Julian Grace started running in 1971 after her husband advised her to give it a try. They started running half a mile. She hated it.
“I attended a Catholic school without athletics, except for PE classes, but not so many,” said Grace, now 84.
Little by little, Grace added mileage and took part in the first two-mile race at Southport in 1972. She first joined, but wasn’t used to traditional finish line tapes.
“I didn’t know you were supposed to go through the tape, so I picked it up and ran under it,” she said. “That’s how non-moving I was.”
By 1975, she had built enough stamina for a 10km race and through the Connecticut running community. New York miniEstablished in 1972 as the world’s first women-only road race. The race, sponsored by New York Road Runner, began with 72 amateur runners passing through Central Park. By the first year of Grace, it had grown to 276 finishers.
“At first I remembered as clearly as yesterday, looking around at other women and feeling this amazing empowerment and self-confidence,” Grace said. “For the first time in my life, I felt like an athlete.”
On Saturday, 50 years after the first event, 8,000 athletes, including nearly 12 Olympic and five Paralympic athletes, will be competing in the race. Among them are Americans Emily Sison and Sarah Hall, who just won the Boston Marathon in April, and Peres Jepchirchill in Kenya. The winner will receive $ 45,000.
Grace will be competing in the 46th New York Mini with her daughters Dedebeck (60), Beck’s daughters Julian (27), Melissa (22) and Allison (21). 50th anniversary of her marriage.
Women’s running has changed a lot since Grace ran the first 0.5 miles. She remembered an incident in which an empty beer can was thrown from her car passing by her early in her running career. “We really felt like a sight,” she said. “It wasn’t common to see women running around in shorts. It really wasn’t.”
The New York Mini is not a mini marathon or a “mini” race. Named after a miniskirt, it became popular around the time of the first tournament.
It wasn’t what Grace wore on her first New York Mini: she wore men’s gym shorts and running shoes because women’s athletic clothing wasn’t immediately available. She still holds a pair of unused Tiger Jay Hawks — the sneakers she chose in the 1970s as “what every man wore.”
“The 70’s was a 10-year awakening for me and for women,” Grace said. “Women’s expectations in running and many other sports have really emerged.”
Two more generations of women in her family are following in her footsteps.
Grace, who has run three marathons, is no longer considered a long-distance runner, but still runs four to six miles up to five times a week. On Saturday, she walks with her daughter at Dede Beck’s 42nd New York Mini.
“The mini is a special race with all these women,” Beck said.
Beck ran in high school and college and was the captain of the Duke University cross-country team. As her lifelong runner, she completed three marathons within three hours, and she ran the New York Mini with all four children pregnant, including one every eight months.
Everything began to change in 2018, when Beck began to develop runner dystonia, a rare neuropathy that affects leg muscles. “I stumbled on her right foot many times-it would get caught under my other foot,” she recalled. At first it only affected downhill running and then began to affect walking. “I felt like I was running on black ice,” she said.
Beck ran the last New York Mini in 2019 and is currently participating in crutches. On Saturday, along with Grace, Beck’s daughter Alison is on her side to help her.
This will be Julian’s 13th New York Mini Race, Melissa’s 9th and Allison’s 8th.
“There were years there I had to twist their arms,” Beck said. “I told them,’This can be counted as a gift for my Mother’s Day, a gift for my birthday, and a gift for my Christmas.'”
Now they are all happy to come and know that early June means race time. Beck’s disability gives her daughters more reason to return year after year.
“It’s one of the things you just don’t understand how much grit a person can have,” Julian Beck said. “She keeps pushing, she’s going to do it again, and I’m sure she’ll do it over and over again no matter what.”
“It’s pretty special,” Beck said. “God is happy and my mother will continue to do this for me and the girls until she is 100 years old.”