It is Sunday, August 5, 1984, and Joan Benoit has just won the first Women’s Olympic Marathon at the Summer Games in Los Angeles. Her gold medal time was 2:24:52. It was, she related later, the most important victory of her race running life. The accomplishment was not just Joan’s triumph; it was the culmination of decades of work to increase the popularity of the sport so that it could become an Olympic event. It also defied the long-held belief that long distance running was detrimental to women’s health.
Joan Benoit Samuelson is still racing competitively at age 64. The scope and breath of her achievements defy articulation. In 1983, she set a course record in the Boston Marathon of 2:22:43 that stood for eleven years. She held the fastest time for an American woman at the Chicago Marathon for 32 years after winning the race in 1985. At age 53, she missed qualifying for the Olympic Marathon Trials by less than two minutes. She founded the Beach to Beacon 10k, a Cape Elizabeth, Maine race, that supports non-profit youth organizations.
Joan and I share a passion for running but we have wildly divergent skill sets. I have plenty of competitive desire, I but lack inherent talent. Diligent training cannot substitute for genetic physiology. I ran a handful of marathons in my 40’s but gave them up because training took so much time. I like to say that I am an excellent runner for a 65-year-old woman, a solid one for a 65-year-old female runner, and an abysmal one for a 65-year-old elite runner.
Joan’s perspective on running emerges in her quotes, and I relate to this one:
I feel about marathons the way my parents taught me to feel about the ocean: it is a mighty thing and very beautiful, but don’t underestimate its capacity to hurt you.
Physical exertion is not tied to pace, outcomes, or ability. Pain is pain. I do not run many races anymore, but every one hurts – a lot. I do not set a goal for a finishing time, and I consciously avert my eyes at the mile marker clocks. I just run the first half of the course at a pace that is relatively comfortable and the second half at a speed that is increasingly laborious until it is agonizing. It is a simple formula.
Joan famously quotes that, “there is no finish line” as she is a dedicated and successful racer in her sixth decade. I love the optimism of that statement, but the realist in me suspects otherwise. I run six days a week pain-free, but I worry that will not always be the case. I contemplate my final jog with the complicated emotion of morbid curiosity. Will it be like curling my eyelashes, which used to be a daily ritual and then settled into once-in-while until it petered out into never again? Or will it be like employment retirement, where you plan a final day with pomp and circumstance and celebrate the transition to a different life? If I had my choice, I would run until my final day on earth, returning home sweaty and upbeat, exhilarated by fresh air, heartened by movement, and calmed by effort. I will slip off my running shoes and simply slip away.
But I suspect the extent of my running life is what Joan likens to marathons-as-a-metaphor-for-life: you never know what is around the next bend. My beautiful infatuation with the sport is partly due to its mystery; I cannot predict or contemplate the outcome. I can only experience the impactful effort, the comforting rhythm, and the almost-heartbreaking solitude.
Happy birthday, Joan.