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