![]() The 40th anniversary of the NYC Marathon coincided with the 25th anniversary of my Olympic win, and that told a story. I really thought that was where I was going to end my career, but then I received calls from other race directors, including Mary Wittenberg. I try to come up with a story that will motivate me to get out there and attempt a goal-like trying to run a sub-2:50 at the 2008 Olympic Marathon Trials in Boston. “It’s through storytelling that I motivate myself. I’ll rest when I’m dead.” There’s Always a New Story to Tell I try to balance all my passions in life. That was after I ran and responded to emails and business calls relating to Beach to Beacon. We reached out to Samuelson in the hope that she would share some of them. But while Samuelson may have slowed down since she ran 2:21:21 at the 1985 Chicago Marathon (Deena Kastor and Shalane Flanagan are the only American women to have ever run faster) she never stopped running.Īny athlete who has managed to stay so good for so long has figured out a few secrets. Athletes of her caliber rarely, if ever, keep trying to push their physical limits once their fastest years have passed. In addition to her Olympic gold, Samuelson held the world record from 1983 to 1985 and won the Boston Marathon twice. ![]() ![]() Many stars of the scene, like David Walters or the late Ed Whitlock, were good amateurs in their youth, but none share Samuelson’s distinction of once being the best marathoner in the world. ![]() Samuelson’s case is unique among top-level marathoners who fall into the Senior (50+) category. The 1984 Olympic marathon gold medalist now has her sights on the Chicago Marathon in October, where she hopes to become the first woman over 60 to run a sub-3-hour marathon. A few days later, she ran the Sugarloaf Marathon in her home state of Maine in 3:12:21, winning her age group by a margin of more than seventy minutes. Last week, women’s running pioneer Joan Benoit Samuelson celebrated her 60th birthday. ![]()
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