't have a coach, no books, nothing,
[18:05] Speaker 1: I didn't have any way of measuring distance, so I
[18:08] Speaker 1: just went by time. She told the BBC my boyfriend
[18:12] Speaker 1: would drop me off on his motorbike and I'd run home.
[18:15] Speaker 1: So two months after throwing away the rejection letter, Bobby
[18:19] Speaker 1: Gibb found herself crouching in a bush near the start
[18:24] Speaker 1: of the marathon. Once half the men had started running,
[18:28] Speaker 1: she stepped onto the course and joined the crowd, disguised
[18:31] Speaker 1: in a hoodie and her brother's shorts. In nineteen sixty six,
[18:37] Speaker 1: the race was on a warm April day. Before long,
[18:41] Speaker 1: Bobby Gibb shucked off her hoodie and was running in
[18:44] Speaker 1: a strappy vest top. I was so nervous, GiB recalled.
[18:48] Speaker 1: I didn't know what would happen. I thought I might
[18:51] Speaker 1: even be arrested. The men around her were quick to
[18:54] Speaker 1: allay her fears. They told her we won't let them.
[18:58] Speaker 1: She had no race number. She was running for the
[19:01] Speaker 1: joy of it, her long blonde ponytails swinging with the rhythm,
[19:06] Speaker 1: and the crowds cheering her. As the news spread along
[19:09] Speaker 1: the course, she passed the women's university Wellesley College, the
[19:14] Speaker 1: students roared their approval. As the distance grew, GiB was
[19:19] Speaker 1: scything through the field. She set her sub three hour
[19:23] Speaker 1: pace for much of the race, fast enough to challenge
[19:26] Speaker 1: for the first Olympic gold, but in the last few
[19:30] Speaker 1: miles her feet were shredded by the brand new pair
[19:34] Speaker 1: of men's running shoes she was wearing and training. She
[19:38] Speaker 1: usually wore nurses shoes because at a time when sports
[19:42] Speaker 1: shoe companies were engaged in cutthroat competition to sell shoes
[19:46] Speaker 1: to men, nobody could be bothered to make running shoes
[19:49] Speaker 1: for women. She slowed markedly but kept going to cross
[19:54] Speaker 1: the line in three hours, twenty one minutes and forty seconds.
[20:00] Speaker 1: She didn't have a number, and she didn't get an
[20:02] Speaker 1: official timestamp, but she'd done it, and two thirds of
[20:07] Speaker 1: the men were still behind the her. Maybe the women
[20:11] Speaker 1: couldn't just cover the distance, Maybe they could teach the
[20:14] Speaker 1: men a thing or two. In nineteen fifty four, the
[20:21] Speaker 1: women's record for a mile was a minute slower than
[20:24] Speaker 1: the men's record. Just days after Roger Banister broke the
[20:29] Speaker 1: four minute mile in Oxford, Diane Leather broke the five
[20:33] Speaker 1: minute mile not far away in Birmingham. By nineteen ninety two,
[20:38] Speaker 1: the men's lead over the women had narrowed from one
[20:41] Speaker 1: minute to just twenty six seconds. The women were catching
[20:46] Speaker 1: up and two scientists Brian Whip and Susan Ward published
[20:51] Speaker 1: research claiming that if the rate of improvement in elite
[20:55] Speaker 1: women's running continued, then over the marathon distance, the top
[20:59] Speaker 1: women would be faster than the top men. As soon
[21:03] Speaker 1: as nineteen ninety eight. That didn't happen, and neither does
[21:08] Speaker 1: it look like it will. But what is true is
[21:11] Speaker 1: that over long distances, the typical female competitor has never
[21:16] Speaker 1: been closer to her male counterpart. In twenty twenty, the
[21:21] Speaker 1: International Association of Ultra Runners published the State of Ultra
[21:26] Speaker 1: Running twenty twenty, all about running over very long distances.
