Speaker 1: Hi, this is Annie, and this is Bridget and you're
Speaker 1: listening to Steph Mom never told you. And today we
Speaker 1: are updating an episode that is very near and dear
Speaker 1: to me that Christen and Caroline did a couple a
Speaker 1: while back on women, the history of women running marathons
Speaker 1: or not running marathons, because for a long time it
Speaker 1: um it was not as easy as you might think
Speaker 1: for a for a woman to run in a marathon,
Speaker 1: it was seen as unhealthy for her, bad for her uterus.
Speaker 1: So many things that society wants women to not do.
Speaker 1: They say, it's bad for your uterus. We don't want to,
Speaker 1: we don't want to mess with that. Let's just let's
Speaker 1: just not run. How about that, ladies? Exactly one of
Speaker 1: my favorite I hope that you're okay with me sharing that.
Speaker 1: But when Annie and I first became friends and we
Speaker 1: first started doing the show together, we were once taking
Speaker 1: a walk in Atlanta on the is it the skyline?
Speaker 1: What's the belt line? And I'm a I'm a dog fanatic.
Speaker 1: If I see a dog, I run up to it
Speaker 1: and want to make friends with it, And there was
Speaker 1: this really cute dog. I hope any shaking your head,
Speaker 1: she doesn't want me to tell this story, but uh,
Speaker 1: is it okay if I tell it? Go for it?
Speaker 1: Go for it? And I said, oh, Annie, look at
Speaker 1: that cute dog. You know, I was really excited. And
Speaker 1: she said, oh, I don't really like dogs. And I said,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you don't like dogs, Like this was
Speaker 1: shocking information. But then she explained that because she's an
Speaker 1: avid runner, when you're a big runner, sometimes dogs create
Speaker 1: a problem and that have created a problem for Annie
Speaker 1: and that thus she's not super into she she does
Speaker 1: not have the overwhelming love of dogs and I had.
Speaker 1: So that was the first This was very very early
Speaker 1: on and meeting Annie, and I was like, oh, running
Speaker 1: must be a huge part of her life. If it's
Speaker 1: such a big part of her day to day that
Speaker 1: it's it's changed her relationship to dogs. I'm got you
Speaker 1: didn't just like I'd rather you not come on snichy anymore.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm usually skeptical of people who don't like dogs,
Speaker 1: but you know, I warmed up to you. We we
Speaker 1: we got sart of it. We did um. That is
Speaker 1: one of my deepest, darkest confessions. I know, as I
Speaker 1: was sharing it, I was like, am I getting too
Speaker 1: personal and he's just like of dogs. I like dogs
Speaker 1: in a non outdoor running setting, and I'll just leave
Speaker 1: it at that. I do love running. I I run
Speaker 1: all the time. I will I will say my relationship
Speaker 1: with running, I call it my coping mechanism gone wrong.
Speaker 1: So I perhaps run too much and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: back away from it, but never nevertheless, I am getting
Speaker 1: I'm gearing up to run the Atlanta Pahgre Road Race,
Speaker 1: which is the largest in gay in the world, and
Speaker 1: it takes place on the fourth of July. UM, Kristen
Speaker 1: and Caroline are going to talk about that in the
Speaker 1: in the episode that we're about to play as well.
Speaker 1: It's a big part of Atlanta. UM, my ex boyfriend
Speaker 1: is running it, and I uh some prides on the line.
Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta beat him. Yeah, that's what I
Speaker 1: loved how we talked about this earlier off Mike. You're
Speaker 1: very competitive about it. I'm extremely competitive about it, UM,
Speaker 1: and I try to keep it like low key so
Speaker 1: I don't I don't freak people out, but I'm very
Speaker 1: competitive and I'm ashamed to say I started running originally
Speaker 1: to impress a guy, and he could have cared less
Speaker 1: he could have cared less, but it did push me too.
Speaker 1: I was the only woman. We had like these weird
Speaker 1: teams at Georgia Tech, and I was on one of them,
Speaker 1: and I was on the fast team, and I was
Speaker 1: the only woman on the fast team. So what's funny
Speaker 1: to me is that the Atlanta road Race is also
Speaker 1: kind of a big thing in my family. My dad
Speaker 1: did it pretty much every year. My aunt Marie and
Speaker 1: sometimes my aunt Veronica would also join him. What's funny
Speaker 1: is that I've actually never been, but the way they
Speaker 1: describe it is they're walking. Sometimes they like stop and
Speaker 1: I got a drink. People are giving them slices of pizza.
Speaker 1: When I was like, oh, it's this fun, free Whilan thing,
Speaker 1: it wasn't until talking to you Annie that I'd realized, Oh,
Speaker 1: people take it seriously how some people can take Some
Speaker 1: people take it very very seriously. There are very competitive.
Speaker 1: Others are basically, you know, eating tacos exactly. I've always
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to stop and partake in the beer
Speaker 1: and tacos, but yeah, I'm like, way too competitive. Plus
Speaker 1: it's really hot. It's very hot, so I'd like to
Speaker 1: get it. I like to finish as early as possible
Speaker 1: to beat the heat. If that's a thing. UM, we
Speaker 1: do have some facts for you. The rates of female
Speaker 1: race finishers have gone up since this episode of this
Speaker 1: UM Classic episode was first recorded. In the US, women
Speaker 1: made up for fifty seven percent of finishers in or
Speaker 1: about ten point seven million female racers. And that's up.
Speaker 1: It's a lot more women are running in It's become
Speaker 1: a lot more diverse. Groups like Black Girls Run are
Speaker 1: helping to diversify running. Black Girls Run, to the groups
Speaker 1: that I'm affiliated with, has about two thousand participants and
Speaker 1: it really kind of makes it more of an inclusive space.
