Breaking into the Marathon: Women's Distance Running as Political Activism

“It’s sort of funny,” mused the editors of Runner’s World magazine in 1972. “While AAU officials sit around conference tables thinking up reasons why women shouldn’t be running long races, the women themselves are out on the roads proving most of those theories wrong.” At the time, the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), which governed U.S. track and field, had yet to authorize race distances of more than ten miles for women. Even so, a number of women “crashed” men’s events between 1959 and 1972, risking ridicule, penalty, and their safety to complete the 26.2-mile race.

Based on oral history interviews with twelve women who infiltrated male-only events, as well as media coverage and organizational records, this project explores a unique process by which women gained access to sport: they showed up and competed. Because marathon routes take runners through public streets, race organizers could only bar women’s official entries, not from running the same route at the same time as the men’s race. As one woman remarked, “there was no law against somebody going out for a run.” The visibility of their accomplishments performed important cultural work and challenged longstanding beliefs about women’s physical and psychological capacities. As a result, the rebellious runners not only politicized marathons by claiming their right to pound the pavement of public roads, they also “asserted new ways for women to move through the public world” (Enke, 2007, 21).