Miki Gorman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Miki (Michiko) Suwa Gorman (born 1935 in China) was one of America's foremost women's marathoners during the mid 1970s. Gorman is the only woman to win both the Boston and New York City marthons twice, and the only woman runner to win both marathons in the same year [1].
Gorman, who grew up in Japan's Fukushima prefecture during the post-war years, came to the United States in 1964 and, at 5'0 1/2" tall and 86 pounds, took up running while in her early 30s to gain weight. In 1970, Gorman ran an indoor 100 mile run in 21:04:00 in Los Angeles, California.
Gorman set an unofficial world's best [2] for the women's marathon of 2:46:36 at the Western Hemisphere Marathon [3] (now the Culver City Marathon) on December 3, 1973, just four years after she started to run (at the age of 33). Four months later, in April of 1974, she won the Boston Marathon in a course record of 2:47:11. Gorman would also place second at Boston in 1976, and won Boston again in 1977.
Gorman would also win the New York City Marathon twice, in 1976 and 1977, at the age of 41 and 42 respectively. She is the currently the last American woman to win the New York City Marathon. She set her personal record during her 1976 victory with a time of 2:39:11.
Frequently injured in subsequent years, Gorman competed sporadically through the years 1978 to 1981. She decided to retire from competitive running in 1982 and now lives in Los Angeles.
Gorman has been inducted into both the Road Runners Club of America Hall of Fame and the USATF Masters Hall of Fame[4].
[edit] External links
- Interview in the October 2001 issue of Running Times Magazine
- As the Miles and the Years Pass By (Miki Gorman)
- Running Commentary by Joe Henderson, April 17, 2001
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ "The National Distance Running Hall of Fame Class of 2005 Nominees", National Distance Running Hall of Fame, 2005.
- ^ "Chronology of the World's Marathon Record", Run The Planet Inc. Seattle, 2002.
- ^ "History of Women's Distance Running".
- ^ "USATF Masters Hall of Fame", USA Track & Field, Inc., 2006.
