Has Joan EVER ran a marathon slower than 3 hours?

According to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/...etics#Marathon_Women, the record is 2:52:14 by Rae Baymiller.

Samuelson ran 2:52:10. If she sticks with this marathon thing, she just might make something of herself.

probably not!!!

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Found the answer...ONCE!! From Wikipedia:

"On October 10, 2010, she ran 2:47:50 for 43rd place at the Chicago Marathon...Later that month she ran in the Athens Classic Marathon for fun and finished in 3:02, the slowest time of her career,"

Definitely another one in the BAMF category...

I live in Cape Elizabeth, ME where she is from, very nice lady.

A gentleman I know had an old picture of his daugther and Joan when Joan ran the Litchfield Road Race abouyt 15 years ago. Recently, he sent a copy of the photo to Joan to ask for a signature. Joan sent back the photo signed with a really nice letter. She is a legendary athlete...and by all accounts a better person.

So she set the record? Amazing!

Haha.

She's awesome.

I was in Los Angeles in 1984 and got to saw her win the Olympic marathon (first-ever for women, IIRC).

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http://www.jt10000.com/

Thanks Marky for pointing this out. This is so awesome...almost as awesome as winning the olympic 1984 marathon only weeks after knee scope surgery! I'd just love to run when I am 58 forget about run fast!

Figures that it would be Athens. That course is uphill from mile 6 though 20+ and your legs are fried for the last downhill 6 miles into Athens. She probably could have gone sub 3 at almost any other race with that effort (except Pikes Peak & Great Wall).

Someone just informed me that "Marathonguide calls that an age-graded 2:14:32. At Boston. Yeah."

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I love the age graded calculations, but the always over estimate the impact of aging...no way if we beamed Joan back to 1984 and made her do her training that she just did (based on percent Vdot, not actual pace today) that she'd go faster than she ever did....I'd assume that her training load was much higher at her peak (relative to Vdot then) then it is now.

She was the celebrity guest at a local HM a couple weeks ago. I got to run directly beside her for about two miles until she dropped me. Spoke to her briefly after the race and she was very nice. She ran a 1:28 that day. Just a nice practice I suppose!

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Loud pawls save lives

This made me laugh - She's such a BA, she can outrun the Bionic Man. :-D

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____________________________________________
Don Larkin
Reach For More
http://www.reachformore.fit/
USAT Lvl1 Coach, NSCA-CPT, NASM-CPT, BS Exercise Science

Ha! :)

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Loud pawls save lives

As do I, she is very nice. I had a funny first way of meeting her:

When I first moved up to Cape Elizabeth I did a 10k in Freeport, ME. I was through the first two miles in 11:45 and this 50-something woman starts effortlessly gliding by. I think to myself:

1. Old enough to be my mother...
2. Doing 5:45 pace and not dying...
3. Really could only be one person, and that person has an olympic medal.
4. I'm gonna let it go :)

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"No matter how hard you train, Somebody will train harder. No matter how hard you run, Somebody will run harder. No matter how hard you want it, Somebody will want it more, I am Somebody"~ST Post

The coolest thing about this entire thread is that even after all those years of cut throat competitive running, she still loves to run. She's not in the "been there, done that, nothing to prove" camp...she's in the "I am an athlete for life camp". Which camp do we want to be in?

Sure the times slow down (she's 2:52 now rather than 2:22) but she's still loving it and out there and pushing her body for what she can get out of it. In our sport, we have Mark Allen or Peter Reid in the former camp and we have guys like Molina and Glah in the latter camp. I kind of like what Molina and Glah are doing, while totally respecting that when you have put in so much to be a champion that you may no longer have that fire.

Speaking of "Athlete for Life"

This girl I've known since elementary school finished in 3:25



Not bad for someone who won Ironman Hawaii almost 20 years ago

Believe it or not, with all those IMs under her belt, this was her first Boston Marathon

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

i think you've just outed yourself as an old fart. :) these were my exact same thoughts.

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http://harvestmoon6.blogspot.com
https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/katasmit

I grew up in Cape and live in South Portland now... small slow twitch world.

