Even when Joan Benoit Samuelson was in a close race with Judi St. Hilaire and Lynn Jennings, she was worlds apart from her Athletics West teammates.
The other two women turned out for the Tufts 10-kilometer Run in clingy, two-piece racing uniforms with coordinated stripes, outfits that boldly suggested speed with style. Benoit, who won the race, wore a loose singlet and a pair of baggy shorts that looked like leftovers from 6th-grade gym class.
That was Benoit`s usual fashion statement: substance over style. The resolute young woman from Maine who runs Sunday in America`s Marathon/Chicago will be easily recognized as the resolute young woman from Maine who won the gold medal in the 1984 Olympic marathon. The essence of Joan Benoit Samuelson, or what little she chooses to reveal to the world, remains comfortingly the same.
Who she is, what drives her 5-foot-3-inch, 105-pound body, can be discerned in small measure from a series of freeze frames. Which image best defines Benoit? The waif under the Red Sox cap who won the 1979 Boston Marathon? The wonder woman who, 17 days after knee surgery, won the 1984 Olympic trials marathon? The wonderstruck woman with hand over her heart, gold medal around her neck and, finally, emotions on her sleeve as the National Anthem was played at the Los Angeles Coliseum?
None of those disclosed as much as the expression Benoit unwittingly showed millions of TV viewers when, only 3 miles into the Olympic marathon, she turned to see her presumed challengers were already falling behind. It was a look of dismay and then disgust and then defiance: If they want me to do all the work, well, Lord save them.
There it was, her competitive soul, bared in one instant. Exposed were the self-reliance and single-mindedness; the adherence to an unflinching code known as the Puritan ethic that preaches hard work as the only way toward salvation; and the internal fire-and-brimstone that led her coach, Bob Sevene, to call Benoit ”the toughest athlete in the country.”
She must be. No one else could exercise the willpower Benoit has in resisting the easy lure of fortune that goes with fame. While Mary Lou Retton bares a toothy grin with willful abandon, Benoit`s smile is still wry and tight-lipped and mainly to herself.
Her two national endorsements, Dole and Nike shoes, are not widely seen. Only once since the Olympics, when she ran the first bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau wine across New York, has she done anything that seems even remotely shameless–and that was to get her parents a free trip on the Concorde. She turned down an appearance fee estimated as high as $250,000 to run America`s Marathon a year ago.
”I`m very comfortable in Maine, living the life we`re living,” she says of herself and her Maine man, husband Scott Samuelson. ”I`m not one for a high-falutin`, high-budget city life.
”You`ve got to think of the future, but I`m happy with what I`m doing right now. I`m still wondering what I`m going to do with the rest of my life.”
One thing is certain. She will take it one step at a time and weigh each carefully, just as she did the decision to take the thousands involved in Sunday`s 26-mile, 385-yard race. For Benoit, 28, whose last marathon was the Olympics, the plan all along had been to wait at least a year before trying another.
The possibility of her running America`s Marathon in 1984 was nothing more than a brazen publicity ploy on the part of race organizers. Benoit simply had too little time or energy to train after the demands of the Olympic year, including her fall wedding to Samuelson, a business student at Babson College outside Boston. Benoit spent the rest of last year trying to commute three hours nearly every other day from her new home outside Freeport, Me., to her husband`s apartment in Wellesley, Mass.
When she began to race in 1985, the results were mixed but not startling until the L`Eggs Mini Marathon June 1 in New York. Benoit finished 11th in that 10-kilometer race, a whopping 90 seconds behind winner Francie Larrieu Smith. It was then she decided, in the appropriate Maine metaphor, to fish or cut bait.
”That race hurt, but it was valuable,” Benoit says. ”It made me finally realize I couldn`t go on doing everything people wanted me to do and still run well.
”It was hard for me to say no. I realize I can help people out, and there are so many organizations that just need a little piece of me. Now that I have learned to say no, I feel like I`m not doing everything I can to help everyone. But my gosh, there`s only one Joan Benoit Samuelson. Sponsors have to understand the way I can benefit a cause most is to do what I do best
–run.”