Speaker 1: But what I love about Black Girls Run is that
Speaker 1: it just sort of reminds folks that running and then
Speaker 1: physical fitness writ large, it's for everybody. I think. You know,
Speaker 1: it can be considered something that black women don't do
Speaker 1: for a whole host of reasons that we should get
Speaker 1: into for in another episode. But there are groups that
Speaker 1: are trying to remind folks that running it's for everyone, women,
Speaker 1: people of color, everyone. Yeah. Absolutely, UM. And this uptick
Speaker 1: and running means that companies are finally starting to look
Speaker 1: into putting out better equipment for women, like better sports
Speaker 1: rats is uh. The sports broad episode is one of
Speaker 1: Smithy's most popular episodes ever, so we should we should
Speaker 1: look into that. And of course there are problems. There's
Speaker 1: still problems because it's it can be cost prohibitive for
Speaker 1: some people not easily accessible. UM. Product marketed towards women
Speaker 1: are generally more expensive. UM. But it is it's good
Speaker 1: that we're moving that way because some women are turned
Speaker 1: away from sports and athletes athletic things in general because
Speaker 1: the equipment isn't there that to give them the comfort
Speaker 1: that they want when they're participating in things like that.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I that's been the case for me. Like
Speaker 1: I I'm pretty physically active. I don't really do it
Speaker 1: to sort of stay fit. I do it for fun
Speaker 1: because I enjoy it. But when I was trying to
Speaker 1: find what would be my sport or my activity, something
Speaker 1: that really and this sounds so silly and so high school,
Speaker 1: I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but so many of
Speaker 1: the things I tried out I felt uncomfortable because I
Speaker 1: didn't have the right the right accouterments, I guess I'll say.
Speaker 1: I remember I tried soul cycle, and you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of my friends do soul cycle. I'm not. I'm
Speaker 1: not sole cycle, but so many of the people who
Speaker 1: did it had the special shoes and the special like
Speaker 1: very specific kinds of athletic wear, and they just had
Speaker 1: a certain look that I, you know, did not have.
Speaker 1: You know, I showed up in you know, raggedy shorts
Speaker 1: and tank tap and it did make me feel uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: And I certainly like they sell clothing there, and I
Speaker 1: certainly couldn't have afforded, you know, the things they were hawking,
Speaker 1: but everyone, everyone seemed to have it. And so when
Speaker 1: I found the cycling program where everybody was wearing kind
Speaker 1: of whatever, it was sort of come as you are.
Speaker 1: And they did sell products, but they were cheaper and
Speaker 1: sort of they didn't look they had start to explain,
Speaker 1: but they didn't the things that they sold in the store.
Speaker 1: The gear just looked more nondescript. And I felt much
Speaker 1: more comfortable that you know. It just seemed to signal
Speaker 1: to me that it's okay if you don't have the
Speaker 1: right shoes, the right this, the right brand of that,
Speaker 1: you can still take part. And so I think that
Speaker 1: that I'm not that you brought that up, because that's
Speaker 1: so real that the need to buy certain things is
Speaker 1: not inclusive for everybody because not everybody can spend forty
Speaker 1: on a specific kind of shoe or what are you? Oh? Absolutely, um?
Speaker 1: And I remember I was someone who like went through
Speaker 1: puberty at eight, So there's pictures of me in school
Speaker 1: where everyone's like really short and I'm super monstrously tall. Um.
Speaker 1: And I just remember running in gym and I didn't
Speaker 1: have a sports bra and being so mortified by the
Speaker 1: whole thing. Um. So it is important. And your your
Speaker 1: boobs can break your clavical that was a fun fact
Speaker 1: I remember from the sports bra episode. So it's important.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad that it's becoming it's finally being taken
Speaker 1: seriously and becoming more accessible for people. I still have
Speaker 1: room for improvement always, but I'm glad we're moving in
Speaker 1: that way. Um. And there there have been kind of
Speaker 1: two things that have happened recently that have made me
Speaker 1: think about running. And one is that this year's Boston
Speaker 1: Marathon was a really to one. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of rain, high winds, it was cold. Um, But the
Speaker 1: show must go on. The race has never been canceled
Speaker 1: because of weather. And some people notice something interesting most years.
Speaker 1: Women traditionally have a higher dropout rate than than men,
Speaker 1: but this year, with this weather, men had higher dropout rates,
Speaker 1: and the dropout rate for men was up eighty percent
Speaker 1: from the previous year for a total of about five percent,
Speaker 1: and for women it was up only twelve percent for
Speaker 1: a total about three point eight um. And there are
Speaker 1: a lot of theories for why this is. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: that women have higher body fat so that you could
Speaker 1: withstand colder temperatures better. However, in two thousand and twelve,
Speaker 1: when the problem was the opposite, when the problem was
Speaker 1: blistering heat, women also had higher rates of finishing the race.
Speaker 1: So another theory is that has to do with psychology.
Speaker 1: Author of the book Endure, Alex Hutchison says that while
Speaker 1: dropping out may feel like a physical thing, like you
Speaker 1: physically can't take it anymore, it's almost always a decision
Speaker 1: you make, almost always, and it is. I remember when
Speaker 1: people would tell me, oh, you can, you can run
Speaker 1: a marathon, and in my head, I'm just like, there's
Speaker 1: absolutely no way, um. And they'd say, if you could
Speaker 1: run this distance, then you'll you'll be able to run
Speaker 1: a marathon. And I have found that they were correct.
Speaker 1: It's if you can conquer a certain amount of mileage,
Speaker 1: then like there's not it doesn't seem as big a difference,
Speaker 1: like twelve to fourteen to sixteen. It sounds ridiculous. I
Speaker 1: know what sounds ridiculous, but it doesn't sound ridiculous to
Speaker 1: me at all. Um. I've never run a marathon, and
Speaker 1: I cannot see myself ever doing it. Um that probably
Speaker 1: the biggest physical feat I've ever done was biking a century,
Speaker 1: which is a hundred miles. Um. I I didn't think
Speaker 1: I could do that, and I did it. Sort of. Uh,
Speaker 1: I'll say I did it some some if there are
Speaker 1: some people listening out there, they might push back on that.
Speaker 1: I'm going to say I did it. We'll just leave
Speaker 1: it at that. We won't go we won't get into
Speaker 1: the details. Um, but you're you. I think that you.
