BOSTON — Of the 146 starters in the women’s United States Olympic
marathon trials Sunday, the oldest was 50-year-old Joan Benoit
Samuelson.
In 1984, she won the first Olympic marathon for women, but her goals
now are more modest. Two weeks ago, she said she hoped to run the
marathon in 2 hours 50 minutes. On Friday she said, not completely in
jest, “My goal is getting to the starting line and getting to the
finish line.”
On a crisp Sunday morning, she accomplished all of
that. She finished in 2:49.08, putting her 90th among the 124
finishers, and giving her an American record for the women’s 50-54 age
group. Along the roads in Boston and Cambridge, she received the
loudest cheers of any runner.
“The support around the course was unbelievable,” she said. “I ran a
very conservative race. All I wanted was to break three hours and
finish.”
Samuelson has been a favorite here since 1979, when she
unexpectedly won the Boston Marathon. She finished that race wearing a
Red Sox cap given to her by a spectator. This time, she started with a
white cap and finished with another Red Sox cap.
