Women were afraid and they would never even imagine running a marathon in 1967.

I do forgive people when they get it right, even people who in the past I thought were unforgivable.

If you feel positive, you have a sense of hope. If you have hope, you can have courage.

I said that there's going to come a day in our lives when women's running is as popular and as men's. Looking back, I obviously had a great sense of vision. And I was right.

A picture, of Jock Semple kissed me,appeared in The New York Times the next day after Boston Marathon in 1973, and the caption was "The end of an era."

When I forgave Jock Semple on Heartbreak Hill, I also got really cross with women. I couldn't understand why they didn't get it, why they didn't know that running was so cool and why they weren't in the race as well. Then I thought to myself "How stupid can you be? You've had so much encouragement and motivation and these women haven't."

I don't have any kids of my own, quite by choice. There are two reasons for that. One, I had a sense of obligation for what my life would be and a vision of how to get that accomplished and it didn't include children. It's not that I don't like them, it's just that if you have them, they deserve 100 per cent of your attention.