With some fellow racers running interference, Switzer persevered and finished the race in four hours, 20 minutes. “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!'' 'Instinctively I jerked my head around quickly and looked square into the most vicious face I'd ever seen,” Switzer wrote in her memoir. A few miles into the run, Semple chased down Switzer and attempted to take away her official race number. Switzer registered using her initials rather than her first name, but unlike Gibb she wore lipstick and earrings while running to make sure everyone knew a woman was out there competing with the men. In 1967, Switzer was a 20-year-old journalism student at Syracuse, N.Y., who decided it was about time a woman officially ran the iconic race - Roberta Gibb did it a year earlier but didn’t actually register for the event and kept her gender a secret by wearing a hooded sweatshirt at the beginning of the race. It’s the same number a race official famously tried to rip from her shirt 50 years ago, when Switzer became the first woman to officially take part in the competition.Īfter Monday, no one will wear that number in the Boston Marathon again. 261 in the Boston Marathon on Monday morning.

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