Joan Benoit Samuelson

A less forgiving, less inviting face

At a book drive the other day I paid a dollar for a used copy of Joan Benoit Samuelson's Running for Women (1995).  Now, I love reading old training guides, not so much for the advice they give (which is enduringly the same) but for the differences in attitude and values that they evince.  The difference in attitude has to do, mainly, with how manuals treat the more unseemly and ascetic aspects of running, like staying as light as possible, that make runners seem a bit unbalanced to outside observers.

Here's what Samuelson says about another seemingly crazy part of the running life, running during pregnancy:

"For athletically inclined women, being told not to exercise during pregnancy can be more stressful than the exercise itself.  In the seventh month of my second pregnancy, I was ordered to stop running because of low amniotic fluid...I didn't run a step for four days until I saw a specialist in high-risk pregnancies...who reassured me that everything appeared fine.  For those four days out of my routine, though, I was so stressed that I'm sure my blood pressure rose."

She goes to relate how she ran the day she gave birth.  I'll never let a wet rainy day stop me again. 

With a 2:21 PR, a time that beats the winning times of most major marathons today, Samuelson was best female runner the US ever produced until Deena Kastor came along.  Despite Samuelson's victories, despite Kastor's astonishing 2:19 London victory in 2006, the pretty face of women's running today is Kara Goucher, a better runner than I'll ever be but in the scheme of things, no Joan Benoit, no Deena Kastor.  We thus have to wonder what it means for running that Goucher has become such a celebrity. 



Kara Goucher and Paula Radcliffe

Admittedly, she's the best around, the best American marathoner running today.  Fair enough.  Shalane Flanagan is hot on her heels but Goucher still has the best PR.  Goucher, though, represents something different than Samuelson, namely, the central role of women in the second running boom.  Goucher is an icon for a new type of fitness enthusiast runner, a woman for whom running fits as a piece in a pie that includes yoga, diet, maybe meditation, plus work and motherhood--a striving after autonomy.

She is a commercial sensation as well.  Her Nike handlers have created a Goucher-persona (see video) that's got an every-woman kind of appeal, effectively downplaying her superhuman athleticism.  Goucher's one of us, terrestrial and grounded, down-to-earth, unlike the more famous Nike incarnation, Michael Jordan, whose appeal consisted in his distance and difference from the consumer, as the brand "Flight" would indicate. 

I am not surprised she was so public with her pregnancy -- what could be a better branding tool for women's running than a pregnant elite runner?  What I am saying is that the body of the female runner, as exemplified by Kara Goucher, has become an object of identification.  That identification is cultivated by Nike in particular and serves as a successful means through which to market various running gear.  The money in running now is in women.  Men go out in shorts, shoes, and a cotton T-shirt (if that).  Women simply need more gear.

On a concluding note, one of the more inspiring things I've ever witnessed as a runner was seeing Joanie run at the 2008 women's Olympic trials, held in Boston the day before the marathon.  Kastor won, but the then 50-year-old Joanie turned in a 2:49:08, beating many in a field consisting of women half her age.  She ran the 2010 Chicago Marathon in 2:47.  Flinty and indomitable, Joanie has a worn face and short iron-grey that hair do not endear her to many, for her heroic, inhuman prowess deflects easy identification.  At least, it transcends the indentification that can easily be commodified.