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Speaker 1: Pushkin. Today, you're about to hear a rerun of one

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Speaker 1: of our classic episodes about some truly heroic figures in

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Speaker 1: women's distance running. I loved writing this episode. It's a

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Speaker 1: quirky one and a favorite, but lately it's taken on

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Speaker 1: a new meaning for me. That's because in a few days,

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Speaker 1: on the twenty sixth of April, I'm about to take

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Speaker 1: on by far, the biggest running challenge of my life,

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Speaker 1: the London Marathon. Training for it has been hard, really hard,

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Speaker 1: and this story has made me think differently about endurance, courage,

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Speaker 1: and what it means to keep going. I'm also running

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Speaker 1: for a cause that means a great deal to me.

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Speaker 1: I'm raising money for the Teenage Cancer Trust in memory

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Speaker 1: of my cousin who died last year from cancer. She

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Speaker 1: was twenty. So if you'd like to support me, and

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Speaker 1: more importantly, support the Teenage Cancer Trust, I'd be enormously grateful.

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Speaker 1: We'll put a link in the show notes. It's TinyURL

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Speaker 1: dot com slash Harford Marathon. But in any case, thank

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Speaker 1: you for listening, and I hope you enjoy this classic

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Speaker 1: episode of cautionary tales. Run Switzer Run Jasmine Paris had

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Speaker 1: sworn she'd never attempt the Spine Race. She was a

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Speaker 1: champion long distance runner, but the Spine Race was something else.

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Speaker 1: Two hundred and sixty eight miles up the Pennine Way

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Speaker 1: the spine of England, carrying your bedding and all your

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Speaker 1: food and anything else you might need on your back,

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Speaker 1: Jasmin Paris have never raced over such a long distance.

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Speaker 1: The Spine Race is held in January, when it's dark

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Speaker 1: for sixteen hours a day. It's cold enough that the

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Speaker 1: route is often covered with snow, but not quite cold

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Speaker 1: enough to stay dry. Everything everything gets wet. It's easy

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Speaker 1: to lose your way as you wind through and over

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Speaker 1: the hills and moorlands of northern England, especially if you're

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Speaker 1: running at night. The race sounds hard, and in practice

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Speaker 1: it's nearly impossible. The first year it was held in

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Speaker 1: twenty twelve, eleven competitors tried their luck. Only three finished.

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Speaker 1: The fastest took nearly a week. The race doesn't include

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Speaker 1: enforced rest breaks, so if you keep running while others

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Speaker 1: are eating or sleeping, you can gain an advantage. If

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Speaker 1: you can keep going. One runner described the effects of

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Speaker 1: sleep deprivation. I was totally confused. I didn't know where

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Speaker 1: I was, what I was doing, and I didn't know

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Speaker 1: I was taking part in this event. I simply followed

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Speaker 1: the footprints in the snow ahead of me. It slowly

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Speaker 1: dawned on me what I was doing, and I repeated

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Speaker 1: to myself a few times. The Spine Race. The Spine Race,

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Speaker 1: at least Jasmine Paris was used to sleep deprivation. She

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Speaker 1: had a one year old daughter, she was still breastfeeding

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Speaker 1: and planned to pump milk during rest stops. This was

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Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, at which time the race was a firm

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Speaker 1: fixture in the ultramarathon calendar. There were more than a

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Speaker 1: hundred entrants, each with a GPS tracker and an emergency

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Speaker 1: button to summon help. In the half darkness of half

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Speaker 1: past eight the morning of Sunday, the thirteenth of January,

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Speaker 1: the contestants lined up. Some of them had finished the

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Speaker 1: race again and again, such as the twenty thirteen winner

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Speaker 1: Eugenie Rossello Sole or the coarse record holder Ian Keith.

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Speaker 1: Both were favorites to win. Others had failed to finish

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Speaker 1: before but had come back to try again. The Spine

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Speaker 1: Race is brutal. Anyone man or woman coarse record holder

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Speaker 1: or breastfeeding mum. Anyone can qualify to start, but that

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Speaker 1: doesn't mean everyone is going to make it to the finish.

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Speaker 1: I'm Tim Harford and you're listening to cautionary tales for

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Speaker 1: sheer myth making about distance running. You can't beat the marathon.

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Speaker 1: After the Greeks unexpectedly smashed an invading Persian army at

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Speaker 1: the Battle of Marathon, a chap called Philippides ran twenty

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Speaker 1: six miles to Athens with the good news, and then,

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Speaker 1: so the story goes, collapsed and darked. Thus began the

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Speaker 1: legend of the marathon. This is a race so grueling,

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Speaker 1: a challenge so overwhelming that it could literally kill you.

