RRCA National Running News

Professional runners, Aliphine Tuliamuk, Katy Jermann, and Frank Lara outline how RRCA programs, including RunPro Camp and the Roads Scholar/Elite Support Grant Funds, have supported them during their careers. Learn about the upcoming Virtual Cascade Run Off and how proceeds will go to support RRCA programs that support emerging professional distance runners.

Sara Mae Berman, born May 14, 1936 in the Bronx, New York, is a distinguished American distance runner. Berman came from a generation in which women were not encouraged to be athletic, especially after having children. Berman, along with a group of female runners, actively campaigned for equal rights for women in the sport of distance running. Berman competed in her first road race in June 1964 as an unofficial entrant in the 5-Mile Handicap Race in Marlborough, Massachusetts. She would go on to win the Boston Marathon three times, before women were recognized as official participants (1969 in 3:22:46; 1970 in 3:05:07; and 1971 in 3:08:30). In 1970, she won the first RRCA Women’s MarathonChampionship held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, besting a field of six female starters with a time of 3:07:10. That same year, she also finished third in the inaugural New York City Marathon women’s division. Her accomplishments in the sport extend well beyond the race course. Berman was the first female RRCA officer, serving as Vice President from 1966-67. She was one of the original road race course certifiers in New England in the 1960s. She, along with her husband, certified the Boston Marathon course in 1967, enabling runners to qualify on the course for the United States Olympic Trials Marathon held in 1968 in Alamosa, Colorado.

Arlene Pieper Stine got into the Pikes Peak Marathon in 1959 as a stunt to market her Colorado Springs health club. When she finished, the 29-year-old mother of three was in the record books as the first woman to finish a sanctioned marathon. Unlike the Boston Marathon, the Pikes Peak race never had a prohibition on women participating.

Patti grew up in Quincy, MA, the eldest of nine children. Her father was second-generation Irish from Dorchester and an all-Navy boxer. Her mother, a Micmac Indian. As a young adult, she worked as a nurse's aid at Quincy City Hospital, filling her non-working hours with beer and kitty whist. Unhappy, overweight, and smoking two packs of Lucky Strikes a day, Patti was stuck. It didn't take her long to realize that at twenty three years old, she was stuck in a pit. She found a book by Dr. Ken Cooper called Aerobics. In this book, Cooper said that there were 3500 calories in a pound, and jogging burned 700 calories an hour. Doing some fast math in her kitchen, Patti deduced that by the end of the week, she would lose twenty pounds. This, she decided, would be the fastest way to be happy. She ran seven laps around the Quincy Cemetery, which was nearly a seven mile run. And she didn't lose twenty pounds by the end of the week—in fact, she could barely walk for two weeks afterwards. But as soon as she could run, she went out and did it again. This led to an astonishing career in athletics that helped pioneer women's marathoning. With no background in highschool track or college running, she went on to set a world record in the 5 mile (25:48). She set the American record for the 10k four times, ending with a 32:08. Patti was the first American woman to go under 33 minutes in the 10k, and the first American woman to break 50 minutes in the 15k (49:42). She set a world record in the 20k, 30k, and half marathon, and won the Newport marathon 5 times, setting a course record each time. She also won the Honolulu marathon 4 times, also setting a course record each time. Patti placed 2nd in the Boston marathon three times, and also placed 2nd in the NYC marathon. She was one of the first American women to sign a pro-contract with Nike. In 52 weeks, she ran 48 races, winning 44 of them.

Moller's first international competition was the 1974 British Commonwealth Games at Christchurch, where she finished fifth in the 800 m. Her time of 2:03.63 was her lifetime best and is still the fastest ever by a New Zealand junior (under 20) woman.Although Moller ran her first marathon in 1979, there were no sanctioned marathons for females at an international athletics competition until 1984. She ran her first marathon on 23 June 1979, winning Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota in 2:37:37. She then won her next 7 marathons. She was a triple winner of the Osaka Ladies Marathon, and in 1984 won the Boston Marathon.All of Moller's four appearances at the Olympic Games were in the marathon. She won the Bronze medal in 1992 running 2:33:59In the 1993 New Year Honours, Moller was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire, for services to athletics.In 2012 she was inducted into the Boulder (Colorado) Sports Hall of Fame. She has worked with the Lydiard Foundation and the Master Plan training system to share the lessons of running coach Arthur Lydiard.

