Coolest running meeting, ever

So this weekend, I ran the Crowley Brothers Half Marathon.  I will be doing a full race report this weekend, but I am too excited over this next part to save it for my race recap.

The race wins for the smallest race (like 75 people small), but coolest post race party.  After finishing, they had a post race festival and 2 running legends were there - Olympian Bill Rodgers and Kathrine Switzer.  If you don't know, Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon (back in 1967) and was big proponent for women's running and sports and for Title IX. 

Both were at the finish festival and talked to runners and were signing autographs.  Both of them happily signed my bib.  Bill ('cause we are clearly on a first name basis now) told me some stories of running the NYC Marathon in 1974 all 26.2 miles in Central Park.  I can barely make it through 2 laps of Central Park - I cannot even imagine running 26.2 miles in the park.  That is pretty intense. 

Kathrine was incredible.  It was really moving to me to meet her.  She is a pioneer in women's sports.  She changed the face of sports and I can do what I love because of her.  She was also so nice and was signing copies of her book 'Marathon Woman'.  It's her story of changing women's sports.  I am looking forward to reading it!  I already started to read the book and have discovered that she went to Syracuse and was in Newhouse.  How strange is that?

For a small, local half marathon it was pretty cool to get to meet both Kathrine Switzer and Bill Rodgers.  Definitely a one for the ages.  I plan on framing my bib as this now goes down as my favorite famous runner story (previous one is having Joan Benoit Samuelson give me a high five as I cross the finish line of the 2011 Nike Women's Half Marathon, which has been relegated to second place).

This bib is a keeper.

Signed copy of Marathon Woman.