Breaking Rules, Running Marathons

by Isabelle R.
Published March 28, 2024

Who was the woman who changed running history, but is almost unknown? 

Bobbi Gibb was born on November 2nd, 1942, she grew up in Winchester, Massachusetts. Girl Running tells us that Gibb did not like the rules as a child. She would leave the sexist rules at school and run through the woods with the neighborhood dogs. Her parents were concerned that she would not find a husband if she did this. Bobbi didn’t care, she felt free when running. She saw her mom and other  women she loved not doing what they truly wanted, and then feeling the aftermath of not doing what they wanted, and disliked this.  When she was 21 she went to watch the Boston Marathon. Girl Running says her legs twitched to join the race.

From that moment on she trained and trained. She started small, then her distances grew and grew. She took a trip across the U.S. in her father’s camper van for the next two years with her dog for company.  She ran on the plains, she ran up the Rocky Mountains, she ran on the shore of  the Pacific Ocean. Then she slept under the stars. 

Gibb then sent in an application for the Marathon. She received a response saying that women were not physiologically capable of running 26.2 miles, and that she was disqualified from running.

So of course Bobbi Gibb didn’t listen to this, in fact it made her want to run the Boston Marathon even more. 

On April 19th, 1966 at 23 years old Bobbi Gibb hid in some bushes by the starting line. She was dressed in her brother’s Bermuda shorts held up by twine and navy blue sweatshirt over her normal running gear. She knew if she could do this she could finish the marathon  she could get others to question how able women really were she could help the women break out of the little, limited box women were put in. Gibb later said that the men in the race were rather supportive, upon realizing that Bobbi was female and said that they wouldn’t let her be thrown out.

She did it, she crossed the finish line being the first woman to ever do so. She did it in a very strong 3:21:40,  124th place.

However, they refused to give her a medal and recognize that she raced. Gibb went on to run the race for the next two years, (1967, 1968) but she still did not receive any credit. It wasn’t until thirty years after her first race that they acknowledged that she was, in fact, the first woman to complete the Boston Marathon.

Gibb’s story shows that, as many influential women have said, “Well behaved women rarely make history.”