Julia Chase-Brand's first race was the New England championship in the 880-yard run, held in July 1960, which she won. However, she had to list her hometown as being in Rhode Island because women from Connecticut were not allowed to compete.When she tried to run in the Manchester Road Race in Connecticut in 1960, which women were not allowed to run at that time, race officials told her that if she ran she would be banned from racing for life. She lobbied to be allowed to race for a year, but without success. In 1961 she did run the race, without permission, but then racing's governing body vowed to ban her from all competition unless she agreed to stay out of "men's" road races. She agreed to stay out. In 2011, at age 69, Julia returned to run the Manchester Road Race again, on the 50th anniversary of her historic run. She was named a Hero of Running by Runner's World in 2012She studied zoology at Smith College. She also helped produce a study about how orangutans and gorillas unconsciously stick out their tongues in matters of social aversion, just as people do. At the age of 53 in 1996, she became the oldest person to obtain a degree in medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University. She practiced child psychiatry and contributed the section Effects of Maternal Postpartum Depression on the Infant and Older Siblings to the book Perinatal and postpartum mood disorders: perspectives and treatment guide .

Ann Trason (born August 30, 1960) is an American ultramarathon runner from Auburn, California. She has broken twenty world records during her career. Trason's ultra career began when she entered the 1985 American River 50 Miler at age 24 and both won and set a course record. She returned 8 years later and dropped her time by an hour to establish the 6:09 female course record that still stands.Trason did not finish her first two times trying to run the Western States 100; in 1987 she dropped out due to knee problems and in 1988, near the finish line, from dehydration. She finished and won it in 1989. She has won Western States 14 times in all, most recently in 2003. She held the women's division course record for 18 years (17:37:51, set in 1994) until it was broken by Ellie Greenwood in 2012.

Roberta Louise "Bobbi" Gibb (born November 2, 1942 in Cambridge, Massachusetts[1][2][3]) is the first woman to have run the entire Boston Marathon (1966). She is recognized by the Boston Athletic Association as the pre-sanctioned era women’s winner in 1966, 1967, and 1968.[5] At the Boston Marathon, the pre-sanctioned era comprised the years from 1966 through 1971, when women, who were banned from entering the Men's Division Race because of their gender, ran and finished the race. In 1996 the B.A.A. retroactively recognized as champions the women who finished first in the Pioneer Women's Division Marathon for the years 1966–1971.Gibb’s run in 1966 challenged prevalent prejudices and misconceptions about women's athletic capabilities. In 1967, she finished nearly an hour ahead of Kathrine Switzer, who had obtained an invalid number in the Men's Division Race, which threatened the accreditation of the race and angered officials, who tried to remove the number. In 1968 Gibb finished first among five women that ran the marathon unregistered. It was not until late 1971, pursuant to a petition to the Amateur Athletic Union by Nina Kuscsik, that the AAU changed its rules and began to sanction women's division marathons. Kuscsik won the initial AAU-sanctioned women's division race at Boston in 1972.

Cheryl Bridges, now Cheryl Treworgy, is an American former long-distance runner who once held the American and world record in the marathon, racing in the 1960s and 1970s. Cheryl was born December 25, 1947 in Indiana. She began her running career as a sophomore at North Central High School in Indianapolis. In her senior year in high school, she competed in the national cross-country championships.In 1966, she became the first female athlete in the U.S. to receive an athletic scholarship to a public university — Indiana State University. She graduated in three years with a degree in physical education.In 1969, she finished fourth in the World Cross Country Championships in Scotland.[1] She set the U.S. records in the 3 mile and 5,000 meter distances. In 1971, she finished 3rd in the U.S. cross country championship.On December 7, 1971, Bridges ran her first marathon, finishing the Culver City Marathon in a world record time of 2:49:40.Her daughter Shalane Flanagan won the silver medal, set an American record in the 2008 Summer Olympics Beijing in the 10,000 m and won the New York City marathon on November 5, 2017. The New York win was the first for an American woman since 1977.

Ellen Wessel's story was a fairy tale with dollar signs. With $2,000 in savings and a sewing machine, she and co-founder Elizabeth Goke, had left their jobs, and out of a one-bedroom apartment, started producing running clothes for women. It was a novel idea in the late 1970s, as there were only men’s or unisex athletic clothing available. When women rushed to buy the clothes, the fledgling Alexandria, Virginia company, named Moving Comfort, expanded rapidly. Sales boomed, hitting $2.5 million in 1982. Moving Comfort's profits rose 130 percent between 1987 and 1988.Eventually Moving Comfort was purchased by Russell Corporation. Who also owned brands such as Russell Athletic, Brooks and Spalding. In 2006 Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. acquired Russell Corporation. And the relationship between Brooks Sports and Moving Comfort began. This started the gradual amalgamation of Brooks and Moving Comfort to rebrand the bras solely as Brooks.Wessel served on the RRCA Board of Directors from 1979-1982.

