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If you liked the movie, you should read his book. Guess what it's called? One of the most inspirational books I've ever read. He's an example of how everyone who's ever won anything should act like.

I'm 44. When I was in elementary school (in another state, in late 60s early 70s), the girls were not allowed to do the mile run as part of the Presidential Physical Fitness test because they thought if we ran that far, it would damage our female organs or some such nonsense as that. Hard to believe such ignorance existed---and not that long ago!

I have ignorance that occurred even a shorter time ago. WHo remembers the 84 games in LA? The women's marathon was held for the first time. It was a huge controversy. One of the main reason against adding it was the belief of many people that the female anatomy would not withstand the pounding and eventually spillout. The polite way it was put was "women who ran over 800 M would be come old sooner." WHo can not forget Gabrielle Andersen-Scheiss being from Switzerland overcome with heat stroke during the last lap. Many thought that this "incident" would remove the women's marathon from the program.

Edited by Dr Hammer 2005-10-10 7:50 PM

In 1967, Katherine Switzer entered the Boston Marathon as "K Switzer" and a race official tried to rip her number off during the race when he realized that a woman was runnning. Interesting story..... We've come a long way, baby!

http://www.katherineswitzer.com/