#wegotgoals

By now, runner, author, and activist Kathrine Switzer has logged countless miles. Most famously, she completed 26.2 as the first official female in the Boston Marathon, in 1967. The stunning photos of race director Jock Semple nearly pulling her off the course made history and cemented her life’s purpose of empowering women. But like any others, her journey started with a single mile—one she’d run, on repeat, at her dad’s suggestion beginning when she was 12. He told her it would improve her performance on the field hockey team. Ultimately, it transformed her life. “Every day I felt like I had a secret weapon, a magic that nobody could take away from me,” she said. “It was just amazing to have that under my belt. So by the time I was 19 and training for the Boston Marathon, I felt like I could do anything.” Switzer’s goal of sharing that power brought her to Chicago earlier this month to speak at a fundraising luncheon for the Midtown Educational Foundation (MEF). At the MEF’s Metro Achievement Center for Gir