Speaker 1: I think you would be surprised what you can endure
Speaker 1: a lot of times. And I think the traditional wisdom
Speaker 1: is that women are are frail, are weak. But I
Speaker 1: love this other theory that you brought up that actually
Speaker 1: one of the differences between male and female, UM, running
Speaker 1: or big physical feats might just sort of be just
Speaker 1: how we make decisions differently, that men are more willing
Speaker 1: to engage in risk your behavior, so in this case,
Speaker 1: running fast at the beginning of a race and sort
Speaker 1: of not pacing themselves, But women might be more likely
Speaker 1: to think, Okay, I've got this long race, let me
Speaker 1: pace myself here, have a short burst here, you know,
Speaker 1: planning out how how you're going to make this seemingly
Speaker 1: impossible feat actually work. That that might be some of
Speaker 1: some of the theories are that that might be part
Speaker 1: of the difference between female and male decision making that
Speaker 1: plays out yeah um. Studies have shown that women pace
Speaker 1: themselves better throughout about nineteen better um and according to
Speaker 1: a study of thousands and thousands of racers, almost one
Speaker 1: hundred and thousand um that that they kept seeing that
Speaker 1: play out over and over, and the researchers found this
Speaker 1: held true in all age groups. Another study found that
Speaker 1: women were better at adapting their pace and shifting their
Speaker 1: goals mid race as compared to men. They kind of
Speaker 1: they would make this riskier choice at the beginning of
Speaker 1: a race, and then if they felt like they weren't
Speaker 1: going to succeed in what they wanted to succeed in,
Speaker 1: they were more likely to drop out where's women kind
Speaker 1: of a just as they go and it's more areas
Speaker 1: of gray. UM. So that was interesting. UM. As always
Speaker 1: you can take that with the with grains of salt.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things that play. UM. I just
Speaker 1: thought that was interesting. And another thing UM, I've been
Speaker 1: thinking about a lot lately is is harassment because I
Speaker 1: I remember so clearly this article I found UM and
Speaker 1: it had ten tips for running for men on one
Speaker 1: page and ten tips for running for women on one
Speaker 1: page and one page. The page for men it was
Speaker 1: like protein intake, change up your route, interval training, and
Speaker 1: for women the tips were don't run with headphones, don't
Speaker 1: wear a ponytail, never run alone, never run at night,
Speaker 1: carry your license so the authorities will be able to
Speaker 1: identify you if you're murdered. Damn, that's pretty that's a
Speaker 1: pretty stark difference. It really is. It really is, UM
Speaker 1: And it is something that like every time I feel
Speaker 1: a lot of us who do run, we take that
Speaker 1: into account, like what route am I going to take?
Speaker 1: Should I tell someone where I'm going? I know that
Speaker 1: for me personally, three different people have gifted me pepper
Speaker 1: spray running pepper spray. UM just because they know I
Speaker 1: run and they worry about it. UM survey survey of
Speaker 1: four thousand six and seventy runners, about two thousand, five
Speaker 1: hundred of which were female, conducted by run World, found
Speaker 1: that over of all runners and almost six of the
Speaker 1: respondents thirty or younger had experienced harassment while on a run,
Speaker 1: and of those harassers were men. Some reported being followed, intimidated, propositioned,
Speaker 1: and they a lot changed their route out of fear
Speaker 1: of assault. Sixty of women said that these fears kept
Speaker 1: them from running at night. Run with pepper spray switched
Speaker 1: to treadmills, but that they said that the harassment still
Speaker 1: continued indoors. A lot of women reported wearing clothes that
Speaker 1: were less comfortable to try to cut back on harassment. Well,
Speaker 1: of course it continues indoors because you have situations where
Speaker 1: creepy dudes will you know, record your butt on a
Speaker 1: treadmill without about your consent or knowledge, like yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's so. It pains me so much that even if
Speaker 1: you switch switch up your behavior to keep yourself safe,
Speaker 1: it doesn't it doesn't matter what you do. Will find
Speaker 1: a way s find away, Crue've signed away. I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 1: Jeff Goldbloom said that yeah, Um, and some of the
Speaker 1: things that these women in the survey reported were like
Speaker 1: very scary when men following them in cars, masturbating alongside them,
Speaker 1: calling out the window that they need to stop, stop
Speaker 1: running and to have sex with them. Um. The survey
Speaker 1: itself was in response to I believe it was three
Speaker 1: high profile murders of women while running, and um, they
Speaker 1: were separate instances, but they happened in close successions, so
Speaker 1: it kind of started this whole how safe is it
Speaker 1: for for women to run? And it is a self
Speaker 1: selecting study, and the chance of getting murdered while running
Speaker 1: is very small. You're likelier to get hit by a car,
Speaker 1: which has happened to me multiple times. Annie. I have
Speaker 1: to be honest, I do worry about you with running
Speaker 1: because I know that you're I hope that you don't
Speaker 1: find me saying this a touch accident prone. So I
Speaker 1: would be much more likely to givet you like a
Speaker 1: helmet than pepper spray. That would be a far wiser
Speaker 1: an appropriate gift. I have to say, my doctor has
Speaker 1: recommended that I wear a helmet at all times. It's
Speaker 1: just not useful practical in everyday life. Christmas is coming up,
Speaker 1: so I don't so keep that in mind. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is part of a larger societal problem, right, but
Speaker 1: it's something when I saw that article with the tips
Speaker 1: from men and women and I was just like, this
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. It's so backwards, like your tips for a
Speaker 1: run or to survive the run, like it's nothing about
Speaker 1: improving your performance or anything. And of course that is
Speaker 1: a stressor on on people who decide to to run. Um,
Speaker 1: but it is. It is a hobby that I, um
Speaker 1: really love and I'm excited about running the race. Uh
Speaker 1: uh nervous that excited? You gotta do you gotta do
Speaker 1: a report back to tell us how you did as
Speaker 1: comparatively to your ex boyfriend. Also, if he's listening, I
Speaker 1: want to get in his head. You're gonna choke out
Speaker 1: there and he's gonna and he's gonna wipe the floor
Speaker 1: with you. Dude, you are the best. I feel like
Speaker 1: you're like my hype person. Yes if I if I could,
Speaker 1: I would run alongside him, you know, distracting him and
Speaker 1: like screaming things just so you would win. I would
Speaker 1: I would bring the race in your favorite that I
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how much I appreciate that. UM,
Speaker 1: So we hope you enjoy this this update on running. Um,
Speaker 1: this episode that Kristen Caroline did. It's more of kind
Speaker 1: of the history of women running marathons. So yeah, please enjoy.
