Val Rogosheske Is Back

After placing sixth at the historic 1972 race, Val returns five decades later to again cross the finish line

Val Rogosheske decided to participate in the 1972 Boston Marathon after her husband, Philip, told her she “needed a goal” to stay on track with her running. She decided that goal would be a marathon. At that time, the Boston Marathon was the only 26.2-mile race that she knew about. She knew about it because of the women who dared to run it unofficially.

“I had heard of these women in the Boston Marathon who would hide in the bushes and jump out and run,” Rogosheske, now 75, said. “I thought ‘that’s what I’m going to do.’ But then a couple weeks before the marathon, they said women are welcome.”

Rogosheske will be back at the Hopkinton start this year. Out of the eight women in the race’s first official field in 1972, she’s the only one who will mark the 50th anniversary as a participant.

Recalling the 1972 Boston Marathon, Rogosheske said, “All I did was show up. There were other women there, especially Kathrine Switzer, Sara Mae Ber-man, and Nina Kuscsik who had been working for years to let us into the race.

While Rogosheske’s friends and family encouraged her running, skeptics and experts alike voiced concern about the impact of running and another strenuous exercise on women’s health and used it as a reason to bar women from major physical activity.

“They thought maybe our uteruses would fall out,” Rogosheske said, rolling her eyes.

Rogosheske said the stakes were high in 1972, and she felt like she “had more to prove” back then.

“When the eight of us were together at the starting line, they kind of bunched us together at the front,” she said. “Then when the gun went off, you never saw another woman again. We had an understanding that nobody quits. Nobody even walks.”

This year, Rogosheske will be running the marathon with her daughters— Abigail, 38, and Allie, 43,—who insist on staying next to her during the entirety of the 26.2 miles.

“I remember one of [my daughters] was nursing an injury once and I said, ‘be careful and drop out if you have to,' and she said, 'Mom, that's what you and the other women ran for—to give us the option to drop out if we had to,'" Rogosheske said. "I get all choked up when I say this."

The Minneapolis native also ran the Boston Marathon in 1973 (placing ninth) and set her best time of 3:09:28 en route to finishing eighth in 1974. She came back to Boston and ran part of the distance for the 25th anniversary. For her, the highlight of each marathon was passing Wellesley College.

"It was so fun passing Wellesley and having the college students yell 'right on, sista,'" she said. "That's one of my strongest memories."

Back in the day, Rogosheske would run six days a week. In gearing up for this year's marathon, she has been running three days a week and practicing "the run-walk-run" method, promoted by Olympian Jef Galloway.

"I'm going to be running 30 seconds, walking 30 seconds for the whole race," she explained. "It really expands the distance you can go, especially if you've got joint problems or other things."

Rogosheske said this approach to running gives her the same thrill she felt running at 25 years old. The 2022 Boston Marathon will be Rogosheske's first full marathon in 45 years.

"If I just run, I'm going so slow it doesn't really feel like my old running," she said. But now I've got to giddy up because I'm going to be walking for half the time. Even though I'm not going as fast as I used to, it still has all the same feelings—the same rhythm and physical feelings I used to experience."

Rogosheske now lives in Minneapolis with Philip. The couple loves to hike, and they try to stay as active as they can.

While Rogosheske appreciates the community she has built through running and loves the adrenaline rush of running a marathon, her biggest takeaway is a mental one: "I've gained a sense of being able to do whatever I set my mind to."

Reported by Ananya Panchal. Ananya Panchal, a senior at Boston University studying Journalism and Criminal Justice, has written for entertainment and culture beats for Bustle magazine, The TODAY Show and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Val Rogosheske smiling to the finish at the 1972 Boston Marathon. She’d finish in sixth place.