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Speaker 1: The idea of the marathon as the ultimate test of

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Speaker 1: human endurance was embellished still further in the London Olympics

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Speaker 1: of nineteen oh eight, when a little Italian pastry chef

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Speaker 1: by the name of Durando Pietri entered the stadium for

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Speaker 1: the final lap with a comfortable lead. He stopped as

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Speaker 1: if stunned by the cheering, and began to stagger towards

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Speaker 1: the finish line, falling, blacking out, rousing himself and staggering

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Speaker 1: forward again. The creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan

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Speaker 1: Doyle was on hand to describe the scenes. It is

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Speaker 1: horrible and yet fascinating, this struggle between a set purpose

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Speaker 1: and an utterly exhausted frame. Pietry kept going and falling

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Speaker 1: and rising again. He was right in front of Doyle

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Speaker 1: when he fell for what seemed the last time. Amid

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Speaker 1: stooping figures and grasping hands. I caught a glimpse of

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Speaker 1: the haggard yellow face, the glazed expressionless eyes, the long

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Speaker 1: black hair streaked across the brow. Surely he is done now,

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Speaker 1: he cannot rise again. And rise again he did, with

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Speaker 1: the assistance of numerous onlookers, his final desperate stagger across

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Speaker 1: the finish line immortalized by the camera. Pietry was of

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Speaker 1: course disqualified for being helped to finish, and the legend

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Speaker 1: of the horrors of the marathon only grew. Philippides and

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Speaker 1: Dorando Pietri were, of course men. Women weren't allowed to

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Speaker 1: compete in the first Olympics, let alone in the marathon.

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Speaker 1: If it could kill a man, can you imagine what

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Speaker 1: it would do to the fragile frame of a woman.

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Speaker 1: The International Olympic Committee were reluctant to let women compete

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Speaker 1: in any events at all, and when they were finally

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Speaker 1: persuaded to admit female athletes in nineteen twenty eight, the

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Speaker 1: longest women's race was eight hundred meters. It was a disaster.

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Speaker 1: The newspapers of the day reported the disturbing scenes the

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Speaker 1: New York Evening Post. Below us on the cinderpath were

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Speaker 1: eleven wretched women, five of whom dropped out before the finish,

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Speaker 1: while five collapsed after reaching the tape. Only six out

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Speaker 1: of eleven finishers. That's nearly as bad as the first

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Speaker 1: Spine race. The Chicago Tribune Une added that one finisher

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Speaker 1: collapsed into unconsciousness and required medical attention. A press syndicate

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Speaker 1: reporter commented it was not a very edifying spectacle to

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Speaker 1: see a group of fine girls running themselves into a

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Speaker 1: state of exhaustion. Other writers described the race as a

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Speaker 1: disgrace or dangerous, or opined that two hundred meters was

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Speaker 1: surely the maximum distance a woman could attempt without premature

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Speaker 1: aging and damage to her reproductive capacity. But this is all,

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Speaker 1: of course nonsense, not just the stuff about damage to

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Speaker 1: reproductive capacity, all of it. There weren't eleven women in

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Speaker 1: the race, there were nine. Not only did the gold medalist,

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Speaker 1: Lena Radkeerbatchawer, break the world record, but so did the

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Speaker 1: silver and bronze medalists and the three women behind them.

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Speaker 1: Which is, I suppose what happens when an event doesn't

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Speaker 1: have made any precedents. Nobody dropped out and nobody needed

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Speaker 1: a doctor no matter. Rather than celebrating the greatest women's

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Speaker 1: middle distance race in history, the pundits wrote whatever sensationalized

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Speaker 1: nonsense they felt like writing. The International Olympic Committee used

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Speaker 1: the fuss as an excuse to keep the women's eight

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Speaker 1: hundred meters out of the Olympics for the next three decades.

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Speaker 1: The Spine Race starts with a steep scramble uphill, and

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Speaker 1: at first there was a group of contenders, all moving together,

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Speaker 1: Eugenie Rossello, sole Ian Keith, Jasmine Paris and a few others.

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Speaker 1: At the top was the confusing and directionless peat moorland

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Speaker 1: of kinder Scout, the highest area in the peak district.

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Speaker 1: Eugenie made a break and accelerated off into the mist.

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Speaker 1: There days of running ahead of them, and the rest

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Speaker 1: of the group felt confident that they'd reeled him in

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Speaker 1: over time. It was tough going rain, a strong headwind,

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Speaker 1: a difficult terrain, and nearly fifty miles to the first checkpoint.

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Speaker 1: By the time they arrived, Paris and Keith had court

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Speaker 1: so let and all three had broken away from the field.

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Speaker 1: They unpacked food from their rucksacks, shoveling whatever they could

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Speaker 1: manage into their mouths. Jasmine Paris took a few minutes

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Speaker 1: to express some breast milk she really didn't fancy developing mastitis,

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Speaker 1: and then the three of them headed out together into

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Speaker 1: the darkness. The distance to the next checkpoint sixty one miles.