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff mom never told you. From House to
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Kristen and I'm Caroline. And before we go any further,
Speaker 1: this episode on women and marathons is owed to a listener,
Speaker 1: Scott Perry in Calgary. This one's for you. Scott Perry
Speaker 1: sent us an email saying, Hey, gals, guess what The
Speaker 1: Boston Marathon is rolling around April sixteen and it marks
Speaker 1: the fort anniversary of women being officially allowed to run
Speaker 1: in it. And so I forwarded the email to Caroline
Speaker 1: and said, Hey, Caroline, you know it's awesome. We have
Speaker 1: a fantastic listener named Scott who has fantastic idea about running.
Speaker 1: And then we talked about Scott for a while and
Speaker 1: how smart he was. Yeah, we were actually we were
Speaker 1: going to do the podcast originally on Scott, just about Scott,
Speaker 1: but we thought that could get creepy. Yes, Facebook profile
Speaker 1: was private, so we decided to go with Boston Marathon's
Speaker 1: a broader topic UM, and I'll kick things off with
Speaker 1: a little marathon anecdote. While I do jog um a
Speaker 1: couple of times a week, if I'm being good, I
Speaker 1: try to do it at least a couple of times
Speaker 1: a week. I'm not really a long distance runner. The
Speaker 1: only long distance marathon I have ever participated in was
Speaker 1: the Peachtree road Race, which is one of the largest
Speaker 1: ten caves in the world. There's something like fifty five
Speaker 1: thousand participants who run right past our building in fact
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, Georgia. And a few years ago, my
Speaker 1: then boyfriend and I decided that we wanted to run
Speaker 1: the road race. It was the fourth of July. It
Speaker 1: would be something kind of fun to do together. They're
Speaker 1: all these people. I was a recent um transplant to Atlanta,
Speaker 1: so we didn't really think about the fact that, hey,
Speaker 1: this spur of the moment idea means that we didn't
Speaker 1: have a number, and we didn't realize that. We we thought,
Speaker 1: you know, you could just you could just sort of
Speaker 1: jump on the course, you could just run it. Uh,
Speaker 1: there were so many other people who did have numbers.
Speaker 1: Would two people without a number really make a difference.
Speaker 1: So we took Martha the public transit down to the
Speaker 1: star of the race. The swarms of people. It was
Speaker 1: at the break of dawn. It was very eerie. It
Speaker 1: was actually kind of like zombie land out here because
Speaker 1: there were just people walking around and sort of next
Speaker 1: to nothing and running gear while the sun was rising.
Speaker 1: And ran into Sarah from stuff he missed in history class,
Speaker 1: who of course had a number like a proper a
Speaker 1: proper participant, and she immediately and gently informed us that
Speaker 1: we might want to watch our bags and keep a
Speaker 1: little profile because we really should not be on the
Speaker 1: course without numbers. Will you get thrown off? Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are people on their watching to see um few have
Speaker 1: a number or not. Well, is it is it to
Speaker 1: protect against like crazy people doing crazy stunts or is
Speaker 1: it just like there's already so many people there. We
Speaker 1: don't want unregistered runners. There were already so many people there,
Speaker 1: and especially for the really serious runners to go first
Speaker 1: or those time trials that they have to compete in
Speaker 1: other marathons, So you don't want random folks just mucking
Speaker 1: up the race course. But the good news is good
Speaker 1: news for me anyway, is that my boyfriend and I
Speaker 1: were able to run it anyway. And my favorite part
Speaker 1: was passing by a Catholic church where priests was throwing
Speaker 1: out holy water on the runners, so I like dodged
Speaker 1: over and I got sprinkled, and I really think that
Speaker 1: it helped me cross the finish line good. And you
Speaker 1: didn't melt or anything. I did not melt, even though
Speaker 1: I'm not Catholic, so hey, anything helps when you're running
Speaker 1: that long. I I I am a very loose jogger.
Speaker 1: I jogged sometimes when I feel like it, I get
Speaker 1: into periods of jogging. That's about it. I'm imagining you
Speaker 1: like running without using your arms for some reason, that's
Speaker 1: my my image of loose Johnny, just flailing your shoulders. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I thought it was funny that you mentioned
Speaker 1: that you and your boyfriend just like jumped in, because well,
Speaker 1: it's not funny because that's how women had to run
Speaker 1: marathons at first, because they just they weren't allowed, like
Speaker 1: flat out women were not allowed to register for marathons.
Speaker 1: I mean they could run, they could do what you
Speaker 1: guys did, and you know, be unofficial participants and not
Speaker 1: have their time count or anything. But they were not welcome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the thing is I was merely following in the footsteps
Speaker 1: of women like Roberta Gibb and Katherine Switzer in the
Speaker 1: Boston Marathon. Um, and since we kicked things off talking
Speaker 1: about the Boston Marathon, we should go ahead and mentioned
Speaker 1: that this race has been going on since eighteen nine
Speaker 1: seven and two thousand twelve were only at the anniversary
Speaker 1: of women being officially allowed to run. And like you
Speaker 1: hinted at earlier, Caroline, there were women who jumped into
Speaker 1: the phrase secretly in the Boston Marathon in nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 1: The first known woman to do this was Roberta Gibb,
Speaker 1: who had applied to running the Boston Marathon, but her
Speaker 1: application was rejected because women were not According to the
Speaker 1: official rules of amateur running at the time, women were
Speaker 1: not allowed to run that far, which is a marathon.
Speaker 1: We should go ahead and say is twenty six point
Speaker 1: two miles, which makes me tired to think about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have no design. I see people running. I know
Speaker 1: I have friends who just ran a half marathon. My
Speaker 1: roommate was part of that. He came home and I
Speaker 1: don't think he moved. I think you're flailing arms and
Speaker 1: the shoulders would be very tired by the end of that. Sure,
Speaker 1: probably throw something out of his socket, would um. But
Speaker 1: GiB wasn't trying to make a statement. She wasn't trying
Speaker 1: to break down barriers. She just wanted to run. She
Speaker 1: was a twenty three year old young Navy wife and um.
