From Morning Briefing in the Los Angeles Times:
Another recent Morning Briefing item mentioned that no woman had run a marathon under three hours until Adrienne Beames’ 2:46:30 in 1971.
Chuck DeBus, former coach of the Los Angeles Track Club, called to say that until 1969, women weren’t even allowed to run a race of more than five miles without written permission from the national chairman of women’s track and field.
DeBus said he wrote the legislation that changed the rule.