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Speaker 1: If women couldn't be allowed to run eight hundred meters

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Speaker 1: until nineteen sixty, you can imagine what the male dominated

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Speaker 1: athletic establishment of the nineteen sixties thought of the idea

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Speaker 1: of women running a marathon. But there were a few independent,

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Speaker 1: spirited women who liked to run. Then, naturally enough, their

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Speaker 1: thoughts turned to that iconic distance. One of those women

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Speaker 1: was Catherine Switzer. As a girl, she told her father

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Speaker 1: she wanted to be a cheerleader. You don't want to

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Speaker 1: be a cheerleader, honey, he told her. Cheerleaders cheer for

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Speaker 1: other people. You want people to cheer for you. He

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Speaker 1: encouraged her to run a mile each day to get

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Speaker 1: fit for sports, and she did. She became a journalism

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Speaker 1: student at Syracuse, where there were no women's sports teams

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Speaker 1: at all, so she asked to train with a men's

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Speaker 1: cross country team. Sure, said the head coach, and then

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Speaker 1: she heard him laughing with the other coaches behind her back.

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Speaker 1: That only made her more determined. More encouraging was volunteer

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Speaker 1: coach Arnie Briggs, the university mailman and, at fifty years

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Speaker 1: of age, the veteran of fifteen Boston marathons. He was

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Speaker 1: full of stories about the classic marathon, which had first

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Speaker 1: been held in the late eighteen hundreds, and one December night,

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Speaker 1: on a miserable training run through a snowstorm, as cars

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Speaker 1: skidded and honked around, Catherine heard one too many of

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Speaker 1: those tales. Let's quit talking about the Boston Marathon and

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Speaker 1: run the damn thing. No woman can run the Boston Marathon.

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Speaker 1: Why not? I'm running ten miles a night, Arne relented.

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Speaker 1: No dame ever ran the Boston Marathon. If any woman

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Speaker 1: could do it, you could, but you'd have to prove

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Speaker 1: it to me if you ran the distance in practice,

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Speaker 1: I'd be the first to take you to Boston. Now

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Speaker 1: you're talking, she thought. A few months later, and three

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Speaker 1: weeks before the marathon, they ran thirty one miles in training.

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Speaker 1: Arne turned gray and passed out. Katherine was feeling great.

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Speaker 1: The next day, at Arne's insistence, she signed up for

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Speaker 1: the race, signing her name as she always did, Kay V. Switzer.

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Speaker 1: She and Arnie checked the rule book. There was nothing

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Speaker 1: forbidding women to enter. Arne signed up too, as did

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Speaker 1: Catherine's boyfriend, Big Tom Miller, all two hundred and thirty

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Speaker 1: five pounds of him. He was a promising hammer thrower,

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Speaker 1: had been a serious college football player, and no, he

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Speaker 1: wasn't planning on training. He was pretty fit anyway, and

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Speaker 1: if a girl can run a marathon, I can run

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Speaker 1: a marathon. On Wednesday, April nineteenth, nineteen sixty seven, race dawn,

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Speaker 1: it was snowing. Most of the field were running in tracksuits.

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Speaker 1: There were seven hundred and forty one entrants, and Katherine

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Speaker 1: pinned her number to her sweatshirt with pride Kay Switzer

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Speaker 1: two six one. From the other runners, she got a

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Speaker 1: few looks of surprise, but a warm welcome. Hey, you're

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Speaker 1: gonna go the whole way. Gosh, it's great to see

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Speaker 1: a girl here. Can you give me some tips to

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Speaker 1: get my wife to run? She'd love it if I

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Speaker 1: could just get her started. Arnie was beaming. Big Tom

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Speaker 1: unmissible in his bright orange Syracuse sweatshirt, wasn't happy that

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Speaker 1: Catherine was wearing lipstick, which might attract attention. Take it off,

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Speaker 1: he said, I shan't, she replied. The crowd of runners

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Speaker 1: squeezed closer and closer together because they approached the start,

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Speaker 1: and then they were off and feeling great. Just four

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Speaker 1: miles later, the fun would stop. Cautionary tales will be

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Speaker 1: back after the break. Catherine Switzer was running with her

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Speaker 1: little group, including coach Arnie and boyfriend Big Tom, feeling

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Speaker 1: good and acknowledging the encouragement of the other runners. But

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Speaker 1: the four mile mark, the press truck pulled alongside the

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Speaker 1: little group to allow photographers a good shot of that

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Speaker 1: dame who was running the marathon. Then Switzer recalled a

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Speaker 1: man with an overcoat and felt hat was there in

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Speaker 1: the middle of the road, shaking his finger at me.

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Speaker 1: He said something to me as I passed, and reached

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Speaker 1: out for my hand, catching my glove instead and pulling

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Speaker 1: it off. He was it a tester, a crank, but

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Speaker 1: he was wearing an official's ribbon. Moments later, I heard

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Speaker 1: the scraping noise of leather shoes coming up fast behind me.

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Speaker 1: When a runner hears that kind of noise, it's usually danger. Instinctively,

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Speaker 1: I jerked my head around quickly and looked square into

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Speaker 1: the most vicious face I'd ever seen. A big man,

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Speaker 1: a huge man with her teeth was set to pounds.