[21:31] Speaker 1: This report contained an eye catching claim once the race
[21:35] Speaker 1: is more than one hundred and ninety five miles that
[21:39] Speaker 1: seven and a half marathons, the women run faster than
[21:43] Speaker 1: the men. I looked into this claim with my colleagues
[21:47] Speaker 1: from the BBC program more or less, and it's not
[21:50] Speaker 1: quite what it might seem at first sight. These aren't
[21:54] Speaker 1: the world record times, they're the average times, which really
[21:58] Speaker 1: tell you something about what kind of person tries an
[22:01] Speaker 1: ultra distance. In fact, the average speed of runners in
[22:05] Speaker 1: ultramarathons is getting slower. Why because more and more people
[22:10] Speaker 1: who are less and less superhuman. For giving these distances
[22:15] Speaker 1: a try, more than five times as many men as
[22:18] Speaker 1: women run in races longer than fifty miles. So when
[22:23] Speaker 1: the report says that the women are faster at the
[22:25] Speaker 1: extreme distances, what they're saying is that the average female competitor,
[22:31] Speaker 1: one of a tiny handful of unbelievably badass women, is
[22:35] Speaker 1: faster than the average male competitor who comes from a
[22:38] Speaker 1: much larger pool, someone who might be operating under the
[22:43] Speaker 1: Big Tom school of race preparation. If a girl can
[22:47] Speaker 1: run a marathon, I can run a marathon. We've seen
[22:52] Speaker 1: a rapid improvement in women's times across all distances, and
[22:56] Speaker 1: there's no mystery as to why women weren't able to
[23:00] Speaker 1: compete for Olympic gold even over eight hundred meters until
[23:04] Speaker 1: nineteen sixty. They were being told in the nineteen sixties
[23:08] Speaker 1: that not only were they forbidden to run a marathon,
[23:11] Speaker 1: but that it would be dangerous for them to try.
[23:14] Speaker 1: The teenage Katherine Switzer was told by her friends that
[23:18] Speaker 1: running even a mile a day might make her infertile
[23:22] Speaker 1: or turn her into a man. It took a determined
[23:25] Speaker 1: young woman to run at all, let alone attempt a marathon.
[23:30] Speaker 1: No wonder that once the world saw pioneers such as
[23:33] Speaker 1: Bobby Gibb and Katherine Switzer, more women felt able to
[23:37] Speaker 1: run long distances, and more organizations felt obliged to allow
[23:42] Speaker 1: them and later to support them. And no wonder that
[23:46] Speaker 1: when all this finally belatedly happened, women's times quickly improved.
[23:53] Speaker 1: And the irony was that it's in the very races
[23:56] Speaker 1: that women were told were impossible to complete, that they're
[23:59] Speaker 1: getting closest to the men. The ultra distances, those extreme
[24:05] Speaker 1: distances give women a fighting chance. The result it comes
[24:09] Speaker 1: dependent less on lung capacity and muscle mass, where men
[24:14] Speaker 1: have a clear advantage, and more on luck, on resilience,
[24:18] Speaker 1: and on a tolerance for pain. But they don't. When
[24:21] Speaker 1: the human body is pushed to such extremes, anything can happen,
[24:26] Speaker 1: and sometimes it does. By the time they reached the
[24:34] Speaker 1: second Spine race checkpoint, the coarse record holder Ian Keith
[24:39] Speaker 1: had dropped back a little. Eugenie Rozello's Sole and Jasmine
[24:43] Speaker 1: Paris were running together. Paris tried to lose Soley after
[24:47] Speaker 1: the checkpoint. I was feeling strong and keen to run
[24:50] Speaker 1: on my own for a bit, but he caught up
[24:52] Speaker 1: with her by twilight at the end of the second day,
[24:55] Speaker 1: and they ran on together through the darkness, the path
[24:59] Speaker 1: ahead illuminated by their head torches. Checkpoint four was well
