Jessica S. McKenzie

It’s Boston Marathon Monday for those who observe and in honor of the occasion I thought I’d share the Boston marathon story that I’ve never quite gotten over.

Maybe you’ve seen these photographs:

They show Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon as a registered runner in 1967, being attacked on the course by race manager Jock Semple, who tried the rip her number off because he didn’t want women in his race. Switzer’s boyfriend, Tom Miller, fought Semple off, allowing Switzer to keep running and finish the race. That’s the short version.

But the longer version, which I first encountered in the book Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, is that shortly after this unfortunate and now infamous encounter, Switzer’s boyfriend turned on her.

Miller was a former All American football player and hammer thrower with Olympic aspirations. He had decided last minute to run Boston with Switzer, her coach Arnie Briggs, and John Leonard, who was on the Syracuse cross-country team that Switzer and Briggs (a 50-year-old university mailman) unofficially trained with. As Switzer recalls in her memoir, Marathon Woman, Miller thought he didn’t need to train because “if a girl can run a marathon, I can run a marathon.” Right.

Anyway.

The confrontation came early—around mile four. Switzer writes:

Moments later, I heard the scraping noise of leather shoes coming up fast behind me, an alien and alarming sound amid the muted thump thumping of rubber-soled running shoes. When a runner hears that kind of noise, it’s usually danger—like hearing a dog’s paws on the pavement. Instinctively I jerked my head around quickly and looked square into the most vicious face I’d ever seen. A big man, a huge man, with bared teeth was set to pounce, and before I could react he grabbed my shoulder and flung me back, screaming, “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers!” Then he swiped down my front, trying to rip off my bib number, just as I leapt backward from him. He missed the numbers, but I was so surprised and frightened that I slightly wet my pants and turned to run…

…The bottom was dropping out of my stomach; I had never felt such embarrassment and fear. I’d never been manhandled, never even spanked as a child, and the physical power and swiftness of the attack stunned me. I felt unable to flee, like I was rooted there, and indeed I was, because the man, this Jock guy, had me by the shirt. Then a flash of orange flew past and hit Jock with a cross-body block. It was Big Tom, in the orange Syracuse sweatshirt. There was a thud—whoomph!—and Jock was airborne. He landed on the roadside like a pile of wrinkled clothes.

That moment of aggressive gallantry was what was immortalized on film, and in legend. But a little while later, after Switzer, Briggs, and Leonard had gotten back into a steady rhythm, Miller changed his tune, angrily blaming Switzer for his attack on the race official, which he now worried would jeopardize his chances at going to the Olympics.

Switzer again:

I felt really sad, but I was angry, too. “I didn’t hit the official, you hit the official, Tom.” I said it quietly. I thought it totally crass of him to pick a fight in public with me, his steady girl¬friend. Everybody looked embarrassed.

“Oh great, yeah, thanks a lot for nothing. I should never have come to Boston,” he answered loudly.

“It was your idea to come to Boston!” I shot back.

But with that Tom ripped the numbers off the front and back of his sweatshirt, tore them up and threw them to the pavement, and shouted, “I am never going to make the Olympic team and it’s all your fault!” Then he lowered his voice and hissed, “Besides that, you run too slow anyway.” And with that, he took off and disappeared among the runners in front.

I couldn’t help it. I felt so ashamed, I was crying. Again Tom had convinced me I was just a girl, a jogger, and a no-talent like me now had bumbled the Olympic Dream out of his life. I thought I was a serious girlfriend to him, and so I guessed that was over, too. It was a helluva race so far, that’s for sure, and we still had over 20 miles to run.

All that by mile SIX?

This, to me, is even more devastating and horrific than the fact Semple tried to end Switzer’s historic race in the first place. Jock Semple was a stranger and an old man in 1967—44 years older than 20-year-old Switzer—and famously protective of the Boston Marathon, well-known for attacking “non-serious” runners racing Boston. (In 1957, he narrowly avoided arrest for tackling a runner wearing snorkler fins and a “grotesque” mask.) I mean, I find that behavior and attitude abhorrent, but—for Switzer to be betrayed by a misogynistic boyfriend mid-race, for him to attack her abilities and blame her for his own actions. That’s just so much worse!

And then. AND THEN!!! The man had the NERVE to ask Switzer and her crew to WALK WITH HIM FOR A BIT after they caught him around mile 13. CAN YOU IMAGINE??

And when Switzer said no, he screamed after her: “I’d never leave you!”

Switzer, Briggs, and Leonard crossed the finish line around four hours and 20 minutes. (Miller also managed to finish, over an hour later.)

Because of Switzer, the Amateur Athletic Union officially banned women from competing in races against men. Women weren’t officially allowed to race Boston until 1972, as long as they met the men’s qualifying time of 3:30. Switzer was one of eight women to enter, and placed third.

Switzer and Semple eventually overcame their differences. “Even old Jock Semple and I became the best of friends,’’ Switzer told a reporter in 2015. “It took a long time: six years. But we became best of friends.”

It gives me the opposite of pleasure to write this, but according to Wikipedia, Switzer married Tom Miller in 1968.

They divorced in 1973.

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reading list

I came across some wild and fascinating archival reporting while writing the above. First, if you want to know more about Switzer’s historic race, a hefty excerpt from her memoir can be found here. There’s also a profile of Jock Semple, “Angry Overseer Of The Marathon” from a 1968 issue of Sports Illustrated (which inaccurately reported that Switzer “crashed the Boston Marathon, an event for men only, having obtained an entry number through chicanery”).

Also, a look at the steps the Boston Marathon organizers ARE taking to reduce their climate and environmental footprint (like composting water cups) and ARE NOT taking (like letting participants opt-out of race shirts). (Sabrina Shankman for the Boston Globe)

bad weather

• For a brief while my TikTok FYP was all videos off ice-laden trees snapping in half after a devastating ice storm in Michigan, which is thought to have damaged millions of trees, which could make wildfire seasons worse in coming years. Impacts of the storm will be felt across the state for 40 to 50 years. (Jesse Ferrell for AccuWeather)

palette cleanser

• For my latest Aviary column I interviewed Rosalie Haizlett about “Wildwing Triptych,” a series of close-up, detailed watercolor portraits of bird wings. “The whole goal of this little series was to showcase really common birds that we might often ignore, or underappreciate, in a new way,” she told me. “I wanted to reclaim the delight that I used to feel when I saw a cardinal show up at my bird feeder.” After our conversation, Rosalie realized my name sounded familiar and told me she was a Pinch of Dirt reader, which made me so happy. I figure if I’m somehow reaching the kind of artists being commissioned for their bird art by Audubon magazine, I must be doing something right? (Yours truly for Audubon)