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Speaker 1: But before I could react, he grabbed my shoulder and

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Speaker 1: flung me back, screaming, get the hell out of my

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Speaker 1: race and give me those numbers. Katherine was terrified. She

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Speaker 1: realized she had wet her pants in fear, and she

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Speaker 1: turned to sprint away as the furious official tried to

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Speaker 1: rip the number off her sweatshirt. The press truck was

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Speaker 1: still there, the cameras were whirring and clicking, and then,

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Speaker 1: seemingly from nowhere, two hundred and thirty five pounds of

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Speaker 1: orange clad college football player and crashed into the official,

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Speaker 1: flew sideways, landed on the roadside in a crumpled heap.

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Speaker 1: Oh God, thought, Katherine, big Tom's killed him. We're in trouble.

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Speaker 1: Run like hell, yelled Arnie, and they sprinted away from

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Speaker 1: the scene, with the press truck in pursuit, cameras still clicking.

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Speaker 1: It was an extraordinary scene, and perhaps the strangest about it.

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Speaker 1: Catherine Switzer wasn't the first woman to run a marathon.

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Speaker 1: She wasn't the first woman to run the Boston Marathon.

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Speaker 1: In fact, she wasn't even the leading woman in this race.

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Speaker 1: A mile ahead of her, ROBERTA. Bobby Gibb was making

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Speaker 1: serene progress without an irate race official insight. Bobby Gibb

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Speaker 1: hadn't exactly been welcomed into the Boston Marathon. She'd applied

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Speaker 1: to run in the marathon the previous year, nineteen sixty six,

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Speaker 1: and been firmly rejected with a letter that explained to

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Speaker 1: her women are not physiologically capable of running a marathon.

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Speaker 1: GiB crumpled the letter and hurled it to the floor.

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Speaker 1: It was ridiculous. Bobby Gibb was regularly doing forty mile

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Speaker 1: runs in the countryside near Boston. I didn't know what

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Speaker 1: to do. I didn't have a coach, no books, nothing,

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Speaker 1: I didn't have any way of measuring distance, so I

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Speaker 1: just went by time. She told the BBC my boyfriend

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Speaker 1: would drop me off on his motorbike and I'd run home.

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Speaker 1: So two months after throwing away the rejection letter, Bobby

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Speaker 1: Gibb found herself crouching in a bush near the start

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Speaker 1: of the marathon. Once half the men had started running,

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Speaker 1: she stepped onto the course and joined the crowd, disguised

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Speaker 1: in a hoodie and her brother's shorts. In nineteen sixty six,

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Speaker 1: the race was on a warm April day. Before long,

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Speaker 1: Bobby Gibb shucked off her hoodie and was running in

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Speaker 1: a strappy vest top. I was so nervous, GiB recalled.

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Speaker 1: I didn't know what would happen. I thought I might

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Speaker 1: even be arrested. The men around her were quick to

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Speaker 1: allay her fears. They told her we won't let them.

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Speaker 1: She had no race number. She was running for the

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Speaker 1: joy of it, her long blonde ponytails swinging with the rhythm,

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Speaker 1: and the crowds cheering her. As the news spread along

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Speaker 1: the course, she passed the women's university Wellesley College, the

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Speaker 1: students roared their approval. As the distance grew, GiB was

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Speaker 1: scything through the field. She set her sub three hour

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Speaker 1: pace for much of the race, fast enough to challenge

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Speaker 1: for the first Olympic gold, but in the last few

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Speaker 1: miles her feet were shredded by the brand new pair

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Speaker 1: of men's running shoes she was wearing and training. She

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Speaker 1: usually wore nurses shoes because at a time when sports

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Speaker 1: shoe companies were engaged in cutthroat competition to sell shoes

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Speaker 1: to men, nobody could be bothered to make running shoes

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Speaker 1: for women. She slowed markedly but kept going to cross

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Speaker 1: the line in three hours, twenty one minutes and forty seconds.

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Speaker 1: She didn't have a number, and she didn't get an

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Speaker 1: official timestamp, but she'd done it, and two thirds of

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Speaker 1: the men were still behind the her. Maybe the women

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Speaker 1: couldn't just cover the distance, Maybe they could teach the

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Speaker 1: men a thing or two. In nineteen fifty four, the

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Speaker 1: women's record for a mile was a minute slower than

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Speaker 1: the men's record. Just days after Roger Banister broke the

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Speaker 1: four minute mile in Oxford, Diane Leather broke the five

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Speaker 1: minute mile not far away in Birmingham. By nineteen ninety two,

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Speaker 1: the men's lead over the women had narrowed from one

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Speaker 1: minute to just twenty six seconds. The women were catching

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Speaker 1: up and two scientists Brian Whip and Susan Ward published

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Speaker 1: research claiming that if the rate of improvement in elite

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Speaker 1: women's running continued, then over the marathon distance, the top

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Speaker 1: women would be faster than the top men. As soon

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Speaker 1: as nineteen ninety eight. That didn't happen, and neither does

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Speaker 1: it look like it will. But what is true is

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Speaker 1: that over long distances, the typical female competitor has never

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Speaker 1: been closer to her male counterpart. In twenty twenty, the

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Speaker 1: International Association of Ultra Runners published the State of Ultra

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Speaker 1: Running twenty twenty, all about running over very long distances.

