Mary Etta Boitano (born March 4, 1963) was a child road running star who achieved some spectacular results in the 1970s, chasing world age group marathon records in the late 60s and early 70s with her brother, Mike. Together, the two tallied well over 7 world age group records.
Mary Etta, a contemporary of Mary Decker from the San Francisco Bay Area, is the youngest child from the running Boitano family. Her father, John, and mother, Mary Lucille, were also running road races. John was instrumental in starting the Dophin South End Runners with Walt Stack as well as the Pamakids with Grant Newland in San Francisco. Mary Etta earned an appearance in the Sports Illustrated Faces in the Crowd as the first female finisher in the 6.8 mile Dipsea Race race at the age of 5. Five years later she became the first female to win the race overall, at the age of 10,[1] beating her brother Mike who had won the previous two years. (Dipsea participants' times are adjusted with an age and gender-based handicapping system.) It is still the fastest time run by a woman.[2] She also received the Sports Illustrated Award of Merit recognition in October 1970.
At the age of 5 she started running marathons,[3] winning the Avenue of the Giants Marathon[4] at the age of 10. Still at the age of 10, she ran a 3:01.15 marathon which ranked her #13 in the world and 4th in the nation for the year 1974[5] ahead of Kathrine Switzer and Gabriela Andersen-Schiess who were decades her senior. Such was the Marathon world record progression for women at that time, had she run that time only three years earlier, it would have been the world record. From ages 6 to 13 she logged in well over 40 marathons with the 3:01:15 being her personal best.
At the age of 11 she began a string of three straight victories in the famous Bay to Breakers race.[6][7] She is the youngest winner in the history of the race.[8] She also set the fastest women's finishing time at 43:22 for the 7.86 mile course, a record which stood for 5 years. She went on to win the Women's Division again in 1975 and 1976. In 1983, the course was shortened to an official 12K (7.46 miles). She later ran cross country and track for San Francisco State University[9] and graduated with a bachelor's degree in nursing.
Hal Higdon wrote a "Where are they now" article for Runners World in 2002, locating Mary Etta, now married and working as a computer technician in Sonoma, California where she continues to run for fun.[10][11] She is inspiring her young children to run.