She was able to do that once Scott returned from school this summer, and they settled into a low-key routine that revolved around her training. A course-record run of 36 minutes 18 seconds at the 7.1-mile Falmouth (Mass.)
Road Race in mid-August convinced Benoit she was back on track for a fall marathon.
”I was ready to wait until spring,” she says. ”In a way, I still think I rushed things.”
After Falmouth, she pushed her training load up to 100 miles a week, eventually increasing to weeks of 130, 120, 130 and 120 miles. A 10-mile run last Sunday was her easiest workout in those four weeks; she did 20-milers every four or five days, at a pace that was as encouraging as her winning time of 31:49 in Monday`s Tufts race.
”I`ve had a really slow, frustrating year, but I didn`t lose focus on my long-term goals,” she says. ”I obviously had a lousy six or seven months when I didn`t do diddly, but I was able to survive them, and now I`m beginning to feel good.
”This (Monday`s) race tells me what my 20-mile runs have been telling me: I`m on target to run a PR (personal record) in the marathon.”
Benoit`s best marathon–2:22:43 at Boston in 1983–was the world record until Ingrid Kristiansen ran 2:21:06 at London in April. The desire to regain that record while beating Kristiansen is among Benoit`s primary motivations in America`s Marathon.
”The choice came down to Chicago or New York (next week),” Benoit says. ”I feel more at home in New York, but I asked myself if crowd support was more important than competition or a faster course.
”One of my goals at one time was to be first to break 31 minutes for 10 kilometers, and Ingrid did that (with a 30:59.42 this summer). When she said she wanted to break 2:20 at Chicago–well, that was also a goal of mine. I said, `I can`t sit out and watch her do it.` ”
Kristiansen, who was fourth in the Olympic marathon, has also made it clear how she intends to run the race, competing only against the clock and setting a pace of 33 minutes for each of the 10-kilometer sections in the 42.25-kilometer marathon. Benoit, usually a front-runner, says, ”I know what Ingrid wants to accomplish, and I can`t get caught up in it. I honestly don`t expect to take the lead.”
This may turn into a contest between a racer and a runner. Kristiansen was not pushed when she set world records in the 5,000, 10,000 and marathon, but Zola Budd beat her by nine seconds and broke the 5,000 mark when the two met in late August. Under the competitive pressure of the U.S. Olympic trials and the Olympic marathon, Benoit was at her best.
”Ingrid will make darn sure she runs her own race, because she didn`t in the Olympics,” Benoit says. ”I`ve always done nothing but run my own race.
”If Ingrid goes flying out, it will concern me only if I lose sight of her and have to run faster than I want to. I think I`m going to run a steady race and, based on my training, I should be able to keep her in sight.
”Who knows? Maybe I`ll feel real good, and I`ll go out hard. Ingrid has a little more speed at this time, but I know I`m the strongest I`ve ever been, and that`s what is important.”
One thing that worries Benoit is a windy, rainy day. ”That would hurt me tremendously,” she says. Otherwise, she has no fears about the race that is the last competitive commitment on her schedule.
”I don`t know what`s next,” she says. ”There is the possibility of starting a family, but that`s not to say we`re going to do it immediately or that I won`t come back after having a child. All I know is my body is going to need a lot of rest after this race.”
Once the race is over, Benoit plans to spend weekdays in Wellesley and weekends in Maine until her husband gets his MBA degree in May. The couple, who met while undergraduates at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Me., can then go back to their favored state ”for good,” according to Benoit.
Maine, you see, is also a state of mind.
”When people get to know Joan Benoit Samuelson, they know I`ll do what I want to do, and I won`t do anything I`m uncomfortable with,” she says.
Her few close friends will agree; the rest, given only a glimpse of the surface, must take her at face value, which leaves this viewpoint: Joannie, we hardly know ye, but we like your style.
