I remember answering very calmly and deliberately: "There will come a day when women's running is as popular and as publicizable as men's." How a twenty-year-old girl had the nerve to say that still impresses me, but I'd just run a marathon, and anyone who has, knows that the process gives you amazing insight and vision. To me, it seems like yesterday when the journalist at the finish line insinuated that my run was just a prank, that 'real' women would not run. In return, I have given it my total gratitude indeed, I've given it my life. If the truth be known, running has given me everything: my health, career, confidence, creativity, religion, love, freedom, and fearlessness. To me, it seems like yesterday when the aggressive journalist on the press truck, alongside of me at mile three, said, "What are you trying to prove?" and I answered, "I'm not trying to prove anything! I just want to run!" And for fifty years, I have run. "I'm not twenty anymore, I'm seventy, get it?" it shouts back at me. And yet, as I train to be on that starting line again fifty years later, my body reminds me when I ask it why it is going so slowly. Fifty years! Who could imagine it was fifty years ago when I first ran the Boston Marathon and an altercation on the racecourse that day changed millions of women's lives?
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