Rulebreakers and Ghost Runners by Katie Holmes

Rulebreakers and Ghost Runners by Katie Holmes

'An important book' – Anna Kessel
'A fascinating account of an untold word, where women defied the rules and pushed the sport of running forward' - Lily Canter

The incredible untold stories of the British women who broke the rules and pioneered female running today

Did you know that until April 1975 women in the UK were banned from marathons and all races longer than four miles? Back in the 1960s, women started to break the rules and ‘crash’ men’s road races, challenging discrimination and showing that they were perfectly capable of running marathons – or even further.

Sports historian Katie Holmes shares the untold stories of these female pioneers. From the early days of organised athletics in the 1920s, to the social change, feminism and jogging craze of the 1970s and the marathon boom of the early 1980s, these inspirational women broke the rules, broke records and broke barriers.

There’s Violet Piercy who ran in a men’s marathon in 1936, decades before it was allowed; Scottish athlete Dale Greig who ignored the rules to compete in the 1964 Isle of Wight marathon; and ‘Queen of the Roads’ Leslie Watson who successfully challenged the exclusion of women from Britain’s most famous ultramarathon.

This is a fascinating, inspiring account of how British women asserted their right to run long distance and changed the landscape of running for good.

Katie Holmes is an independent sports historian, focusing on the history of women’s endurance running. She is passionate about uncovering stories which have faded out of the collective memory due to the marginalisation of women in sport. Katie took up running in 2011 for a charity event and in 2014, aged 50, created the RunYoung50 blog as a place to share the stories of female runners over 50 and highlight their achievements. She has received awards for her research from the Women’s History Network and the British Society of Sports History. @RunYoung50 / RunYoung50.co.uk

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781399425353
ISBN 10	1399425358
Title	Rulebreakers and Ghost Runners
Author	Katie Holmes
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Year published	2026-08-06
Number of pages	288
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.