Speaker 1: She had watched the race in nineteen sixty four and
Speaker 1: pointed out that all she saw was people. She didn't
Speaker 1: take note of the fact that there were no women running.
Speaker 1: She just thought it was neat. She liked the type
Speaker 1: of people who participated, and so she wanted to get
Speaker 1: involved also, so in nineteen sixty six she she she
Speaker 1: goes to Boston and kind of hangs out on the
Speaker 1: sidelines like, oh, no, I'm just me. No, I'm just
Speaker 1: wearing shorts because it's March or April in Boston, you know, no,
Speaker 1: no problem, And she ended up jumping in as the
Speaker 1: runners came by. Yeah, there's a little bit of controversy
Speaker 1: about where she actually jumped in, whether or not she
Speaker 1: ran the entire course, or if she jumped in a
Speaker 1: little less conspicuous spot more than the in the middle
Speaker 1: of the marathon. But nevertheless, she crossed the finish line,
Speaker 1: ended up getting a time of three hours twenty one
Speaker 1: minutes forty seconds and finished not too bad, are out
Speaker 1: of five hundred. The next year, Katherine Switzer enters the race,
Speaker 1: and this is the story that has been circulating around
Speaker 1: blogs as this year as the Boston Marathon approaches, because
Speaker 1: there is photographic evidence of the race organizer, one of
Speaker 1: the organizers, Jocks Simple, trying to push Switzer off the
Speaker 1: race course, like literally literally off there, pushing her off physically. Um.
Speaker 1: She ended up getting into the race officially by applying
Speaker 1: as k V. Switzer, but she claims she's a little
Speaker 1: sneaky about this. She claims that, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I was just I was using my initials just in
Speaker 1: day to day business. But she also knew that if
Speaker 1: she registered as Catherine she would not be allowed to run, right,
Speaker 1: And she managed to avoid the pre race physical too
Speaker 1: by saying that she'd been cleared earlier, so she had
Speaker 1: a plan. She knew it was, she knew what was
Speaker 1: going on. And if you've seen pictures at all, if
Speaker 1: you follow any news about the race or know anything
Speaker 1: about running history, they're a lot of pictures circulating now too,
Speaker 1: of that of that period where this Jock Simple guy,
Speaker 1: this crotchety old Scottish man, tried to push her out
Speaker 1: of the race. And you can see where Tom Miller,
Speaker 1: Switzer's boyfriend at the time, who was a football player
Speaker 1: and a big dude, just like totally body checked him
Speaker 1: and pushed him off the off of his girlfriend. Well,
Speaker 1: the photos are somewhat disturbing because what had happened was
Speaker 1: that as she was running the race, the the media
Speaker 1: that was they had media trucks that were tracking the
Speaker 1: people running, and there was word that spread that there
Speaker 1: was a woman running. She's running along in this with
Speaker 1: the number the number important, with a kind of a
Speaker 1: floppy sweatsuit on, and so they start taking pictures of her,
Speaker 1: and this catches Jock simples attention and some of the
Speaker 1: media people start heckling Jock Simple, saying, hey, look, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a woman running in your race. And he
Speaker 1: was just incensed, specifically the fact that she had a number,
Speaker 1: and according to Switzer, he grabbed her and said, get
Speaker 1: the hell out of my race and give me those numbers.
Speaker 1: But like you said, her football boyfriend basically just tackled him,
Speaker 1: got him out of the way, and she kept running
Speaker 1: across the finish line with the time of four twenty yeah,
Speaker 1: which she admits is not the best time, but she
Speaker 1: said that she was determined to finish the race on
Speaker 1: her hands and knees if she had to just approve
Speaker 1: that a woman could, because she realized at that time
Speaker 1: how important this whole thing was. If she was like
Speaker 1: being physically pushed out of the race by one of
Speaker 1: its organizers, she just realized how important it was that
Speaker 1: her particip the patient be visible. Yeah. Sports Illustrated interviewed
Speaker 1: Jock Simple a couple of years after this incident, and
Speaker 1: he was completely unapologetic. He claimed that, you know, he
Speaker 1: was not motivated so much by getting a woman off
Speaker 1: the track, but as an unauthorized number holder to make
Speaker 1: up a phrase. Well, Switzer actually endured a lot of
Speaker 1: criticism for her hobby, which is running um back in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six, the year before the marathon, when she
Speaker 1: was training at Lynchburg College in Virginia, that you know,
Speaker 1: after the whole roberta GiB thing that had attracted the
Speaker 1: attention of the Associated Press who ran an article, and
Speaker 1: after the article ran, Switzer got a letter saying that
Speaker 1: God will strike you dead if she tried to run. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: being a runner training because she was training with the
Speaker 1: men's team, and so this attracted all sorts of negative attention.
Speaker 1: And I just can't I just can't imagine thinking that
Speaker 1: running with men as a woman is enough to get
Speaker 1: me struck down, smited, smoked, might be smoked, struck by lightning.
Speaker 1: I do think we should clarify that that. Switzer said
Speaker 1: that the negative attention at the time was not coming
Speaker 1: from the other male runners. The guys were fine with
Speaker 1: her running alongside them and probably thought it was cool.
Speaker 1: But she said that the real negativity came from race
Speaker 1: organizers and the media and athletic associations that were clinging
Speaker 1: to this notion that running long distances was bad for women.
Speaker 1: Bad And when I say bad, I mean physically bad. Um.
