On August 7, 1959, Arlene Pieper completed the Pikes Peak Marathon, a harsh mountain course in Manitou Springs, Colorado.
She climbed 8,000 feet to the top of 14,000 feet and descended in the same way in 9 hours and 16 minutes.
“At the finish line, I felt pretty good,” she said in an interview with Boston’s public radio station WBUR in 2017. “I’m sure I was a little tired, but I wasn’t completely tired. A few days later I lost all my toenails.”
Her achievements did not create thunder in the sports world, leaving something secret as women competing on more prominent stages achieved marathon milestones. Roberta Gibb became the first woman to complete the Boston Marathon in 1966, with Joan Benowa winning her first victory. The Women’s Olympic Marathon held in Los Angeles in 1984.
After finishing Pikes Peak, Peeper returned to a women’s fitness studio in Colorado Springs owned by her and her husband, Warren Peeper.
She didn’t know for 50 years that she made the history of her movement. She was the first woman to complete a US-approved marathon.
Read more at: https://texasnewstoday.com/arlene-pieper-stein-90-dies-the-first-woman-to-finish-a-marathon/241391/