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"4 wheels move the body, 2 wheels move the soul"

Be honest Zev lots of Grandmas pass you, especially when you're out on that kawasaki green looking excuse for a TT bike....

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"4 wheels move the body, 2 wheels move the soul"

Sounds like someone's lost their sit-on-my-wheel privileges...

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"No matter how hard you train, Somebody will train harder. No matter how hard you run, Somebody will run harder. No matter how hard you want it, Somebody will want it more, I am Somebody"~ST Post

Damnit... wait. You don't know who this is....that's what I'm going with

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"4 wheels move the body, 2 wheels move the soul"

Boy, to run like that at 58 is amazing. Good for her!

I love the "age-grading". In my office we had a race series for a couple of years. At first it was all 30-45 year olds. Then we got some young people and some older. The older ones argued (I think fairly) that they didn't have a chance against the young guys. I looked into age grading and came up with a simple, effective and pretty fair age grading system, so men and women of all ages could compete against each other on a level-ish playing field.

Of course, there will always be arguments about the grading, but at least it gets you close and enables people to understand just how awesome some older athletes are.

Good on ya Joan!

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

SHE IS FROM MAINE!!!!

Her son ran, too - forgot his time but it was really good

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

Except if you are a life long runner, the age grading calculations give you faster times today (let's say at close to 50 years old) than you ever ran at 22, which is entirely bogus. Guys who start running late in life look up those calculators and virtually vault themselves up to say 2:4x marathoner, when in reality if they ran at say 25 and trained exactly as they did today for that marathon, they probably would not break 3 hours. Joan's example is perfect....age grading puts her result at 2:14. She was never a 2:14 marathoner. No woman has been (Radcliffe was 2:15). Joan was 2:22 at Boston in 1983, 31 years ago. So how about the age grading folks actually use that data and come up with a new scale.....we have a 31 year old sample on the same course too!!!

But being a life long runner IS important. Even at my level, I can come back to running after a layoff (3 years in my current case) and I can ramp up my distance and speed a lot faster than my brother who is not a life long runner. for someone like Joan, running constantly all her life, I think there can be improvement in age graded relative speed. Maybe not as much as the tables say, but still a lot.

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

Her son ran 2:50, just inside the top 1000 overall. Joan was ahead of him the first 5k but then he passed her. Her daughter also ran, 3:15. Very cool to see that she passed on her love on the sport to her children, and that they're all able to compete at a very competitive level.

By the way, Joan is 56, not 58. No need to move her towards the 60-65 age group any faster.

I met the second place finisher in the F 55-59 back during the 2010 Boston marathon. Her goal was to beat Joan. I don't recall if she did it, but she finished at 2:57 on Monday at age 59. Incredible.

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John Snyder @URNotAsCoolAsMe

OK, I know us men have issues with being chic'd but when it's your mom it takes the entire humble pie scenario to another stratosphere altogether, because heck, you got her genetics which should already be an advantage, and yet....if you blink she's going to close the gap and run you down somewhere past the 42nd kilometer of the day!

I was in Los Angeles in 1984 and got to saw her win the Olympic marathon (first-ever for women, IIRC).
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Me too

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Train safe & smart
Bob

Didn't see this reported in the press coverage. But certainly deserved coverage.
Another thanks for pointing this out. Inspirational.

watching little JBS wearing that white ball cap churning out 5 min/mi in the hot LA sun was to this day one of the greatest moments........Meb winning monday was up there as well!!!!

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"I would definitely smell her seat after a century ride"

I'm a huge Joanie fan. I love hearing the story how she set the record in Boston. Went out at 4:47 for the first mile, 51:xx at 10 miles which was 1:10 faster than Flanagan ran this year, and though she faded a bit, still ran 2:22

As for older runner inspiration, I always loved the story of Priscilla Welch of the UK. Never did a stitch of exercise till she was 35. Smoked a pack a day.

Her husband was in the military and they were stationed in the Falklands. She was bored, so joined her husband jogging on the track. At age 42, ran 2:26 in London and also won the New York City Marathon
She finished sixth in the LA Olympic Marathon

She was also second in the London Marathon.

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