Speaker 1: And we should talk about a little bit earlier in
Speaker 1: the history of running, and especially in the Olympics, that,
Speaker 1: because of poor coaching styles, when women would run longer races,
Speaker 1: like there was a half mile in the Olympics and
Speaker 1: a number of women who competed in it actually collapsed
Speaker 1: before they crossed the finish line, be because they were
Speaker 1: exerting so much energy at the outset. They were completely
Speaker 1: exhausted by the end. Yeah, And there was just this
Speaker 1: general belief that any long distance running put too much
Speaker 1: of a strain on women. It interfered with their ability
Speaker 1: to get pregnant and have children, so that it would
Speaker 1: it would hurt your uterus to run well. And that
Speaker 1: was also connected with, um, some female runners complaining of
Speaker 1: irregular periods, so doctors assumed that by extension, if you're
Speaker 1: running a lot your periods are irregular, you must be
Speaker 1: damaging your uterus, and by God, you won't be able
Speaker 1: to have children. Right um. The website Run like a
Speaker 1: Girl film dot com. It's a it's it's based on
Speaker 1: the film Run Like a Girl. That's a pretty self
Speaker 1: explanatory right um. And they have a lot of running
Speaker 1: history on their website and uh. In women were allowed
Speaker 1: to compete in the Olympic track and field events, but
Speaker 1: because of their exhausted condition at the end of the
Speaker 1: eight final, the event was dropped until nineteen sixty. So
Speaker 1: apparently they looked so shabby at the end that people
Speaker 1: were like, whoa, whoa, how is your uterus? Do you
Speaker 1: need to sit down? Maybe we shouldn't do this don't
Speaker 1: run so far. And because of that, women were certainly
Speaker 1: barred from running twenty six point two miles, which is
Speaker 1: the official length of a marathon. But once Switzer competed
Speaker 1: um then in nineteen sixty nine, and a lot of
Speaker 1: this does happen. These barriers are being broken. At the
Speaker 1: Boston Marathon. We have Cambridge native Seremi Burman who won
Speaker 1: in the women's division. But if this was unofficial because
Speaker 1: women had not yet been invited, Yeah, In nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: Berman finished with a strong time of three hours, five
Speaker 1: minutes and seven seconds, at which point a reporter asked,
Speaker 1: why did you do it? And at the time she
Speaker 1: was steaming, like, are you kidding me? I just got
Speaker 1: this incredible time, and I ran and I did great,
Speaker 1: and your your question for me is why did I
Speaker 1: do it? And she just said that they were just
Speaker 1: so paid tronizing the reporters, the observers of the race.
Speaker 1: But now her attitude has changed a little bit about
Speaker 1: why they asked that question. Yeah. She talks a lot
Speaker 1: about how the headlines of the time would be like
Speaker 1: housewife running. There was always this had to be this
Speaker 1: juxtaposition of some kind of stereotypically, you know, feminine occupation
Speaker 1: with what at the time was a masculine pursuit of running,
Speaker 1: even though today women comprise I think it's fifty cent
Speaker 1: of competitors in road races UM. And then in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two, the Boston Marathon finally UM officially invites women
Speaker 1: to enter, and Nina Kusick wins for the women. And
Speaker 1: this is a funny little tidbit. Katherine Switzer ends up
Speaker 1: getting third in the women's but her trophy was broken.
Speaker 1: And when Jack Simple, the curmudgeon ly scott It, presents
Speaker 1: her with this broken trophy, he said that she deserved
Speaker 1: it broken. Yep. He said that he'd been mad at
Speaker 1: her for years, five years, that Jack Simple holds a grudge.
Speaker 1: He does, and he I there was an article that
Speaker 1: basically our interview with him a couple of years later
Speaker 1: where he basically was like, yeah, I'm mad about it.
Speaker 1: Still he wasn't he wasn't gonna let it go. Well,
Speaker 1: if you look at the photos of him when he's
Speaker 1: trying to push her off the track, there he has
Speaker 1: a crazed look in his eye, and when he's talking
Speaker 1: about that, it seems like because of that photographic evidence.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the sting was a little bit sharper. Yeah. Katherine
Speaker 1: Switzer in one interview did talk about how you could
Speaker 1: when her boyfriend hit him, you could you could hear
Speaker 1: like his body being shoved aside, like the hit was
Speaker 1: so hard. So maybe his maybe his pride was hurt
Speaker 1: in addition to his body when that happened. So in
Speaker 1: the buss SA marathon opens up to women, but the
Speaker 1: Olympics did not open up a women's marathon until the
Speaker 1: l A Games in nineteen eighty four, and they were
Speaker 1: still hung up. The i o C, the International Olympic Committee,
Speaker 1: was still hung up on that idea that running a
Speaker 1: long distance would injure women and especially their ability to
Speaker 1: have children. UM. But several studies would emerge, especially from
Speaker 1: an Atlanta physiologist, David Martin at Georgia State University, who
Speaker 1: found that UM, women's long distance running was just fine
Speaker 1: for them, and because of the way the female body
Speaker 1: stores fat, there was this notion that we might actually
Speaker 1: be better equipped for long distance running compared to men.
Speaker 1: And research like that was really crucial and convincing the
Speaker 1: i o C to allow women to run. I mean
Speaker 1: it's I think it's interesting that this body, this governing organization,
Speaker 1: had to be really convinced that women could participate. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean we could we could spin it at a
Speaker 1: positive light and say, well, that's good that they were
Speaker 1: looking out for what at the time was maybe the
Speaker 1: best for women. If there was if if medical knowledge
Speaker 1: had not figured out what was going on inside of
Speaker 1: women's bodies, and maybe they just thought women really weren't
Speaker 1: capable of it. Yeah, but I mean as training, as
Speaker 1: training has improved, women have obviously shown that they're capable
Speaker 1: of achieving good times and marathons and not passing out.
Speaker 1: But here is the question. When it comes to men
Speaker 1: running women running, will we ever catch up to the guys?
Speaker 1: Not exactly. There's a Time magazine article from two thousand
Speaker 1: eight where Tim Noaks, a professor of exercise and sports
Speaker 1: science at the University of Cape Town, not that whole
Speaker 1: fat store theory. You know that women have more fuel
Speaker 1: to propel them in a in a long long distance race. Um.
Speaker 1: He says that there is a lot to do with
Speaker 1: weight when comparing men and women and testosterone and muscle. Yes,
Speaker 1: if you, um, if you compare male and female just
Speaker 1: recreational runners, not people who would be competing in the Olympics.
Speaker 1: The guys are about twenty two pounds heavier than the women.