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Speaker 1: This report contained an eye catching claim once the race

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Speaker 1: is more than one hundred and ninety five miles that

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Speaker 1: seven and a half marathons, the women run faster than

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Speaker 1: the men. I looked into this claim with my colleagues

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Speaker 1: from the BBC program more or less, and it's not

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Speaker 1: quite what it might seem at first sight. These aren't

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Speaker 1: the world record times, they're the average times, which really

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Speaker 1: tell you something about what kind of person tries an

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Speaker 1: ultra distance. In fact, the average speed of runners in

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Speaker 1: ultramarathons is getting slower. Why because more and more people

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Speaker 1: who are less and less superhuman. For giving these distances

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Speaker 1: a try, more than five times as many men as

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Speaker 1: women run in races longer than fifty miles. So when

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Speaker 1: the report says that the women are faster at the

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Speaker 1: extreme distances, what they're saying is that the average female competitor,

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Speaker 1: one of a tiny handful of unbelievably badass women, is

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Speaker 1: faster than the average male competitor who comes from a

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Speaker 1: much larger pool, someone who might be operating under the

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Speaker 1: Big Tom school of race preparation. If a girl can

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Speaker 1: run a marathon, I can run a marathon. We've seen

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Speaker 1: a rapid improvement in women's times across all distances, and

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Speaker 1: there's no mystery as to why women weren't able to

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Speaker 1: compete for Olympic gold even over eight hundred meters until

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty. They were being told in the nineteen sixties

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Speaker 1: that not only were they forbidden to run a marathon,

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Speaker 1: but that it would be dangerous for them to try.

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Speaker 1: The teenage Katherine Switzer was told by her friends that

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Speaker 1: running even a mile a day might make her infertile

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Speaker 1: or turn her into a man. It took a determined

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Speaker 1: young woman to run at all, let alone attempt a marathon.

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Speaker 1: No wonder that once the world saw pioneers such as

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Speaker 1: Bobby Gibb and Katherine Switzer, more women felt able to

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Speaker 1: run long distances, and more organizations felt obliged to allow

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Speaker 1: them and later to support them. And no wonder that

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Speaker 1: when all this finally belatedly happened, women's times quickly improved.

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Speaker 1: And the irony was that it's in the very races

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Speaker 1: that women were told were impossible to complete, that they're

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Speaker 1: getting closest to the men. The ultra distances, those extreme

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Speaker 1: distances give women a fighting chance. The result it comes

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Speaker 1: dependent less on lung capacity and muscle mass, where men

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Speaker 1: have a clear advantage, and more on luck, on resilience,

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Speaker 1: and on a tolerance for pain. But they don't. When

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Speaker 1: the human body is pushed to such extremes, anything can happen,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes it does. By the time they reached the

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Speaker 1: second Spine race checkpoint, the coarse record holder Ian Keith

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00:24:39,530 --> 00:24:43,610
Speaker 1: had dropped back a little. Eugenie Rozello's Sole and Jasmine

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Speaker 1: Paris were running together. Paris tried to lose Soley after

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Speaker 1: the checkpoint. I was feeling strong and keen to run

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Speaker 1: on my own for a bit, but he caught up

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Speaker 1: with her by twilight at the end of the second day,

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Speaker 1: and they ran on together through the darkness, the path

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Speaker 1: ahead illuminated by their head torches. Checkpoint four was well

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Speaker 1: over halfway through the race, but there was still more

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Speaker 1: than a eight miles to go. It was a moment

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Speaker 1: to stop and to think ahead. As she wolfed down

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Speaker 1: Lasagna Jasmine Paris, looked over at Eugenie. He was getting

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Speaker 1: a massage and perhaps a little nap. There were still

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Speaker 1: one and a half hours of daylight left. She pulled

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Speaker 1: on her shoes, shouldered her rucksack, and set out to

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Speaker 1: try to put some distance between them. Cautionary tales will

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00:25:38,130 --> 00:25:56,090
Speaker 1: be back after the break. Shortly after Bobby Gibb crossed

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Speaker 1: the sun kissed finish line of the nineteen sixty six

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Speaker 1: Boston Marathon, the state governor warmly shook her hand, and

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Speaker 1: she was invited by her fellow runners for the traditional

356
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Speaker 1: post race stew. It all seemed to be going well

357
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Speaker 1: until she was turned away at the door of the

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Speaker 1: dining room. Sorry men, only that figures. Bobby Gibb decided

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Speaker 1: that next year she'd do it all again. In the

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Speaker 1: wintry cold of the nineteen sixty seven race GiB didn't

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Speaker 1: match the pace of her first run, but she still

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Speaker 1: comfortably beat the three and a half hour mark. As

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Speaker 1: she crossed the finish line again, running without a number

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Speaker 1: or an official entry, she had no idea of the

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00:26:40,450 --> 00:26:43,690
Speaker 1: drama that had been unfolding behind her on the course.

