Miki Gorman

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Miki ("Michiko") Suwa Gorman (born 1935 in China) was one of America's foremost women's marathoners during the mid 1970s. Gorman is the only woman to win both the Boston and New York City marathons twice, and one of only two woman runners to win both marathons in the same year ^[1].

Gorman, who grew up in Japan's Fukushima prefecture during the post-war years, came to the United States in 1964. At 5'0 1/2" tall and 86 pounds, she took up running while in her early 30s to gain weight. In 1970, Gorman ran an indoor 100 mile run in 21:04:00 in Los Angeles, California.

Gorman set an unofficial world's best ^[2] for the women's marathon of 2:46:36 at the Western Hemisphere Marathon ^[3] (now the Culver City Marathon) on December 3, 1973, just four years after she started to run. Four months later, in April of 1974, she won the Boston Marathon in a course record of 2:47:11. Gorman would also place second at Boston in 1976, and won Boston again in 1977.

Gorman also won the New York City Marathon twice, in 1976 and 1977, at the age of 41 and 42 respectively. She is currently the last American woman to win the New York City Marathon. She set a personal best during her 1976 victory with a time of 2:39:11.

Frequently injured in subsequent years, Gorman competed sporadically through the years 1978 to 1981. She decided to retire from competitive running in 1982 and now lives in Los Angeles.

Gorman has been inducted into both the Road Runners Club of America Hall of Fame and the USATF Masters Hall of Fame^[4].