In 1967 a 13-year-old girl broke the women’s marathon world record. Settle in to this holiday long read that goes inside the little-known race that changed running history, excerpted from the new book Mighty Moe.
Maureen looked small standing in the grass on the side of the cracked asphalt road, like a loitering kid who’d snuck into an event for adults. Newspapers regularly commented on her size when they reported on her races around Canada and the United States.
Maureen pulled off her baggy sweatpants—the same ones she hated people to see her wear on training runs—and trudged toward the crowd. As the men continued to stretch and jostle and crack jokes, their lanky limbs whirled as if caught by a gust of wind peeling down the road. They were warmed up. “Runners, take your mark,” a man yelled from the side of the road. Sy approached and took his spot next to Maureen. He was racing as well. He wore shorts and a T-shirt, His usual black glasses perched on his nose.The group took a collective breath. Maureen’s muscles clenched. She looked straight ahead. To the left, she could see the cluster of brick buildings. To the right, unkempt grass and farmland. The road wasn’t closed, but even at 11:59 a.m. on a Saturday, there were no cars.
In practice, Sy could tell her to run 400 meters in seventy-five seconds. She usually missed that time by less than a second. She knew that with the smallest adjustment in how hard her foot struck the ground or how quickly the breath sucked into her lungs and blew out her nose, she could change her pace.This was easy. It was fun. Maureen was next to her coach on a deserted two-lane road just a short distance from her house. It was a weekend day in May and she was going to the lake cottage soon.
At the end of each of the 5-mile laps, she stopped and crouched behind a canvas tent staked into the ground. It served as a little bathroom for runners. Maureen thought this was funny, that in the middle of a race, when nature came knocking, she had time to pee and was still hitting her goal pace each mile.The distance floated by with cheers from friends and parents. This felt so easy, Maureen began to wonder what the big deal was.
A hand-drawn map of the course by Sy Mah. Runners started on Steeles Ave., doing five loops on the roads around the campus of North York University.His favorite motto to inspire his athletes was,"Never say die." Yet here he was, splayed on the side of the road saying “die” and grappling with the fact that, until this moment, he truly didn’t understand what a marathon was. He had never run this far before in his life.
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