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Speaker 1: As the race officials tangled with Catherine Switzer. It turns

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Speaker 1: out that registering for the race was the problem. Switzer

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00:26:52,650 --> 00:26:55,250
Speaker 1: had assumed it was the right thing to do, but

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00:26:55,370 --> 00:26:58,610
Speaker 1: the short tempered race director was panicking that it'd be

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Speaker 1: sanctioned by the Athletics Union. She watched in shock and

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00:27:03,090 --> 00:27:05,730
Speaker 1: amazement as the race director tried to rip her numbers

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00:27:05,770 --> 00:27:08,770
Speaker 1: off and her massive boyfriend body checked him into the

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Speaker 1: next county. Catherine felt like she was going to puke.

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Speaker 1: This wasn't what she'd imagined. Was all going horribly wrong.

375
00:27:17,250 --> 00:27:20,650
Speaker 1: The press truck was still tracking her given the incredible

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Speaker 1: scene that had just unfolded. The journalists were yelling out

377
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Speaker 1: hostile questions. This was obviously just a stunt, so when

378
00:27:27,770 --> 00:27:31,250
Speaker 1: was she going to drop out? But as they kept running,

379
00:27:31,770 --> 00:27:36,330
Speaker 1: her nausea drained away, to be replaced by cold anger.

380
00:27:37,210 --> 00:27:40,330
Speaker 1: The race director had tried to physically rip her out

381
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Speaker 1: of the race. Screw him. There was absolutely no way

382
00:27:44,410 --> 00:27:47,930
Speaker 1: that anyone was going to stop her from finishing. The

383
00:27:47,970 --> 00:27:52,170
Speaker 1: official bus drove past again, the race director, thankfully very

384
00:27:52,290 --> 00:27:56,970
Speaker 1: much alive, puce with rage and shaking his fist. Catherine

385
00:27:57,010 --> 00:28:00,210
Speaker 1: started to worry that they'd be arrested, and above all,

386
00:28:00,890 --> 00:28:03,810
Speaker 1: she was worried that she wouldn't be able to finish.

387
00:28:04,170 --> 00:28:07,130
Speaker 1: She told her coach Arnie that she was determined to

388
00:28:07,170 --> 00:28:11,290
Speaker 1: go the distance, even if she had to crawl, and

389
00:28:11,410 --> 00:28:15,810
Speaker 1: Arnie told her, fine, just slow down a little. It

390
00:28:16,010 --> 00:28:19,850
Speaker 1: was cold and wet, and the official had pulled off

391
00:28:19,850 --> 00:28:23,330
Speaker 1: her glove so her left hand was freezing. And then

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Speaker 1: Big Tom spoke up, you're getting me into all kinds

393
00:28:27,250 --> 00:28:31,130
Speaker 1: of trouble. What are you talking about, Tom, I've hit

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Speaker 1: an official. Now I'll get kicked out of the Athletics Union.

395
00:28:35,490 --> 00:28:37,770
Speaker 1: I didn't hit the official. You hit the official. Tom?

396
00:28:38,290 --> 00:28:40,650
Speaker 1: Oh great, Yeah, thanks a lot for nothing. I should

397
00:28:40,650 --> 00:28:43,010
Speaker 1: never have come to Boston. It was your idea to

398
00:28:43,010 --> 00:28:47,130
Speaker 1: come to Boston. And with that, Tom ripped off his

399
00:28:47,210 --> 00:28:51,210
Speaker 1: numbers and hissed, you run too slow anyway, and he

400
00:28:51,330 --> 00:28:55,890
Speaker 1: sped away up the course, man handled by an official,

401
00:28:56,610 --> 00:29:01,810
Speaker 1: harassed by photographers, wet pants, cold hand, dumped by her boyfriend,

402
00:29:02,490 --> 00:29:06,650
Speaker 1: and only twenty miles to go. But as the miles

403
00:29:06,690 --> 00:29:11,930
Speaker 1: went past, the adrenaline drained away and Catherine found her pace.

404
00:29:12,690 --> 00:29:16,490
Speaker 1: She began to enjoy the run again, and some way

405
00:29:16,610 --> 00:29:20,210
Speaker 1: past the halfway mark, looming out of the mist ahead

406
00:29:20,210 --> 00:29:25,170
Speaker 1: of her was the unmistakable orange sweatshirt of Big Tom.

407
00:29:26,130 --> 00:29:30,370
Speaker 1: He was walking, and as Catherine ran past, he begged

408
00:29:30,370 --> 00:29:32,530
Speaker 1: her to give him a moment to catch his breath.

