A Decade on the Roads: 1980-1989

The distance runner is mysteriously reconciling the separations of body and mind, of pain and pleasure, of the conscious and the unconscious.

He is repairing the rent, and healing the wound in his divided self. He has found a way to make the ordinary extraordinary; the commonplace unique; the everyday eternal. ― George Sheehan

Think of what follows as a time capsule.  Written for “The Bible of the Sport.” 

Excerpted from the award-winning, critically-acclaimed When Running Was Young And So Were We. – JDW

A Decade on the Roads: 1980-1989
Let me begin by saying I expect you to disagree with me. In fact, I insist. This is personal stuff.
But when my masters called and said, “We want you to write about the greatest road runners of the ’80’s… maybe, maybe not… do whatever you want… try to capture the entire decade in a half-page… we need it Monday,” I thought of Mrs. Samuelson before I hung up the phone.

And then I started to think about the rest of it, the last ten years, that is. That took longer.

I remembered the belt buckle Benji Durden got for making the Olympic team that didn’t go to Moscow.

Benji, leading the Cascade Run Off and crashing to the ground as he slipped in a small pile of Mt. St. Helen’s volcanic ash.

ARRA & Alvin Chriss. Grete. Rod Dixon on his knees in joy at winning New York; Orlando Pizzolato the next year, stopping eight times in those last few hot miles.
Sitting in the LA Coliseum as Gabriele Andersen lurched and staggered those final meters. Anne Audain’s reign. Jim Fixx’s death. The foreign domination of the U.S. road circus. 2:21:06. 2:06:50. Alberto Salazar.

Actually, Berto came to mind earlier than that. I wanted to credit someone else. Surely there have been faster runners, athletes with golden prizes. But there is only one Salazar.
Joan Benoit and Alberto Salazar. The Pixie and the Pit Bull. Those two meant the most to me.
I think about the great duels and I see Dick Beardsley rushing to glory, only a few hundred meters from the Prudential Center. Alberto is with him and the two fight it out like Ali and Frazier. Staggering almost, Salazar opens a door to a place he only visits in the most desperate of times and he pulls out some extra part of himself.
The Finns call it sisu. In Japanese, it’s konjo. Guts. A defiance of defeat as much as a determination to win.
And so he did.

Then there was New York City, Rodolfo Gomez. Another titanic struggle. The unsinkable against the unstoppable. Side by side, they enter Central Park. A cloud of dust, momentary disorientation, and Alberto emerges with the lead. A genius move.

Nowadays, when some guy produces the race of his life, how do the sports writers describe it? “The fastest time by an American since Alberto Salazar…”
Joan Benoit Samuelson might be tougher. And she won the first Olympic marathon for women. The one race every female in the sport wanted to win.   Joanie not only did it, she walked away from the world’s best in the process. Walked away. In front of Peter Ueberroth and everybody. She kicked butt. She took names. With style. With grace.

But the memory that burns brightest is the expression of pain and relief etched on Benoit’s face as she finished first in the U.S. Trials… seventeen days after arthroscopic surgery on her right knee.
At the time I wrote, “The measure of greatness is not how well you do when things are going easy, but how well you do when the going gets tough. Joan Benoit doesn’t thrive on adversity, because she is not a fool. She feeds on achievement because she has ability. She is who she is and that is an Olympian in the truest sense. She only wants to find her limits.”

Ah, yes, the ’80’s.  Happy to say I was there.