AS WOMEN RUNNERS, WE KNOW ABOUT CHALLENGE, BUT ON 8 MARCH THE CALL GOES OUT TO REMEMBER THE CHALLENGES OVERCOME BY WOMEN ACROSS THE GLOBE AND THROUGHOUT HISTORY

RONNIE HAYDON

EMPOWERMENT

International Women’s Day (internationalwomensday.com) is a call to action to celebrate the achievements of women, and to redouble our efforts in achieving gender parity with men.

The seeds for International Women’s Day (IWD) were sown in New York City, in 1908, when 15,000 women marched to demand voting rights, better pay and shorter working hours. It filtered through to Europe and Russia after that, and when, in 1911, a fire killed 140 women working in a clothing factory in New York, the focus of IWD events became working conditions and labour legislation. In 1913, the date of IWM was set as 8 March.

PROGRESSION RUN

This year, the theme for International Women’s Day is Press For Progress, ‘…to motivate and unite friends, colleagues and whole communities to think, act and be gender inclusive.’ (the furthest women were allowed to run was 1.5 miles).

Kathrine Switzer filled in her Boston 1967 application form as ‘KV Switzer’, and trained hard. What happened after the starting gun is the stuff of legend. An outraged official tried to pull this female interloper off the course, then her boyfriend barged him out of the way.

Kathrine finished the marathon, attracted a barrage of publicity for her pains, campaigned for women to be allowed to run the marathon distance and went on to run Boston, eight years later, in 2:51. Since then, Kathrine, 70, has been at the forefront of women’s athletics, most recently launching the 261 Fearless movement to establish clubs in which women could find the joy in running. After the UK launch, Kathrine talked about the fall-out from her 1967 debut: