you go grrrl!

NINETEEN-YEAR-OLD Julia Chase raced from the back of the pack in the 1961 Manchester Road Race. The first woman ever to finish, she beat 12 men. (MANCHESTER HERALD PHOTOGRAPH)


i didn't know this. makes me smile!

Relentless Chase
By LORI RILEY Courant Staff Writer
November 24 2005

Forty-four years ago on Thanksgiving Day, Julia Chase of Groton slipped to the back of the field of about 140 men lined up for the Manchester Road Race and started running.In doing so, Chase defied the Amateur Athletic Union, the governing body of the sport in the U.S., which wouldn't let women race more than a half-mile. She defied doctors who said women couldn't run long distances because it would damage their reproductive organs.She defied a society that believed that women athletes, runners especially, would become unattractive and unable to have children.She was 19. She just wanted to run.Chase, now 63, is the honorary chairman of today's Manchester Road Race, the 69th running of the Thanksgiving Day race that draws about 11,000 runners and walkers. Last year, more than 5,000 were female.In 1961, there were Chase and two others. And they were not welcome."It was clear this is what I loved doing and there was no reason not to," said Chase, now Dr. Julia Chase-Brand, a psychiatrist from Leonia, N.J. "The rule was there and it had to be challenged. I think about it now and I think, `What was I thinking? I could have been banned for life.' I put my career on the line. I knew full well that that's what had to be done."The story splashed across the country's sports pages, before and after the race."Why Does Julia Keep Running After Men?" read the headline in the sports pages of the Nov. 30, 1961, Cleveland Press.The story began: "A 19-year-old college girl who runs after men is making newspaper headlines across the country. ... She is ... in the race for time and not for a mate."Life Magazine did a spread on her. Sports Illustrated followed her around days before Thanksgiving. She gave an interview a day leading up to the race, the phone in her Smith College dormitory ringing off the hook.......................