[25:05] Speaker 1: over halfway through the race, but there was still more
[25:08] Speaker 1: than a eight miles to go. It was a moment
[25:11] Speaker 1: to stop and to think ahead. As she wolfed down
[25:15] Speaker 1: Lasagna Jasmine Paris, looked over at Eugenie. He was getting
[25:20] Speaker 1: a massage and perhaps a little nap. There were still
[25:24] Speaker 1: one and a half hours of daylight left. She pulled
[25:28] Speaker 1: on her shoes, shouldered her rucksack, and set out to
[25:33] Speaker 1: try to put some distance between them. Cautionary tales will
[25:38] Speaker 1: be back after the break. Shortly after Bobby Gibb crossed
[25:56] Speaker 1: the sun kissed finish line of the nineteen sixty six
[25:59] Speaker 1: Boston Marathon, the state governor warmly shook her hand, and
[26:03] Speaker 1: she was invited by her fellow runners for the traditional
[26:06] Speaker 1: post race stew. It all seemed to be going well
[26:09] Speaker 1: until she was turned away at the door of the
[26:12] Speaker 1: dining room. Sorry men, only that figures. Bobby Gibb decided
[26:19] Speaker 1: that next year she'd do it all again. In the
[26:22] Speaker 1: wintry cold of the nineteen sixty seven race GiB didn't
[26:26] Speaker 1: match the pace of her first run, but she still
[26:29] Speaker 1: comfortably beat the three and a half hour mark. As
[26:33] Speaker 1: she crossed the finish line again, running without a number
[26:36] Speaker 1: or an official entry, she had no idea of the
[26:40] Speaker 1: drama that had been unfolding behind her on the course.
[26:44] Speaker 1: As the race officials tangled with Catherine Switzer. It turns
[26:48] Speaker 1: out that registering for the race was the problem. Switzer
[26:52] Speaker 1: had assumed it was the right thing to do, but
[26:55] Speaker 1: the short tempered race director was panicking that it'd be
[26:58] Speaker 1: sanctioned by the Athletics Union. She watched in shock and
[27:03] Speaker 1: amazement as the race director tried to rip her numbers
[27:05] Speaker 1: off and her massive boyfriend body checked him into the
[27:08] Speaker 1: next county. Catherine felt like she was going to puke.
[27:13] Speaker 1: This wasn't what she'd imagined. Was all going horribly wrong.
[27:17] Speaker 1: The press truck was still tracking her given the incredible
[27:20] Speaker 1: scene that had just unfolded. The journalists were yelling out
[27:24] Speaker 1: hostile questions. This was obviously just a stunt, so when
[27:27] Speaker 1: was she going to drop out? But as they kept running,
[27:31] Speaker 1: her nausea drained away, to be replaced by cold anger.
[27:37] Speaker 1: The race director had tried to physically rip her out
[27:40] Speaker 1: of the race. Screw him. There was absolutely no way
[27:44] Speaker 1: that anyone was going to stop her from finishing. The
[27:47] Speaker 1: official bus drove past again, the race director, thankfully very
[27:52] Speaker 1: much alive, puce with rage and shaking his fist. Catherine
[27:57] Speaker 1: started to worry that they'd be arrested, and above all,
[28:00] Speaker 1: she was worried that she wouldn't be able to finish.
[28:04] Speaker 1: She told her coach Arnie that she was determined to
[28:07] Speaker 1: go the distance, even if she had to crawl, and
[28:11] Speaker 1: Arnie told her, fine, just slow down a little. It
[28:16] Speaker 1: was cold and wet, and the official had pulled off
[28:19] Speaker 1: her glove so her left hand was freezing. And then
[28:23] Speaker 1: Big Tom spoke up, you're getting me into all kinds
[28:27] Speaker 1: of trouble. What are you talking about, Tom, I've hit
[28:31] Speaker 1: an official. Now I'll get kicked out of the Athletics Union.
[28:35] Speaker 1: I didn't hit the official. You hit the official. Tom?
