Our National Treasure

On the 25th anniversary of her remarkable victory over Ingrid Kristiansen in the 1985 Chicago Marathon in a lifetime best of 2:21:21, 53-year-old Joan Benoit Samuelson returned to Chicago on Sunday and celebrated the occasion by running 2:47:50. That time improves upon her American age-group record and stands as the world's best for women over 51 years old.

It is also, according to WMA age-grading tables, the equivalent of an open athlete running 2:15:50.

Considering that the temperature in Chicago reached 80 degrees, and that Benoit Samuelson ran the first 10K in 37:32 and the first half in 1:21:09, her final time is so improbable that all you can do is shake your head at the toughness of the athlete who could pull off such an effort.

"It wasn't a smart race, but it was my race," said Samuelson afterward.

But then, Joanie has given us this kind of off-the-charts kind of performance before. There was the breakthrough race in Boston in 1983 where she bolted through the 10K at nearly 5:00 per mile pace (a PR at the time) and held it together to record a world's best 2:23:43. She will go down in history as the first woman to win an Olympic Marathon (famously breaking away from the safety of the pack three miles into the 1984 race in Los Angeles), but her win in the Olympic Trials 17 days after arthroscopic knee surgery still defines the limits of mental and physical courage in my book.

That win over Kristiansen in 1985 was something to see. At the time, Kristiansen held the world records for 5K, 10K, and the marathon, but Joanie broke her to pieces with long punishing surges in the late miles.

Then there were all the wins at Tufts and at Falmouth. There was the patient, informative commentary at the Boston Marathon alongside know-nothings from the local TV stations. There were the appearances at countless running events and seminars -- always gracious and generous to the running community. There were the years of injury and bio-mechanical problems following her pregnancies, followed by a gradual return to competitive excellence as an age-group athlete.

Since turning 50, she has seemed to get better every year. Last fall, she won her age group at the Tufts Health Plan for women 10K by seven minutes, and then went on to run sub 2:50 at the New York City Marathon.

And if you think she has been coasting along on natural talent alone, you should know that she consistently ran 80 miles per week in the months leading up to the Chicago race.

After Sunday's age-defying performance, Benoit Samuelson was again at the Tufts 10K on Monday, where she "recovered" from her Sunday effort by running 40:27 and placing 2nd in her age group and 60th overall. It might not have been the smartest thing to do, but it was pure Joanie -- motivated by a desire to give back to a race that had meant so much to her and to the development of women's running over the years.

Really, there should be a statue of this woman on Boston Common. Under her name, it would be fitting to inscribe the words she spoke leading up to her latest achievement:

"It's important to remember to run your own race. I run my own race. You can't run anybody's race but your own."