Speaker 1: So if you look at wreck runners, that fat store
Speaker 1: idea might hold some more sway because women are lighter
Speaker 1: and they have these a longer term energy stores, whereas
Speaker 1: men with higher muscle mass can burn calories quicker. But
Speaker 1: it's for those those short, shorter bursts of energy. But
Speaker 1: Noakes says that the world record marathon runners of each
Speaker 1: gender are very close and weight. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: look at those runners, they are paired down to there's
Speaker 1: not these single ounce of body fat on them. And
Speaker 1: he says, um that if you don't match for weight,
Speaker 1: then yeah, women get the advantage. But once you match
Speaker 1: for weight, men still run about ten percent faster and
Speaker 1: it has to do with higher levels of testosterone that
Speaker 1: builds up the muscle that gets your foot off the
Speaker 1: ground as quickly as possible. Right, So he's basically saying,
Speaker 1: you know, when you look at just a general group
Speaker 1: of runners, whether it's in a marathon or a five
Speaker 1: k or whatever, um, a woman running next to a
Speaker 1: bigger man is going to be able to move that
Speaker 1: mass around faster because she's lighter. So she might get
Speaker 1: a better time. But when you when you have runners
Speaker 1: of about the same weight a man and a woman,
Speaker 1: the man will propel himself faster. Yeah, from any distance
Speaker 1: between a hundred meters and a thousand kilometers, women are
Speaker 1: consistently nine to eleven percent slower than men, So chances
Speaker 1: are women are not going to catch up to men
Speaker 1: on the race. But that does not mean that women
Speaker 1: have not been getting faster times right. A two thousand
Speaker 1: Duke study looked at women's increasing participation and their increasing speed,
Speaker 1: both in running and in swimming, and they point out
Speaker 1: that before the seventies, few women ran for recreation, and
Speaker 1: amateur regulations on competitive racing barred them from distances longer
Speaker 1: than four kilometers, which we've touched on, and they have
Speaker 1: found that as women's participation in sports, not just running,
Speaker 1: has dramatically increased over the past century, the disparities and
Speaker 1: performance have decreased because women are being trained better than
Speaker 1: they were in the past, but nevertheless you still see
Speaker 1: a pretty big gender gap. They point out that the
Speaker 1: women's hundred meter world records set um and this was
Speaker 1: back in the year two thousands, so that might have
Speaker 1: been broken since then. But they say that it's about
Speaker 1: the same as a men's record for a hundred meters
Speaker 1: at seventy five years earlier. But I mean, nevertheless, if
Speaker 1: you chart the UM world records of men's running versus
Speaker 1: women's running, women's times have decreased at a faster rate
Speaker 1: in the past forty years, and men's just because our
Speaker 1: participation has increased exponentially compared to them, because we were
Speaker 1: not previously allowed to run very far. Yeah, and talking
Speaker 1: about participation, we should probably look at why people are participating, uh,
Speaker 1: and competing in these in these crazy races that I
Speaker 1: won't even watch because they exhaust me. Why would you
Speaker 1: want to run twenty six miles. It's like that Brian
Speaker 1: Reagan bit where he's talking about like all those iron
Speaker 1: Man type competitions and he's like, I'm sure you don't
Speaker 1: have to do this. I always want to say that
Speaker 1: to runners, like you don't. You can come inside and
Speaker 1: have a sandwich. I can just drive you. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: on my way. Yeah, that's gonna be a short drive,
Speaker 1: like twenty minutes. UM study looked at people's motivations for
Speaker 1: running their first marathons and found that there are some
Speaker 1: common reasons for men and women, and those are to
Speaker 1: finish the race in a certain time, to feel proud
Speaker 1: of myself, and to improve my health. They found that
Speaker 1: men were more likely to provide reasons to do with
Speaker 1: achievement and competition, whereas women were more likely motivated by
Speaker 1: psychological reasons such as to improve mood. But we should
Speaker 1: also point out that the study author did not think
Speaker 1: that you could extrapolate that data to say that men
Speaker 1: are inherently more competitive than women, but that maybe this
Speaker 1: is an opportunity for all of us to expand our
Speaker 1: goals for running, whether it be to just cross the
Speaker 1: finish line and feel great about doing it, or cross
Speaker 1: the finish line in a certain amount of time, or
Speaker 1: for me sneak onto a course and cross the finish
Speaker 1: line without getting caught. Right, and they do saide an
Speaker 1: author um in this article that talks about the study.
Speaker 1: They said an author who says that it doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter what your motivation is, whether it's I'm going to
Speaker 1: beat everyone and get the best time in the world,
Speaker 1: or I want to slim down and get healthy. You
Speaker 1: should just have a reason that works for you. Like
Speaker 1: my friend Nolan tells me this all the time, Like
Speaker 1: when I'm complaining about how I don't run, and he's like, well,
Speaker 1: you should run and get in shape and stuff, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, but I don't even I just go
Speaker 1: home and get my pajamas. And he just says that
Speaker 1: it's important just to have a reason to run, whether
Speaker 1: it's I want to run so that I can get
Speaker 1: good enough to be in a marathon, or I want
Speaker 1: to run to get healthy and feel better about myself. Well,
Speaker 1: I will tell you this if you would like a
Speaker 1: pajama related excuse to run. Anytime I run, I sleep
Speaker 1: so much better that night. Yeah, it's true. So it
Speaker 1: will make your pajama ton more enjoyable, more enjoyable, and
Speaker 1: more worthwhile, so that I would encourage you to run
Speaker 1: for the sake of your of your pajamas UM and
Speaker 1: also joined the legions of women who are running like
Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier. Is this coming from Running USA dot org.
Speaker 1: More women compete in road races than men do now UM.
Speaker 1: According to their two thousand eleven data, in five ks,
Speaker 1: ten ks, and half marathons, women made up a majority
Speaker 1: of the competitors, but still more men do run the
Speaker 1: full marathon than women. Fifty nine percent of men versus women,
Speaker 1: And I thought it was interesting they break down the
Speaker 1: demographics of these runners, these long distance runners. Who are
Speaker 1: these people? And they looked at the women who participate,
Speaker 1: and by a long shot, the women. These women runners
Speaker 1: are college educated, have earned a college diploma. As a
Speaker 1: pest to the general population, which is something like a
Speaker 1: quarter like um, they tend to be affluent, and their
Speaker 1: active participants who train year round and on average, bought
Speaker 1: three point two pairs of running shoes in the past year.
