The Rise of the Female Distance Runner

The Rise of the Female Distance Runner

“It takes getting used to, seeing young women run long distances, gasping and gagging and staggering around and going down on all fours at the finish line, pink foreheads in the mud,” began an article in Sports Illustrated in 1966 about the National AAU Women’s Cross-country Championship. “But they are young women, all right, make no mistake.The shaved legs, the singlets that actually do a service, all that symmetry, that fragrant hair.” One athlete’s coach, “a practical man, says it is good that she is trimmer, too, because she is going to be a woman much longer than she is going to be a runner.”

So what exactly were the “long distances” writer John Underwood was referring to? A mile and a half. For even the most recreational of racers set to compete in this Sunday’s 2011 ING New York City Marathon, that would barely even constitute a warm-up.

Read the rest of this great article HERE. 

Sorry if this image makes anyone uncomfortable. I don’t want to scare anyone off with Paula Radcliffe’s “shaved legs” and “fragrant hair” covered in sweat and mud as she drives victoriously through the finish. Maybe I should have warned you before posting such a graphic image. I mean, yuck, nobody wants to see that, right?