74 | Merry Lepper
Merry Lepper didn't exactly set out to be a running pioneer. But somewhere along the way, she became the first known woman to finish a road marathon in the United States. In 1963, she finished the Western Hemispheres Marathon in Culver City, California, in 3:37. At the time, she didn't necessarily consider herself a pioneer—but in the years since, she's received long-overdue recognition for her accomplishment, and now recognizes that she clearly played a role in opening doors for the women who came after her.
The skinny
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