Run, Switzer, Run: The Women who Broke the Marathon Taboo (Classic)

Tim is running the London Marathon on the 26th of April. To give him a week off to finish training, we're playing this running-themed classic from the archives. If you would like to donate to Teenage Cancer Trust, Tim's fundraising page is at tinyurl.com/HarfordMarathon - any support is very much appreciated. Until the 1960s, it was deemed too "dangerous" for women athletes to run distances longer than 200m - and a marathon would kill them, or leave them unable to have children. Rubbish, of course. But when Kathrine Switzer signed up for the 1967 Boston Marathon, it wasn't the distance that bothered her - it was the enraged race director trying to assault her. Thanks to pioneers like Kathrine, women have made huge strides in long distance running - and are now challenging the times of men in the very races they were banned from for so very long. See the show notes at timharford.com

You can listen to Run, Switzer, Run: The Women who Broke the Marathon Taboo (Classic) online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Run, Switzer, Run: The Women who Broke the Marathon Taboo (Classic) is an episode from Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford by Pushkin Industries.

This episode is 36:48 long.

This episode was published on Apr 17, 2026.

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