[28:38] Speaker 1: Oh great, Yeah, thanks a lot for nothing. I should
[28:40] Speaker 1: never have come to Boston. It was your idea to
[28:43] Speaker 1: come to Boston. And with that, Tom ripped off his
[28:47] Speaker 1: numbers and hissed, you run too slow anyway, and he
[28:51] Speaker 1: sped away up the course, man handled by an official,
[28:56] Speaker 1: harassed by photographers, wet pants, cold hand, dumped by her boyfriend,
[29:02] Speaker 1: and only twenty miles to go. But as the miles
[29:06] Speaker 1: went past, the adrenaline drained away and Catherine found her pace.
[29:12] Speaker 1: She began to enjoy the run again, and some way
[29:16] Speaker 1: past the halfway mark, looming out of the mist ahead
[29:20] Speaker 1: of her was the unmistakable orange sweatshirt of Big Tom.
[29:26] Speaker 1: He was walking, and as Catherine ran past, he begged
[29:30] Speaker 1: her to give him a moment to catch his breath.
[29:33] Speaker 1: Walk with me a while. I'll get it back, Sorry, Tom,
[29:37] Speaker 1: said Catherine. She had her momentum, She had her race
[29:42] Speaker 1: to finish. She ran on the Spine Race final checkpoint,
[29:51] Speaker 1: forty two miles to go. Jasmine Paris had a decision
[29:55] Speaker 1: to make. She had been running for three days, and
[29:59] Speaker 1: she had had three hours of sleep. She was starting
[30:03] Speaker 1: to hallucinate. She had seen a tree bend down into
[30:07] Speaker 1: a yoga pose. She saw a bright pink pig running
[30:11] Speaker 1: across the moors. Like other runners in previous years, should
[30:16] Speaker 1: go through phases of forgetting that she was even in
[30:19] Speaker 1: a race at alone leading it? So should she get
[30:24] Speaker 1: some rest, an hour of sleep, or should she press
[30:29] Speaker 1: her advantage trying to extend her lead. After grabbing some
[30:34] Speaker 1: more food and a strong coffee, she pressed on. When
[30:39] Speaker 1: Eugenie arrived at the checkpoint, he asked where Jasmine was. No, no, no,
[30:46] Speaker 1: she's gone, said one of the checkpoint volunteers. Gone wow.
[30:53] Speaker 1: Eugenie soaked his feet in a basin of water put
[30:57] Speaker 1: his head in his hands. The course record holder Ian
[31:01] Speaker 1: Keith was hours behind them both. When Catherine Sway and
[31:09] Speaker 1: her coach Arnie crossed the finish line of the Boston Marathon,
[31:13] Speaker 1: there weren't many spectators left. It was cold and wet,
[31:19] Speaker 1: and they'd been running for more than four hours. There
[31:22] Speaker 1: were a few grumpy journalists who ordinarily would have gone
[31:26] Speaker 1: indoors to file their stories an hour ago, but had
[31:29] Speaker 1: been told to wait and get an interview with that
[31:31] Speaker 1: crazy Dame. Catherine had been slower than she'd hoped, but
[31:37] Speaker 1: under the circumstances, getting to the finish line was an
[31:40] Speaker 1: achievement enough. Her feet were bleeding so badly that the
[31:45] Speaker 1: race doctor was shocked, but overrule Catherine felt great. All
[31:51] Speaker 1: they had to do then was wait another hour for
[31:55] Speaker 1: Big Tom to cross the finish line. Neither Bobby GiB
[32:03] Speaker 1: nor Katherine Switzer set out to change the world, but
[32:07] Speaker 1: between them they did. The photograph of Bobby Gibb running
[32:11] Speaker 1: down the home stretch in nineteen sixty six was inspirational,
[32:16] Speaker 1: but even more iconic was the image of Switzer being
[32:20] Speaker 1: attacked by a race official in nineteen sixty seven. He
[32:25] Speaker 1: gave the world one of the most galvanizing photos in
[32:27] Speaker 1: women's rights history, said Switzer, and it's hard to disagree.
