WIBX 950 is your exclusive radio home for step by step coverage of Boilermaker 35, Utica's 15k road race, attracting the best male and female runners from not only the United States, but around the globe.

Coverage of Boilermaker weekend begins on Saturday afternoon at 12:30 with a live broadcast of the National Distance Running Hall of Fame 2012 Induction Ceremony from Mohawk Valley Community College. Our official race coverage begins at 7:00 Sunday morning - on the air at WIBX 950 am and online at WIBX950.com.

WIBX is proud to to be your home for the excellent coverage of this great race, and to have distance running greats Kathrine Switzer and Roger Robinson calling the race with unmatched insight and commentary.

Not that either need any introduction, here is a closer look at our guest commentators:

 

 

 

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Kathrine Switzer has been a part of the WIBX broadcasting team covering the Boilermaker 15 K for over 25 years. However, she will always be best known as the first woman to officially run the famous Boston Marathon in 1967.Her entry created an uproar and worldwide notoriety when a race official attempted to forcibly remove her from the competition.(The resulting photographs became so famous around the globe that they are now featured in Time Life’s book: 100 Photos That Changed the World.).

Kathrine began her marathon running while still a student at nearby Syracuse University and over the years has run many races in the Utica area, including the Boilermaker. She has run hundreds of road races, including 38 marathons, and won the 1974 New York City Marathon..

After a successful athletic career she turned her attention to the creation of women’s opportunities in runnning, and led the drive to make the women’s marathon an official Olympic event in 1984, which transformed the landscape of the sport. Especially noteworthy is Kathrine’s creation and direction of the Avon Internantional Running Circuit, with 400 events in 27 countries that opened the doors to running for over a million women.

She continued with a career as a business woman, as a broadcaster—she’s won several Emmys-- and as an author. She is the author of several books including her award-winning memoir Marathon Woman and is co-author, with her husband and Boilermaker co-commentator, Roger Robinson, of 26.2 Marathon Stories which was named by Runners World as one of the best five running books ever. (For further information about Kathrine’s books, go to http://www.marathonwoman.com/)

Kathrine is a highly motivating speaker; she and Roger often speak in tandem, as they do here annually at the Boilermaker forum. She continues as a leader in the equality of women in sports globally and has received numerous awards and citations for her efforts in creating opportunities and positive social change-- including being inducted last October into the National (U.S.A.) Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, NY. She still runs in marathon events as a not-too-serious age-group competitor. At the Boilermaker, she claims to have the best seat in the house as she commentates alongside the elite women runners, live off the back of a Harley.

 

 

 

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Roger Robinson,

 

 

 

guest commentator for the WIBX Boilermaker live broadcast, is one of the world’s leading writers and speakers on the sport of running. He has won three awards for excellence in running journalism, including last year’s Les Diven Award for his outstanding coverage of the Boilermaker in print, on-line, and on radio, in his work for the last thirteen years for WIBX.

Roger is a highly successful author, with two columns and frequent features in “Running Times” magazine (www.runningtimes.com). His latest book is a new edition of “Heroes and Sparrows: a Celebration of Running,” a 25th anniversary edition of a classic of the running movement. In 1986, this was the first book to describe and celebrate the “brave new world” of running, and its appeal to the “sparrows” as well as the “heroes” of the sport, and was prescient in foreseeing the growth of running to a mass movement.

With his wife Kathrine Switzer, the legendary pioneer of women’s running, Roger wrote “26.2 Marathon Stories,” a full-color illustrated introduction to all aspects of the marathon. Roger’s unique and entertaining “Running in Literature” combines his expert knowledge of running and its history with his other life as a professor of literature. He has published books about Robert Louis Stevenson, H.G. Wells and others.

All Roger’s running books are available for sale, signed by the author, at the Boilermaker Expo. Roger and Kathrine are speakers at the Runners’ Forum (free to all) on Saturday afternoon.

For more detail of all Roger’s books, and his career, go tohttp://roger-robinson.com/

Roger first came to Utica to run the Boilermaker when he was one of the world’s best masters (over 40) runners, winning several world titles and setting age-group records at the Boston and New York City Marathons. He also won the Boilermaker over-50 race Born in Great Britain, he represented England and later New Zealand at world championships.

He is also a top-level stadium and TV commentator, working at Olympic and Commonwealth Games, and as race announcer in the US and New Zealand. His contributions to running, he says, “most often involve finding well-crafted words to describe the sport I love.”

The Boilermaker is one of Roger Robinson’s favorite races each year – “because of the friendliness of the organizers, the unique community involvement, the party atmosphere, and the dedication and quality of the WIBX team.”

 

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