Number 261
Number 261* ran a pretty good race.
Though she couldn’t have won it, she set a fine pace.
Her hat hid her hair but if you’d seen her face
You’d have realized she wasn’t a guy.
The year – ’67, a marathon run
In Boston, and soon after it’d begun
Officials decided her racing was done
And her gender the answer to “Why?”
For the course was for men; anyone called “her”
Had to skip it or hide who they really were.
K.V. Switzer she signed as, so they’d infer
That a male was the one to apply.
She resisted attempts to drag her away
And completed those miles, ignoring the fray.
Yet it took 5 more years, quite a lengthy delay,
‘Til the rule-makers had to comply.
Now at 70, Switzer, still true to form,
Ran in Boston, to welcomes both loud and warm.
Her gutsiness once took the world by storm
And her triumph no one can deny.
*Kathrine Switzer’s Boston Marathon number
in both the 1967 and 2017 races
Copyright © Ilene Bauer | Year Posted 2017
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