Kim Merritt

Born in Racine on May 22, 1955, she ran for Jerome I. Case High School in Mount Pleasant (class of 1973, then Kim Piper-Merritt) and for the University of Wisconsin–Parkside. As a freshman she took the state cross-country title and finished fifth at the nationals; AIAW honors in track and cross country, plus Academic All-America recognition, followed at Parkside, which inducted her into its hall of fame in the first class of 1980.

In September 1975, at twenty, she debuted at the New York City Marathon and beat Michiko Gorman in 2:46:15. The next April she won the Boston Marathon in 2:47:10 and left the course under police escort for blisters, not a collapse. Honolulu that December produced 2:44:44 and the year’s fastest American women’s mark. At the 1977 Nike Oregon Track Club Marathon she ran 2:37:57, an American record and the fourth-fastest time in the world that year. She won the inaugural Bix 7 and retained that title and the Charleston Distance Run in 1976. When the Games finally opened a women’s marathon, she finished fifty-third at the 1984 Olympic trials in 2:43:31.

Racine County later put her in its sports hall of fame. The Case campus that produced her sits in Mount Pleasant; the birth certificate and the county fame are Racine. Her peak was the twelve months when a Parkside kid from the Case attendance area could still win New York and Boston in the same season.