Boston ’83 (Remember When American Women Set World Records?)

Mid-May in the year 2020, I received a newsletter most welcome from Let’s Run.

And I’m looking at it with some interest and I come across this.

And my first thought was, what the hell?

Second thought – What the eff were these “visitors” thinking and where the eff are they visiting from? Geezus.

That is so wrong and I can prove it to you in three words – Joan Benoit Samuelson.

She did more than win the first women’s Olympic marathon. And nobody’s tougher.

 

Destroying the World Record by 2:46 as it did, the 2:22:43 by Benoit was sublime at the very least.  The 25-year-old Boston University women’s coach has added, if not another dimension, then certainly another plateau towards ultimate athletic achievement for women.  She is alone.

 

How “ridiculous” was Benoit’s mark?  Well, since World War Two, Boston’s men’s race has been won ten times with slower marks than Joanie’s.  Amby Burfoot earned the 1968 laurel wreath with a clocking just 25 seconds faster.  The 1975 women’s WR win by Liane Winter was nearly 20 minutes slower. 

 

Twenty minutes!

 

Even Benoit expressed some incredulity, despite secret pre-race hopes for a “2:23:something.”

 

She confessed that passing 10M in 51:30 “scared me a little bit.”. But Benoit runs how she feels: “I felt good and thought, ‘What the heck?’ “

 

She had been aware of her pace early on, surrounded as she was by men with very low competitor’s numbers.  Her 31:50 split for 10K has been bettered by an American only twice in open events – both times by one J. Benoit.

 

“The men kept saying, ‘Lady, watch it, ‘but I always felt in control,” said Benoit.  “I kept listening to what my body told me and I stayed in complete control all the time.”

 

Despite blistered feet, she passed the half-marathon point in 1:08:23, faster by 39 seconds than her official American Record.  The hard early pace – established in part to escape Allison Roe, but also to set up a new global mark – began to signal some rebellion in the Wellesley Hills.

 

A side stitch at 15 miles.  “I slowed the pace down,” Benoit recounted.  “Then I took some water, collected myself and moved on.”. Onward into history.

 

 

Benoit’s clocking clipped nearly three minutes off the 2:25:29, first run by Roe in the ’81 NYC Marathon. Just a day before Joanie’s WR at Boston, Grete Waitz had matched Roe’s mark at the London Marathon.

 

“Allison called me Sunday to tell me about Grete,” said Benoit.  “I just told her that all I wanted to do was run the best race I was capable of running.

 

“I had heard that everyone expected Allison to be on my tail, but I didn’t want to play cat-and-mouse with her.  During the race, I heard people say she was behind me at about five miles, but I didn’t hear anything about her after that.”

 

Leg cramps forced Roe out of the race at 17M.  Runner-up honors went to 1980 champion Jacqueline Gareau of Canada, who ran wonderfully – yet distantly – for a 2:29:28 personal record.

 

It was a journey not without pain for Benoit.

“My feet are killing me,” she confessed afterward.  The blisters she developed didn’t slow her record tempo, however.

 

Benoit added, “I ran those last few miles really hurting in general.  All I could think of was last year’s race when Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley sprinted at the end through all those crowds and all that noise.  How did they ever do it?”

 

 

This was also a triumph of will for the diminutive Benoit.  Operations on both Achilles tendons in December of 1981 relegated her to extensive exercycle workouts for almost half of 1982.  But she returned last September with a 2:26:11 win at the Nike race in Eugene, the fastest loop time ever.

 

After that race, Benoit commented, not surprisingly, “I know I can go much faster.”. This year at Boston, Joan – and the rest of the world – got a glimpse of just how much faster.

 

Whether TAC and the NRDC will accept Benoit’s blazer here as a record is not cut and dried, as some detractors have pointed to “illegal aid” provided by 2:13 performer Kevin Ryan, who apparently ran the full distance with Benoit, giving her constant moral support, if nothing else.

Critics claim he went beyond that, keeping her on pace and carrying a water bottle so that she could skip aid stations.

 

Whatever the outcome of this alleged controversy, the fact remains Joan Benoit made it on her own two feet from point A to point B faster than any woman before.

Greg Meyer destroyed no World Record, although he put some heat on Alberto Salazar’s course standard through 20 miles.  On his way to a 2:09:01 triumph, Meyer passed 20M in 1:37:11, some 18 seconds faster than Salazar managed during his 2:08:13 effort.

 

With the win seemingly more important than the record here – the first three American finishers would claim places on the U.S. team going to the World Championships – Meyer lost some concentration.  But that’s all the 27-year-old Bill Rodgers Running Center employee lost.

 

Ten miles into the race, Benji Durden had assumed the lead, with Meyer, Ed Mendoza and Paul Cummings in close attendance.  Meyer pulled alongside Durden by 19M and a mile later, Greg went for the win.

 

“Before the second hill, I threw in a fake,” said Meyer of a fake surge.  “But it worked.  I’m sure Benji was tired.  After that, I knew it would be hard for anyone to catch me, so I relaxed.  I was content to be alone for the last four miles.”

 

Behind Meyer, Ron Tabb ran the race of his life, biding his time before sweeping past Durden around 26M to come home 2nd in a PR 2:09:32.  He is now #5 American ever, while Durden’s career-low 2:09:58 for 3rd place put him #6.

 

Perennial Boston hero Bill Rodgers, bogged down by a heavy cold, struggled home 10th in 2:11:59, the lowest placing of the five Bostons he has finished.  “This may be my last marathon,” Boston Billy offered.  “There is a big gap between me and the top guys.  It’s frustrating.”

 

And now there’s a big gap, too, between Joan Benoit and the rest of the world.

 

Nobody can say I didn’t warn them.