Above the colorful sea of 30,000 runners who will check their watches and bounce from foot to foot to soothe last-minute jitters at the start of the Boston Marathon April 20 will be a new stationary figure, standing as a tribute to those who came before. “The Girl Who Ran” depicts Roberta “Bobbi” Gibb – the first woman to complete the marathon in 1966 – cast in bronze and captured midstride, eyes focused straight ahead. Ms. Gibb, an accomplished artist, is also the sculptor of the life-size monument. Sixty years ago, 100 yards from this spot, she hid in a forsythia bush, her long hair tucked beneath a hooded sweatshirt. She waited, coiled like a spring, to leap into a race not open to women. Times have clearly changed. On Monday, when the runners line up for the 130th Boston Marathon, women will make up nearly half of the competitors. Ms. Gibb’s statue may represent a moment of her personal history, but to the artist, it embodies much more.…