[32:32] Speaker 1: Both photographs and both women provided leverage to campaigners who
[32:37] Speaker 1: persuaded the authorities to change the rules. In nineteen seventy two,
[32:44] Speaker 1: Nina Cusick was the first woman to officially win a
[32:48] Speaker 1: Boston Marathon, while Bobby Gibb has been retrospectively recognized as
[32:53] Speaker 1: a three time winner. GiB told the BBC back then,
[32:58] Speaker 1: men weren't allowed to have feelings and women weren't allowed
[33:01] Speaker 1: to have a brain. What if a man wants to knit,
[33:04] Speaker 1: is he any less of a man? No? What if
[33:07] Speaker 1: a woman wants to drive a truck? Is she any
[33:10] Speaker 1: less of a woman? No? All people can be who
[33:14] Speaker 1: they want to be. The Spine Race had started on
[33:22] Speaker 1: Sunday morning. By Wednesday evening, Jasmine Paris was limping down
[33:28] Speaker 1: off the final summit towards the finish line. Every step
[33:33] Speaker 1: was agonizing. She had developed tendonitis on both legs and
[33:37] Speaker 1: her pace was flagging. She kept looking over her shoulder
[33:41] Speaker 1: at the horizon, looking for Eugenie Rosello Sole. I kept
[33:46] Speaker 1: expecting him to catch me, because I felt that I
[33:48] Speaker 1: was going so slowly on that last day, and I
[33:51] Speaker 1: kept falling asleep and thinking he must be just behind me.
[33:55] Speaker 1: Eugenie was not just behind her sleep deprived, exhausted, and
[34:02] Speaker 1: dangerously cold, he pushed his emergency Buttom to quit the
[34:06] Speaker 1: race and summon help. With two two hundred and sixty
[34:10] Speaker 1: four miles completed than four miles to go, and by
[34:16] Speaker 1: then Jasmine Paris had long since finished. After the solitude
[34:22] Speaker 1: of the Pennine Way, the finish line was bewildering a
[34:26] Speaker 1: crowd of people, the flashes of cameras, a very clingy
[34:30] Speaker 1: cuddle with her daughter Rowan, a shower, and then the
[34:33] Speaker 1: fish and chips Jasmine had been dreaming of, and the
[34:36] Speaker 1: breastfeed that Rowan had been demanding days. Jasmine started to
[34:42] Speaker 1: realize why people were quite so excited. She had obliterated
[34:48] Speaker 1: Ian Keith's course record by more than twelve hours, about
[34:52] Speaker 1: fifty Miles Ian Keith himself wouldn't win the men's race
[34:57] Speaker 1: until the next morning, fifteen hours later. Still, there wasn't
[35:04] Speaker 1: too much time to celebrate. Jasmine's PhD thesis was due
[35:10] Speaker 1: in ten weeks. It wasn't going to write itself. Key
[35:23] Speaker 1: sources for this episode were Jasmine Paris's first hand account
[35:27] Speaker 1: of the spine race, Olivier Giberteau's feature article about Bobby Gibb,
[35:32] Speaker 1: and Katherine Switzer's autobiography Marathon Woman. For a full list
[35:38] Speaker 1: of our sources, see the show notes at Timharford dot com.
[35:51] Speaker 1: Cautionary Tales is written by me Tim Harford with Andrew Wright.
[35:55] Speaker 1: It's produced by Alice Fines with support from Marilyn Rust.
[35:59] Speaker 1: The sound design and original music is the work of
[36:02] Speaker 1: Pascal Wise. Sarah Nix edited the scripts. It features the
[36:07] Speaker 1: voice talents of Ben Crow Gutridge, Stella Harford, Jammas Saunders,
[36:11] Speaker 1: and Rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have been possible
[36:15] Speaker 1: without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Ryan Dilly, Greta Cohne,
[36:20] Speaker 1: Eric Handler, Carrie Brody, and Christina Sullivan. Cautionary Tales is
[36:25] Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardoor Studios
[36:30] Speaker 1: in London by Tom Berry. If you like the show,
[36:34] Speaker 1: please remember to share, rate and review, tell your friends
[36:39] Speaker 1: and if you want to hear the show ad free,
[36:41] Speaker 1: sign up for Pushkin Plus on the show page in
[36:44] Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm, slash plus

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