On Thanksgiving Day 1961, at 19 years old, Julia Chase-Brand turned heads when she defied the orders of the Amateur Athletic Union and entered and completed the historic Manchester Road Race. Her participation in the widely followed event opened the door for women’s cross-country later that spring and in turn a great number of other changes allowing women to run distance events. Julia faced discrimination from both men and women. Among many things, she was told she’d risk her fertility and ruin her beauty if she ran distance events. But Julia pressed on. She competed in distance running at the elite level for six years and then went on to challenge academic gender norms by pursuing a graduate degree in science where she studied bats and orangutans. Twenty years later, she challenged age norms by completing a medical degree in psychiatry at the age of 53.

Running was not Ingrid Walters’ first love. Nor was it her second, or her third. She didn’t run in earnest until she turned 41, at which point she immediately began (quite literally) making up for lost time. After swimming competitively through the first two years of college, she began lifeguarding, and picked up beach running to stay in shape. She enjoyed it enough to accept a college classmate’s “dare” to run the 1993 Los Angeles Marathon, which she completed in 4:03:00. After that, she effectively spent two decades away from the sport. At age 33 she ran the LA Marathon again, this time in 3:37 – almost exactly one minute per mile faster than her first attempt. Then, six years later, she pursued marathoning in earnest, running 3:17 at age 39, then 3:07 at age 40. She first broke three hours at the 2014 Chicago Marathon with a 2:54:58, good for third place in the Masters Division and a spot on “The List” of American-born Black female runners who have run a sub-three-hour marathon. Her marathon progression culminated when she, at age 47, won the women’s Open division at the 2019 Los Angeles Marathon with a time of 2:48:03. Afterward, medical issues temporarily sidelined her—but as she explains, she might not be done with the sport yet. Walters is also an actress who's appeared in the film “Amistad,” and she has appeared in shows including “Baywatch,” “Scandal,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Shameless,” and “Parenthood,” as well as on stage at the Geffen Playhouse and in over 50 national commercials.

Toshiko d’Elia, the first female in the world to run a sub-three-hour marathon at age 50, took up running at the age of 40 to become a better mountain climber. In 1975, d’Elia started going into Manhattan to race with New York Road Runners, the only races in the area. She made friends with Nina Kuscisk, Fred Lebow, Ted Corbitt, and Kathrine Switzer, and was recruited to run with a female elite team, Atalanta, coached by Bob Glover. She was unstoppable and was given the nickname Seabiscuit after the horse that would never quit. By 1977, she was running 90 miles a week and winning long-distance races as well as sprinting events in 40-years-and-over competition. Despite having open-heart surgery when she was 78, d’Elia kept setting age-group records until December 2014, when she was diagnosed with brain cancer. She passed away peacefully surrounded by family at age 84. NOTE: This interview with Toshi and her daughter Erica was recorded by phone in 2013, a year before she passed away.

Sika Henry has made a name for herself in triathlon and in running. She became the first African American woman to qualify for her pro card in triathlon in 2021, and in 2022, she broke the Virginia state 100K Road Record. At the 2020 Tidewater Striders Marathon, she finished in 2:57:13, earning herself a spot on “The List“ of American-born Black women to break three hours in the marathon. She is a two-time champion of the One City Marathon. In April 2023, Henry ran the Boston Marathon as part of Team Bevans, along with two other women on The List—Shawanna White and Alisa Harvey—to honor Marilyn Bevans.

PattiSue Plumer, now the women's cross country and distance coach at the University of Texas, was a professional distance runner in the late 80s and early 90s. PattiSue was a two-time NCAA champion and nine-time All American at Stanford. She went on to win four U.S. national titles and make two Olympic teams, placing 13th in the 3K at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and fifth in the 3K and 10th in the 1500 at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. She was also the first American woman to break 15 minutes in the 5k, setting the national record of 14:59 in 1989. PattiSue had so many stories to share that we are splitting this episode into multiple parts—stay tuned for part 2!

Amy Begley started running at age 10, and nearly immediately set a goal of reaching the Olympics. After 20 years of hard work, she succeeded, coming in third in the 10,000 meters in the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials to earn a spot in Beijing. Several years later, she was transitioning away from her full-time running career at the same time the Road Runners Club of America (RRCA) was embarking on a project to preserve the history of women’s running. Amy signed on and got to work tracking down some of the sport’s most prominent female pioneers, reaching out to Track & Field historians, clubs, and coaches for contact information and race results. She spent hours on the phone interviewing more than 50 of the women. Some of the interviews were later released as podcast episodes, but others have never been heard. That project served as the precursor to this podcast, Starting Line 1928. And now, in the weeks ahead, we’ll be bringing you some of the interviews that Amy conducted 10 years ago, in 2013.

Erika Kemp didn't start running until her freshman year of high school, and went on to attend North Carolina State University; afterward, she trained with Boston Athletic Association's pro team for four years. She recently made a sponsor and coaching change (she's now with Brooks and coach Kurt Benninger) and moved up the marathon, running 2:33:57 in her debut at the 2023 Boston Marathon. Her time made her the fastest Black American female marathoner in history, a title that was previously held by Samia Akbar since 2006, on a list of only 30 Black women who have broken the three-hour barrier. “I knew it was going to be a tall order, and I had no idea what to expect with Boston on the day—I was looking forward to just being on the List,” she says. “After I finished, it took some time before it really sunk in.”

Mary Wittenberg's successes include being the first female CEO and president of a major sports organization, New York Road Runners; fighting for equal pay for professional female runners; being hand picked by Richard Branson to lead his Virgin Sports start-up; and, becoming a recognized and forceful leader of women’s agendas in the male-dominated world of track and field and road running. One of her most recognized legacies is turning the New York City Marathon into the largest one-day worldwide spectator sport worth millions of dollars in sponsorship money. Mary understands that sports gives women confidence. She has dedicated her life and career to making sure all women have access to that experience.

Eileen Claugus grew up in the Sacramento, California area, where she remains somewhat of a local running celebrity to this day. Claugus remembers competing in her first race in a cross-country meet in 1967. She went on to set a national high school mile record of four minutes and 40 seconds, which stood for 10 years. She continued to compete, placing second at the World Cross Country Championships in 1971 and serving as an alternate to the U.S. Olympic team in the 1,500 meters in 1972, at age 16. Eventually, she moved up to the marathon, and claimed victory at the 26.2-mile distance in Honolulu, San Francisco, Mexico City, and the British Marathon in Manchester, England. She ran a personal-best 2:37 at the 1982 Chicago Marathon. Alongside and after her athletic career, she worked as a school counselor and had two sons; she's now retired and living in Telluride, Colorado, where she skiis, cycles, hikes, and works with adaptive athletes. 

Marie Mulder’s running career was brief but triumphant—she started in the sport just before her 14th birthday, when a local coach recruited her. The next year, at the 1965 National AAU Track & Field Championships, she won both the 800 meters and the 1,500 meters—the first time women were allowed to compete there at a distance beyond the half-mile. That earned her a spot in the U.S.-Russia meet in Kiev later that year, where days after her 15th birthday, she ran 2:07.3 in the 800 meters to place second and break the American record by 1.5 seconds. She dreamed of competing in the 1,500 meters at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, but it wasn’t in the cards; that distance wasn’t added to the Games for women until 1972, and Marie’s running career came to a close not long after her family moved to Washington, DC, in 1965.