Track & Field: Queen of the Marathon

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TRACK & FIELD

One enduring paradox of the Boston Marathon is that the doctors who give each entrant a physical exam before the race never bother to check his head. Ask a competitor what makes him run and he will tell you: "It feels so good when I stop." It must—after 26 mi. 385 yds. of loping up and down hills, fighting leg cramps and nausea, cultivating blisters, dodging angry dogs and straining to hold out till the next comfort station. Such stoicism is plainly un-American—which explains why a foreigner has won every Patriot's Day marathon in almost a decade. Last week was no exception: the winner was Japan's Kenji Kimihara, 25, who pit-patted across the line in 2 hr. 17 min. 11 sec.—just 38 sec. off the record. As it turned out, though, the day's most eyecatching performance was turned in by a 112-lb. American who did not dare take the physical exam—because she was a woman.

"I knew if they found me trying to compete they'd stop me," said blonde, blue-eyed Roberta Bingay, 23, who started running a couple of years ago to keep company with her husband, a former Tufts University half-miler now in the Navy. For some reason, she got to like it. So she hid in bushes near the starting line in Hopkinton, Mass., waited until the main bunch of runners had disappeared before launching herself onto the course. To disguise her sex, she wore a hooded blue sweatshirt, but when that got too warm, she peeled down to a black swimsuit and Bermuda shorts. For a good portion of the race, she jogged alongside Alton Chamberlain of New York, who said afterward: "She didn't look half as bad as some of the men did."

Now there was an understatement. Roberta crossed the finish line in 3 hr. 21 min. 2 sec.—good enough to place 124th out of an otherwise all-male field of 416. Will Cloney, director of the marathon, refused even to admit that she had competed at all: "I know of no girl who ran in the Boston Marathon," he insisted. "She couldn't enter. I do know of a girl who is supposed to have run the same roads as the marathon route today. But that's not the same." No? Roberta is planning to run again next year, as a team entry with her husband. "Team?" demanded Cloney. "What kind of team? An adagio team?"