How Bobbi Gibb , Revelle ’ 69 , broke the Boston Marathon ’ s gender barrier .
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By
Heather Buschman , Ph . D . ’ 08
BOBBI GIBB WAS JUST DAYS OFF A PLANE from her native Boston when she began running long distances throughout San Diego . Though far from the wooded forest trails of her youth in Massachusetts , San Diego County offered ample space for the future philosophy major to think ; it was her means of physical meditation , letting her mind ponder the mysteries of the universe . As she settled into San Diego life , she routinely ran 30 miles in a day , around Balboa Park , Coronado , Imperial Beach — even accidentally wandering into Mexico .
In 1966 , this was not exactly typical of a 23-yearold Navy wife , but Gibb was a woman well ahead of her time .
“ Back then a woman was put straight into a box — you could be a wife , a mother and a homemaker , but that was it ,” says Gibb . “ I had no problem with getting married and having kids … but I had no intention of being a homemaker .”
A female runner was a definite anomaly in those days . Lacking true equipment , Gibb ran for miles in nurse ’ s shoes , a one-piece swimsuit and a pair of old shorts . One day on a run from her cottage near Balboa Park up through La Jolla , Gibb passed Scripps Institution of Oceanography , running her hardest up the cliffs only to find the summit being carved by huge yellow earth movers . This was the beginning of Revelle College , and this first sight of UC San Diego spoke to her profoundly .
“ I need to learn more ,” Gibb recalls thinking in her 2011 memoir , Wind in the Fire . “ I need to go back to school and to learn everything I can about biology , physics , matter and mind and philosophy … I have been a solitary thinker and now I want to know what other people have thought about these matters . As I look around in amazement at all this activity , I ’ m filled with the powerful sense that this is where I belong … this is where I ’ m supposed to go to college .”
Still sweaty from running , she walked into the admissions office — one of the few buildings then constructed — and signed up for classes that fall .
It was not the first time Gibb had witnessed something and felt a calling to become a part of it . Years prior , while on one of her regular runs through the woods outside Boston , Gibb recalls catching sight of a throng of runners treading down the street together , united in the effort she would later learn was the Boston Marathon .
“ These are my people !” she thought . “ Finally , other running adults . I can do this !” Just as committed as she was to join UC San Diego , she resolved then to run the Boston Marathon someday . It didn ’ t occur to her , however , that it was only men she ’ d seen running .
At home in La Jolla , with an academic career on the horizon , Gibb made plans to achieve this personal milestone before embarking on her educational one . She wrote a letter to the Boston Athletic Association requesting an application . Yet when their response arrived back , the message was devastating :
We have received your request for an application for the Boston Marathon and regret that we will not be able to send you an application . Women are not physiologically capable to run 26.2 miles and we would not want to take on the medical liability . Furthermore , the rules of International Sport and the Amateur Athletic Union do not allow women to run more than the sanctioned one and a half miles . Sorry we could not be of more help .
Gibb was outraged . She was infuriated . She was anything but daunted . Though she had always thought of the race as a challenge for herself , it was now something far bigger . She resolved to make a statement . She had to prove them wrong .
So when the week of the marathon arrived , she got on a cross-country bus headed back to Boston .
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