Firsts: Kathrine Switzer

The purpose of this post, as well as several other posts to come, is to give a shout out to some incredible women who have achieved some really big "firsts" for women.  In this post I will be talking a little bit about Kathrine Switzer.

Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to run a marathon.  She was told that a marathon was too great of a distance to run for a "fragile women".  She didn't believe that it was too much for a woman and so she trained hard and entered the 1967 Boston Marathon as a numbered entry.  She entered under the gender neutral name of K. V. Switzer; even though she has always done this and this was in no way used to fool any officials, it still fooled officials and that is how she was allowed to enter.

During the race, race official Jock Semple tried to stop Switzer from running by trying to push her off the course and grab her bib off of her shirt.  Switzer's boyfriend who was also running the race saw this and shoved the race official to the ground.  Switzer finished the race and proved to everyone that a woman can do anything a man can do.  Five years later women were officially allowed to run in marathons.

Switzer believed in her herself and showed everyone that just because a man says you can't because you are a woman doesn't mean that you actually can't.  You can do anything you set you mind to.  Be unstoppable like Kathrine Switzer and just keep moving forward.