Her life is a running commentary
Benoit Samuelson’s 1985 record-setter left lasting memories
Darsie Bowden has ‘‘vivid memories’’ of Joan Benoit Samuelson and the Olympic Trials in 1984.
It started Benoit Samuelson’s run into marathon history. The American marathon legend revisits another piece of history when she runs the 38th Bank of America Chicago Marathon on Sunday, if the impact of a stomach virus allows. It will be the 30th anniversary of Benoit Samuelson setting the former women’s American record in Chicago.
‘‘Itwas awindy, raw, winter-coming day,’’ executive race director Carey Pinkowski said. ‘‘I remember the intensity of the competition between her and Ingrid [Kristiansen of Norway]. I heard some of the splits and could not believe them. I remember some of the men they were passing. That was a changing point in marathon history.’’
From that moment, the marathon has morphed into 45,000 people registered to run through 29 neighborhoods in Chicago’s largest sporting event expected to drawtwo million spectators and participants.
Benoit Samuelson divides her marathon career into ‘‘BC and AD, Before Children and After Diapers.’’
Back in 1984 BC, the Olympic Trials were held in Olympia, Washington, only 11weeks before the first women’s marathon in the Olympics in Los Angeles.
Bowden, now a rhetoric professor at DePaul, remembered the whole town was behind the marathoners and even held ‘‘salmon bakes.’’
Justweeks before the trials, Benoit Samuelson had knee surgery.
‘‘She was really nervous she would not make the top three,’’ Bowden said. ‘‘Nobody ever saw her. She was in her own hotel room. Ev- erybody else was in the dormitory.’’
Benoit Samuelson won the trials, then set the women’s Olympic marathon record of two hours, 24 minutes, 52 seconds, which stood until 2000.
‘‘She was at the top of her game,’’ said Bowden, who went out too fast and ended up in an ambulance at mile 20, though she would go on to win Seattle’s Emerald City Marathon in 1986. ‘‘She was somebody you looked up to, very competitive but she also worked hard. She didn’t play games with people’s minds.’’
Well, Benoit Samuelson might play mind games . . . with herself.
Until the stomach virus this week, her stated goal for Sunday is to ‘‘run within 30 minutes of 2:21:21,’’ the record she set in 1985. On Thursday, she said her run now is ‘‘a game-time decision’’ andwould be ‘‘celebratory, not competitive.’’
‘‘I am not getting any younger and when I have an issue, it has more of a presence,’’ she said.
Now her training is not impacted by raising children — they are grown — but ‘‘other commitments in the community,’’ especially on environmental issues.
The 1985 Chicago Marathon included Kristiansen, the world-record holder, and defending Chicago Marathon champion Rosa Mota of Portugal.
‘‘I just remember it was a loaded race,’’ Benoit Samuelson said. ‘‘It was a very competitive race, a gray race. I like to get off the line when the sun is shining. I usually race for time and not against competition. That race was unusual for me in that I was trying to beat Ingrid and not her time. That is highly unusual for me because you cannot control anybody else’s race but yours.’’
She gave an inkling to her drive when asked her memories of the course.
‘‘I have very few regrets, but I wish I had looked at the course that year because all of a sudden I was there and the finish line in sight,’’ she said. ‘‘I had a little bit more left in the tank.’’
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