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 Olympic gold medal winner Joan Benoit Samuelson came to Vermont last weekend and won the Crowley 10k road race in Rutland. Until I read about the race, I hadn’t realized that the 52-year-old was having such a good year. I searched and found that she had won the Oklahoma City Memorial Half-Marathon and has an ambitious racing schedule for the rest of the year.
I had the privilege of meeting Joan back in 1991 at a conference in Maine where she was our keynote speaker. I sat across from her at lunch and remember talking to her about my first book (Runner’s Guide to Cross Country Skiing) and giving her a copy. I still have her gracious note back to me and that’s the person I remember, a gracious, grounded mom -- listening to others, chatting like a middle-of-the-pack runner -- and then delivering a powerful fitness message to the attendees.
Of course, I saved my notes from her talk. “You need to be grounded ... home and family ... using imagery to put the mind at ease. Set aside 1 or 2 hours a day to do something for yourself. Life is a balancing act.”
She had passed on the 1988 Olympics because of her daughter born the fall before but she talked to us about her thinking about the 1992 Barcelona games -- how she’d have to uproot her family for a month to a hot place, how Scott would have to use up his leave .. and how she was leaning toward a 10K even though her chances of qualifying were better in the marathon. (As it turned out, she was injured and did not participate.) She was a delight and you’d never have known that she was the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal in the marathon. Larry Eder wrote this about Joan: When Joan Benoit hit the Los Angeles coliseum, in August 1984, the crowd of 70,000 erupted in a huge roar. In the first Olympic marathon, in a race that should have been won by Grete Waitz, then seven time NYC champion and World Champion, or Ingrid Kristiansen, or even Portugals' Rosa Mota!
How could this young Mainer, who seemed to get injured at the most opportune times, the last one about twelve weeks before the Olympics, take the lead on the LA Freeway and not loose it? In fact, Joan had played chicken with the world's best marathoners, and won!
When one sees Joan Benoit Samuelson now, many see this thoughtful, quiet Zen master. When one watches her run, consider for a moment that there were times in her career that most elite guys would not train with her - Joan was a training animal! Elite athletes can be jerks or they can be wonderful examples for others. Joan Benoit Samuelson, has not only had a great running career, raising a family, supporting women’s running and a number of charities, fighting injuries, while keeping her grace and most of her speed and endurance. It’s cool to see her compete with women 20 years younger but it’s also great to see this icon of running, like her buddy Bill Rogers who also ran the Prouty, get out there and show us that they still love to run - and still love to compete. One young woman runner/blogger put it like this after being in a race with her this month: “She's almost old enough for AARP and her 5K pace is sub-6:00.”
I’ll be watching results for Joan Samuelson a little more closely in the months ahead and recall that young woman who talked to us nearly two decades ago about her love of running in the foggy mornings in Maine, her balancing act with her young family, and her guiding practices: determination, dedication, and desire. If you enjoyed this article, then please subscribe to our RSS feed or via email to receive updates photo from Wikipedia
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Joan Benoit Samuelson - A Class Act
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