Speaker 1: And I think I've had my running shoes for about
Speaker 1: four years. I'm not one of these people. But you
Speaker 1: can be, Caroline, you can be Yeah. I guess I've
Speaker 1: just been busy. I don't have time to be running
Speaker 1: for four hours. Well, hey, why don't we? Why don't we?
Speaker 1: In this podcast? With one final fun fact as to
Speaker 1: why why do we call it a marathon in the
Speaker 1: first place. This was one thing that popped up in
Speaker 1: my head as we were researching this. I just to
Speaker 1: know where this whole marathon and why is it twenty
Speaker 1: six miles? Uh? For you fact nerds out there like me,
Speaker 1: this is coming from Live Science Marathon. The word marathon
Speaker 1: comes from a place called Marathon in Greece. It's a station.
Speaker 1: It is not the gas station Marathon. It is a
Speaker 1: city in Greece. And the origin of the marathon relates
Speaker 1: back to the founder of the International Olympic Committee. While
Speaker 1: he was planning for the first Olympics, he came up
Speaker 1: with this twenty It was about twenty five miles at
Speaker 1: the time, twenty five mile run. Um in relation to
Speaker 1: this chapter from Greek history with the run of a
Speaker 1: soldier from a battlefield near the town of Marathon, Greece
Speaker 1: to Athens in four ninety BC in order to announce
Speaker 1: to the Athenians that they the Greeks, had defeated the Persians.
Speaker 1: And apparently though the soldier delivered the message of victory
Speaker 1: and then he died. Well, good for him, I mean,
Speaker 1: at least he made it. I would have dropped dead
Speaker 1: way before that. He was clearly running very fast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of the twenty five entrance in that very
Speaker 1: first marathon in the very first Olympics, in only nine
Speaker 1: runners hit the finish line. And then you have the
Speaker 1: Boston Marathon that was started soon thereafter, I believe in
Speaker 1: the following year. Actually, um as a directly related to
Speaker 1: the Olympics. So there's your marathon knowledge. Now. I know
Speaker 1: that we have only focused on marathon running. There's a
Speaker 1: lot more running topics that we could cover, but we
Speaker 1: figured that that would be biting off more than we
Speaker 1: could chew in one podcast. So for now, let us
Speaker 1: know your thoughts on women and marathons. Oh and by
Speaker 1: the way, I have never snuck into another race. If
Speaker 1: I and if I run the Peach Tree this year,
Speaker 1: I will do it with a number, so you know
Speaker 1: I there we go. It was. It was ignorance on
Speaker 1: my part. Race organizers of the world can rest easy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want I don't want some racing police at
Speaker 1: my door after this podcast because exist yes in my mind. Well,
Speaker 1: let us know your stories about running mom stuff at
Speaker 1: Discovery dot Com is email address you can send it to.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, we've got a couple emails here
Speaker 1: to share. This first one is from Chelsea in relation
Speaker 1: to our Richest Women in the World podcast and uh,
Speaker 1: at one point we made what she called a snarky
Speaker 1: little quip about John Walton's kit built plane crash. She writes,
Speaker 1: I understand the confusion, but I wanted to clear up
Speaker 1: about kitplane and experimental aircraft. Experimental aircraft is a name
Speaker 1: that is attached to any plane that is not built
Speaker 1: in a factory. My dad has been working on a
Speaker 1: kit plane for more than half my life. The point
Speaker 1: of building a plane yourself is not to save money
Speaker 1: and cut corners, thereby producing a slip shot or subpar product.
Speaker 1: These planes are a labor of love. Some planes maybe
Speaker 1: low quality, but one should not assume that all such
Speaker 1: planes are unsafe, are less airworthy. I've had to explain
Speaker 1: to so many people that yes, he's building a plane, no,
Speaker 1: not a model, and yes the kind of people actually writed.
Speaker 1: He has put an intense amount of love, craftsmanship's stubbornness,
Speaker 1: and plane an whole retention into his plane. I'm crazy
Speaker 1: proud of him and want others to know that a
Speaker 1: home built plane is nothing to fear, especially if you
Speaker 1: know that it was made by a true engineer. That's great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm glad she informed us of that, because I, like
Speaker 1: probably many people, had this idea of a kit that
Speaker 1: was not as safe. I was imagining just like a
Speaker 1: like an inflatable plane. Yeah, well that would be dangerous
Speaker 1: for sure. Okay. This email is from Anson who is
Speaker 1: writing about our women pilot episode. I am writing from
Speaker 1: yellow Knife, Northwest Territories, which was recently voted as the
Speaker 1: most female friendly airport in the world. This is a
Speaker 1: result of an initiative called Girls Fly Too, started by
Speaker 1: a helicopter pilot at Trinity Helicopters here in yellow Knife.
Speaker 1: She wanted to fly five hundred young women and girls
Speaker 1: in one day three weeks ago. The event took place
Speaker 1: under sunny skies and over four girls between ages seven
Speaker 1: and twenty two were flown. A friend who took her
Speaker 1: thirteen year old daughter reports that her daughter was thrilled
Speaker 1: and now talks of nothing else than becoming a helicopter pilot.
Speaker 1: I grew up around aviation and am now involved in
Speaker 1: air traffic survey that services with nav Canada, Canada's provider
Speaker 1: of a T C and a T S. I talked
Speaker 1: to many many female pilots on the radio. Maybe about
Speaker 1: a third of all my contacts are female and increase
Speaker 1: since I started in this business ten years ago. The
Speaker 1: future is very bright for women who want to become
Speaker 1: pilots and organizations like the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, the
Speaker 1: ninety nine, the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association and the
Speaker 1: Experimental Aircraft Association are working hard at getting out the
Speaker 1: message that girls can fly too. Excellent, so thanks to
Speaker 1: everyone who's written in mom Stuff at discovery dot com,
Speaker 1: where you can send your letters. You can also find
Speaker 1: us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at mom
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast, and there are a ton of articles all
Speaker 1: about running at our home website, it's how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,
Speaker 1: Stuff from the Future. Join how stuf Work staff as
Speaker 1: we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
Speaker 1: The how stup Works iPhone app has arrived. Download it
Speaker 1: today on iTunes.