BOSTON — The 126th Boston Marathon will cross eight towns and cities. It will feature more than 28,000 athletes, representing all 50 states and 120 countries, with runners ages 18 to 83.
Thousands of this year’s runners are women, who weren’t always allowed to participate.
While these days we are used to seeing women cross the finish line at the Boston Marathon, it was just 51 years ago that this was only a course for men.
“It wasn’t like the 1890s, it was a pretty modern time,” said one of the first female runners, Pat Barrett. “I think the AAU was just very obstinate in trying to allow women to run. They felt that you know it may harm us in some way and Nina is really the person who did a lot of the legislation to help us get in.”
Nina Kuscsik and Pat Barrett were two of the first eight women who registered, raced, and finished in 1972 when they were officially allowed to participate. But Kuscsik, who wanted to get in some good trouble, ran the race in 1969.
“I wanted to run the Boston Marathon,” said Kuscsik.”I knew that women weren’t allowed to run but it’s also as long as they didn’t throw us out.”
Kuscsik fought legislators to make women official participants in the 1971 Atlantic City Marathon and eventually the Boston Marathon In 1972, where she was the first of the 8 women to cross the finish line.
Today, thousands of women have followed in their footsteps.
“Fifty years went by so fast,” said Kuscsik. “In 1984 we added the marathon into the Olympics. Then more women around the world started to run marathons.”
When asked if either was planning to run this year, Barrett said, “Oh, no, no, we’re just actually enjoying seeing other people running.”
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