409
00:29:33,250 --> 00:29:37,130
Speaker 1: Walk with me a while. I'll get it back, Sorry, Tom,

410
00:29:37,730 --> 00:29:42,250
Speaker 1: said Catherine. She had her momentum, She had her race

411
00:29:42,330 --> 00:29:50,770
Speaker 1: to finish. She ran on the Spine Race final checkpoint,

412
00:29:51,210 --> 00:29:55,370
Speaker 1: forty two miles to go. Jasmine Paris had a decision

413
00:29:55,370 --> 00:29:59,130
Speaker 1: to make. She had been running for three days, and

414
00:29:59,210 --> 00:30:03,170
Speaker 1: she had had three hours of sleep. She was starting

415
00:30:03,170 --> 00:30:07,570
Speaker 1: to hallucinate. She had seen a tree bend down into

416
00:30:07,650 --> 00:30:11,690
Speaker 1: a yoga pose. She saw a bright pink pig running

417
00:30:11,770 --> 00:30:16,930
Speaker 1: across the moors. Like other runners in previous years, should

418
00:30:16,970 --> 00:30:19,570
Speaker 1: go through phases of forgetting that she was even in

419
00:30:19,690 --> 00:30:24,850
Speaker 1: a race at alone leading it? So should she get

420
00:30:24,890 --> 00:30:29,770
Speaker 1: some rest, an hour of sleep, or should she press

421
00:30:29,810 --> 00:30:34,330
Speaker 1: her advantage trying to extend her lead. After grabbing some

422
00:30:34,330 --> 00:30:39,730
Speaker 1: more food and a strong coffee, she pressed on. When

423
00:30:39,730 --> 00:30:45,330
Speaker 1: Eugenie arrived at the checkpoint, he asked where Jasmine was. No, no, no,

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00:30:46,010 --> 00:30:52,610
Speaker 1: she's gone, said one of the checkpoint volunteers. Gone wow.

425
00:30:53,410 --> 00:30:57,010
Speaker 1: Eugenie soaked his feet in a basin of water put

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00:30:57,050 --> 00:31:01,290
Speaker 1: his head in his hands. The course record holder Ian

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00:31:01,450 --> 00:31:09,690
Speaker 1: Keith was hours behind them both. When Catherine Sway and

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00:31:09,730 --> 00:31:13,250
Speaker 1: her coach Arnie crossed the finish line of the Boston Marathon,

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00:31:13,770 --> 00:31:18,450
Speaker 1: there weren't many spectators left. It was cold and wet,

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00:31:19,010 --> 00:31:22,570
Speaker 1: and they'd been running for more than four hours. There

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00:31:22,610 --> 00:31:26,130
Speaker 1: were a few grumpy journalists who ordinarily would have gone

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00:31:26,130 --> 00:31:29,290
Speaker 1: indoors to file their stories an hour ago, but had

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00:31:29,370 --> 00:31:31,650
Speaker 1: been told to wait and get an interview with that

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00:31:31,970 --> 00:31:37,050
Speaker 1: crazy Dame. Catherine had been slower than she'd hoped, but

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00:31:37,210 --> 00:31:40,770
Speaker 1: under the circumstances, getting to the finish line was an

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00:31:40,770 --> 00:31:45,410
Speaker 1: achievement enough. Her feet were bleeding so badly that the

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00:31:45,490 --> 00:31:51,650
Speaker 1: race doctor was shocked, but overrule Catherine felt great. All

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00:31:51,690 --> 00:31:55,250
Speaker 1: they had to do then was wait another hour for

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00:31:55,370 --> 00:32:03,250
Speaker 1: Big Tom to cross the finish line. Neither Bobby GiB

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00:32:03,290 --> 00:32:07,090
Speaker 1: nor Katherine Switzer set out to change the world, but

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00:32:07,170 --> 00:32:11,530
Speaker 1: between them they did. The photograph of Bobby Gibb running

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00:32:11,570 --> 00:32:16,210
Speaker 1: down the home stretch in nineteen sixty six was inspirational,

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00:32:16,970 --> 00:32:20,850
Speaker 1: but even more iconic was the image of Switzer being

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00:32:20,850 --> 00:32:25,010
Speaker 1: attacked by a race official in nineteen sixty seven. He

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00:32:25,090 --> 00:32:27,890
Speaker 1: gave the world one of the most galvanizing photos in

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00:32:27,930 --> 00:32:32,770
Speaker 1: women's rights history, said Switzer, and it's hard to disagree.

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00:32:32,810 --> 00:32:37,610
Speaker 1: Both photographs and both women provided leverage to campaigners who

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00:32:37,650 --> 00:32:44,090
Speaker 1: persuaded the authorities to change the rules. In nineteen seventy two,

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00:32:44,650 --> 00:32:48,250
Speaker 1: Nina Cusick was the first woman to officially win a

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00:32:48,290 --> 00:32:53,250
Speaker 1: Boston Marathon, while Bobby Gibb has been retrospectively recognized as

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00:32:53,290 --> 00:32:58,010
Speaker 1: a three time winner. GiB told the BBC back then,

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00:32:58,610 --> 00:33:01,930
Speaker 1: men weren't allowed to have feelings and women weren't allowed

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00:33:01,970 --> 00:33:04,450
Speaker 1: to have a brain. What if a man wants to knit,

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00:33:04,970 --> 00:33:07,690
Speaker 1: is he any less of a man? No? What if

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00:33:07,690 --> 00:33:10,170
Speaker 1: a woman wants to drive a truck? Is she any

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00:33:10,250 --> 00:33:14,370
Speaker 1: less of a woman? No? All people can be who

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00:33:14,410 --> 00:33:21,850
Speaker 1: they want to be. The Spine Race had started on

