Lessons from a Marathon Legend

  During the early 1980's, when I was really into marathoning, Joan Benoit Samuelson was a revered name. Samuelson was the winner of the inaugural women's Olympic marathon in 1984, with a time of 2:25.53. She also held the women's world record in the event (2:22:43) from 1983-1994.
   Besides those phenomenal achievements, I always was personally impressed that Samuelson was from Maine, and did the bulk of her training outside, through the brutal winters.
    Samuelson is nearly 60 now, with two grown children. She continues to run very well, like a 2:50:29 at Boston in 2013. She ran the 2014 Boston with her children (something I would love to do one day!) and clocked a phenomenal 2:52.10. Proving good genetics and a positive role model helps, her son, Anders, did a 2:50.01, and her daughter, Abby, clocked a 3:15.49.
  Marlene Cimons from the Washington Post interviewed her recently, and there are some great lessons to learn from the article.
  *The love of the outdoors helps keep Samuelson motivated after all these years. She uses the New England surroundings to her benefit: limited traffic, beautiful nature, and cross-training opportunities like kayaking and cross-country and downhill skiing.
   *Injuries have prompted her to back off on her training miles and intensity as she has gotten older.  She doesn't do "doubles" anymore, and her total training volume is about 50-75% of her peak years. She still does a weekly long run of 13-15 miles, however, and incorporates fartlek training into her long runs for most of her speed work. The tracks in Maine are snow-covered for about four months a year, anyway, and Samuelson seems to like to alter her training intensity by "feel" rather than set speeds and distances.
  *On that note, she's a believer in the mind/body/spirit triad, and tries to keep those things in balance. She resists the typical marathoner's mentality of going overboard in training or diet.
   *She looks at her running career as a series of stories. I would think an Olympic gold medal and world record would be two powerful ones, but Samuelson is creative in keeping her motivation up as she ages. One "story" or goal, was to run sub 2:50 marathons at age 50, and her latest is to break 3:00 at age 60. If she achieves that, she plans to back away from competitive marathoning.
  *While she doesn't envision doing marathons forever, running will always be part of her life. Passion. Balance. Storytelling. The essence of the inspiring figure named Joan Benoit Samuelson.