Merry Lepper (born December 31, 1942) is a former American long-distance runner from California who is recognized by the International Association of Athletics Federations as having set a world best in the marathon on December 16, 1963, with a time of 3:37:07 at the Western Hemisphere Marathon in Culver City, California.In the early 1960s, Lepper trained with Lyn Carman (also from California)and the pair began to run unofficially in road races. At the 1963 Western Hemisphere Marathon, the two women hid along the sidelines then joined the men just after the start. A race official attempted to remove them from the course and Carman reportedly yelled, "I have the right to use public streets for running!" The women were timed by a sympathetic AAU official; Carman eventually dropped out around the 20 mile mark, but Lepper finished with a time of 3:37:07.Carman would eventually win the Santa Barbara Marathon in 1966, 1969, and 1970, and the World Masters Marathon in 1969.The book "Marathon Crasher: The Life and Times of Merry Lepper, the First American Woman to Run a Marathon" (2012), by LA-based sports journalist David Davis, tells of Merry Lepper's 1963 marathon. However, in 1959, Arlene Pieper (also an American) became the first woman to officially finish a marathon in America when she finished the Pikes Peak Marathon. Davis's book states, "Without discounting her [Pieper's] achievement, Pikes Peak marathon is considered to be more of an endurance climb, with much walking involved, as opposed to a competitive marathon race."In 2013, Lepper received a commendation from Culver City. The commendation reads in part: "Now, therefore, the City Council of the City of Culver City, California, hereby congratulates and commends Merry Lepper, a shining example of how one person can overcome tremendous hurdles to fulfill a dream and, in the process, pave the way for generations to come."

A pioneer distance runner, author, and medical physician, Joan Ullyot's expertise and lobbying helped open doors for women in running. Notably, her efforts helped changed the minds of the IAAF and IOC, who had previously clung to an archaic view that that the sport was detrimental to a woman’s health.A 1961 graduate of Wellesley College, Ullyot is an accomplished runner herself, having finished the Boston Marathon ten times, winning the masters title there in 1984. Additionally, she is the only woman to run in every women’s international marathon championships, held in Waldniel, West Germany (1974, 1976, 1979) and she set a PR of 2:47:39 in winning the St. George Marathon in 1988 at age 48However, her biggest contributions to the sport came off the race course. In the early 1980s, her research on the sport’s impact on women was presented to the IOC by the organizing committee for the Los Angeles Olympics, leading to a vote to include the women’s marathon in the 1984 Games. Additionally, Ullyot’s work as a writer both through her regular columns in Runner’s World and Women’s Sports & Fitness magazines and her books, Women’s Running, and Running Free helped an unknown number of aspiring participants in the sport. Ullyot was a member of the Advisory Board for the Melpomene Institute, an organization focused research projects on behalf of female athletes, and served on the International Runners Committee, seeking parity for women distance runners in the Olympic Games and all international competition.

Born in Auckland, Audain finished ninth aged 17 in the 1973 World Cross Country Championships. She ran in the 1500 m at the 1974 British Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, New Zealand, finishing sixth, and top New Zealander, in the final with a time of 4:21.1.In the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Audain competed in both the 800 and 1500 m. Although she failed to get past the heats, she broke the New Zealand record for the 1500 m.Prior to the start of the 1980s, major track and field athletics meetings had not had any women's events longer than 1500 metres. This started to change early in the new decade, and in March 1982, Audain competed in her first 5000 metres, breaking the world record. In the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane she won Gold in the 3000 metres in 8m 45.53s, a New Zealand record. The record stood for 25 years until it was finally broken by Kim Smith of Auckland, when she ran 8min 35.31sec on 25 July 2007 in Monaco.At the 1984 Olympic Games Audain competed in the inaugural women's Olympic marathon. In the 1988 Games, her last, she finished 11th in the inaugural women's 10,000 metres.In 1993 Audain founded the Idaho Women's Fitness Celebration 5K, now the largest 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) race for women in the USA.

The Road Runners Club of America (RRCA) is please to share our podcast focused on the history of women's running in the United States as told by the key influencers that spurred the modern women's running movement of today. In this podcast, Olympian Amy Begley speaks with influencer Kathrine Switzer.In 1967, Switzer became the first woman to run the Boston Marathon as a numbered entrant. For the 2017 Boston Marathon, bib number 261, the same number Switzer was assigned in 1967, was assigned to her as "Switzer, Kathrine V." This marked the 50th anniversary of her historic marathon. The 2017 running was her ninth Boston Marathon. Switzer was leading a team of runners from her nonprofit, 261 Fearless, Inc., which she hopes will connect and empower women through running. Learn more about the RRCA >>

The Road Runners Club of America (RRCA) is please to share our first podcast focused on the history of women's running in the United States as told by the key influencers that spurred the modern women's running movement of today. In this first podcast, Olympian Amy Begley speaks with influencer Henley Gabeau, first RRCA woman President and CEO. Sadly, in 2018 Henley passed away after a battle with cancer. We are very proud to present her interview as our first RRCA podcast.Learn more about the RRCA >>