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00:33:22,010 --> 00:33:27,930
Speaker 1: Sunday morning. By Wednesday evening, Jasmine Paris was limping down

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00:33:28,010 --> 00:33:32,650
Speaker 1: off the final summit towards the finish line. Every step

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00:33:33,090 --> 00:33:37,730
Speaker 1: was agonizing. She had developed tendonitis on both legs and

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00:33:37,850 --> 00:33:41,530
Speaker 1: her pace was flagging. She kept looking over her shoulder

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00:33:41,570 --> 00:33:46,330
Speaker 1: at the horizon, looking for Eugenie Rosello Sole. I kept

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00:33:46,450 --> 00:33:48,930
Speaker 1: expecting him to catch me, because I felt that I

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00:33:48,970 --> 00:33:51,330
Speaker 1: was going so slowly on that last day, and I

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00:33:51,410 --> 00:33:54,170
Speaker 1: kept falling asleep and thinking he must be just behind me.

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00:33:55,210 --> 00:34:02,210
Speaker 1: Eugenie was not just behind her sleep deprived, exhausted, and

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00:34:02,330 --> 00:34:06,570
Speaker 1: dangerously cold, he pushed his emergency Buttom to quit the

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00:34:06,690 --> 00:34:10,250
Speaker 1: race and summon help. With two two hundred and sixty

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00:34:10,250 --> 00:34:15,970
Speaker 1: four miles completed than four miles to go, and by

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00:34:16,010 --> 00:34:22,290
Speaker 1: then Jasmine Paris had long since finished. After the solitude

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00:34:22,330 --> 00:34:26,410
Speaker 1: of the Pennine Way, the finish line was bewildering a

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00:34:26,450 --> 00:34:30,210
Speaker 1: crowd of people, the flashes of cameras, a very clingy

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00:34:30,250 --> 00:34:33,650
Speaker 1: cuddle with her daughter Rowan, a shower, and then the

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00:34:33,730 --> 00:34:36,690
Speaker 1: fish and chips Jasmine had been dreaming of, and the

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00:34:36,730 --> 00:34:42,210
Speaker 1: breastfeed that Rowan had been demanding days. Jasmine started to

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00:34:42,250 --> 00:34:47,970
Speaker 1: realize why people were quite so excited. She had obliterated

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00:34:48,090 --> 00:34:52,370
Speaker 1: Ian Keith's course record by more than twelve hours, about

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00:34:52,530 --> 00:34:57,370
Speaker 1: fifty Miles Ian Keith himself wouldn't win the men's race

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00:34:57,450 --> 00:35:03,850
Speaker 1: until the next morning, fifteen hours later. Still, there wasn't

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00:35:04,050 --> 00:35:09,810
Speaker 1: too much time to celebrate. Jasmine's PhD thesis was due

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00:35:10,050 --> 00:35:23,850
Speaker 1: in ten weeks. It wasn't going to write itself. Key

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00:35:23,890 --> 00:35:27,570
Speaker 1: sources for this episode were Jasmine Paris's first hand account

483
00:35:27,570 --> 00:35:32,210
Speaker 1: of the spine race, Olivier Giberteau's feature article about Bobby Gibb,

484
00:35:32,850 --> 00:35:37,970
Speaker 1: and Katherine Switzer's autobiography Marathon Woman. For a full list

485
00:35:38,010 --> 00:35:51,570
Speaker 1: of our sources, see the show notes at Timharford dot com.

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00:35:51,730 --> 00:35:55,290
Speaker 1: Cautionary Tales is written by me Tim Harford with Andrew Wright.

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00:35:55,770 --> 00:35:59,050
Speaker 1: It's produced by Alice Fines with support from Marilyn Rust.

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00:35:59,530 --> 00:36:02,090
Speaker 1: The sound design and original music is the work of

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00:36:02,170 --> 00:36:07,010
Speaker 1: Pascal Wise. Sarah Nix edited the scripts. It features the

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00:36:07,090 --> 00:36:11,850
Speaker 1: voice talents of Ben Crow Gutridge, Stella Harford, Jammas Saunders,

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00:36:11,970 --> 00:36:15,690
Speaker 1: and Rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have been possible

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00:36:15,730 --> 00:36:19,610
Speaker 1: without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Ryan Dilly, Greta Cohne,

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00:36:20,370 --> 00:36:25,650
Speaker 1: Eric Handler, Carrie Brody, and Christina Sullivan. Cautionary Tales is

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00:36:25,650 --> 00:36:30,410
Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardoor Studios

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00:36:30,490 --> 00:36:33,770
Speaker 1: in London by Tom Berry. If you like the show,

496
00:36:34,090 --> 00:36:38,690
Speaker 1: please remember to share, rate and review, tell your friends

497
00:36:39,210 --> 00:36:41,130
Speaker 1: and if you want to hear the show ad free,

498
00:36:41,370 --> 00:36:44,410
Speaker 1: sign up for Pushkin Plus on the show page in

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00:36:44,530 --> 00:36:49,090
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm, slash plus