It amazes me that it was just in 1972 that the BAA finally “allowed” women to run the Boston Marathon, with some restrictions- women had a separate starting line, they couldn’t compete with the men and they had to qualify by the men’s qualifying time of 3 hours, 30 minutes. With that door open, the number of women competing in the Boston Marathon grew from 9 entries in 1972 to 43% of the field in 2011! You go girls!
Check out this article in the MetroWest Daily News: http://m.metrowestdailynews.com/wkdMetroWest/db_/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=aoeiw5AT&full=true#display
The Marathon Solution 