OLYMPIA — For decades, women were held out of Olympic distance running on the grounds that they weren't physically capable.
Oh, and their uteruses might fall out.
"The sentiments back (then) were that women aren't capable of running, really, more than 1,500 meters. They thought a woman would do bodily harm and never be able to bear children," 1984 Olympic gold medalist Joan Benoit Samuelson said.
"But 150,000 miles, two children and two grandchildren later, I'm still finding my way to finish lines."
It was announced in 1981 that the International Olympic Committee would, at long last, add women's marathon to the upcoming Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Olympia was chosen as the site for the Trials (where the top three advanced to the Olympics), over strong opposition from New York City.
The community rallied and thousands volunteered. In order to house most of the visiting athletes, St. Martin's College, in Lacey, Wash., changed its school year and lined the hallways with encouraging posters made by schoolchildren. J.C. Penney donated 228 pillowcases as keepsakes, and crafty locals donated their hand-embroidery services.
"Truth is, Olympia's never had a better day than May 12, 1984," Washington Lt. Gov. Danny Heck told gathered athletes at the Governor's Mansion on May 17 of this year.
In honor of the 40th anniversary of the first Trials, about 60 of the 196 women who finished the race on May 12, 1984 returned to Olympia for a weekend of receptions, meet and greets and catching up. Many of the competitors, including the top two finishers — Benoit and Julie Brown — hadn't seen each other since that year.
This summer's Olympic Games in Paris will be markedly different. In 1984, 23% of the athletes in Los Angeles were women. For the first time, women will make up half of the competitors in Paris. Traditionally, the men's marathon closes the Games, but this year, the order was reversed. The women's marathon is set for August 11, the final day of competition, in a symbolic gesture honoring the Women's March on the Palace of Versailles on Oct. 5, 1789.
The old excuses for exclusion seem ridiculous now. Part of the ripple effect was a very public — very joyful — rebuke.
Mothers know best
Benoit, the favorite, ripping through the Dole Pineapple ribbon at the finish line. Brown, 30 seconds behind. Sister Marion Irvine, "The Flying Nun," fully enjoying herself. They were at the center of the media swirl. But soon-to-be, first-time mother Michele Davis, 28, and Leatrice Hayer of Greenfield, Mass., 28, who was expecting her third child, earned a sort of celebrity status as well in 1984.
An ambulance idled behind six-months-pregnant Davis while she ran in case she went into labor. A handmade paper sign on the dashboard read "Stork Patrol."
Davis said she ran cross country in high school with the JV boys in the Twin Cities and at the University of Minnesota. It was after college, when she was running for her own benefit and not worried about disappointing anyone, that she really came into her own. It didn't really matter which distance she ran, she realized — she always about kept about the same pace.
Davis heard about the Olympic Trials for marathon and set several goals. She needed to hit the qualifying time of 2 hours, 51 minutes and 16 seconds, and place in the top 100 so she could qualify for sponsorship money, which would pay her way. There wasn't money in the budget to go otherwise.
There wasn't money for fancy gear, either. Before a marathon, she had to stop at a hardware store for duct tape because the soles of her shoes were falling apart.
In June, she qualified at Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minn. Then she found out she was pregnant.
"Nah, I'm still running this thing," she decided. "It was just so cool. I wanted to be part of it."
Women had worked long hours in the fields while expecting. But Davis' doctors were nervous and advised caution, with the caveat that they didn't know enough about the situation. Her child would have a low birth weight, she was warned.
But husband Peter, an exercise physiologist, supported her. Just don't get too hot, and keep your heart rate low, he recommended. Her mother also helped out, sewing elastic panels into her running shorts.
Davis and her cousin, Janice Ettle of St. Cloud, Minn., stayed in the dorms at St. Martin's. Ettle placed sixth in 2:33.41, two and a half minutes behind Benoit. Hayer, who was also six months pregnant, was the official last-place finisher in 3:21.22. Davis crossed the line at 4:01, and was not listed as a finisher.
Davis had fallen all the way back, where the ambulance crept along with her for much of the race. Davis found the whole thing hilarious.
Her calves cramped and her back was sore. She had to slow down and walk occasionally. A man ran out and said she wasn't going to finish under the four-hour cutoff. He'd been told to take her number. She wanted to keep it, of course, and ran with it in hand.
Just a minute over four hours. That stung a bit.
"If he hadn't stopped me to take my number off, I probably would have made it," she reflected.
When she crossed the finish line well after everyone else, she and the ambulance driver — who was "just lovely" — posed for a picture.
Ten weeks later, on July 30, healthy, 8-pound Ben joined the family. Friends gifted him a shirt from Sears that reads "I 'ran' in the 1984 Olympic Trials Marathon."
Today, it barely fits on his forearm. Ben, the marathon baby — the one doomed to be undersized — is a 6-foot-7, 250-pound firefighter in Canberra, Australia. Like his mom, he finds the whole thing amusing.
"There aren't too many boys who competed in the women's Olympic Trials," Ben said. "That's a long-running joke that we find very funny."
He leaned toward basketball instead of running, but asked his mom if she would do the Sydney Marathon with him. This time, he'd see where he was going.
"We ran across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which is a major landmark," Ben said. "We finished up the Opera House. It was kind of a fun thing."
Ben was the first of four kids. Every time Davis was pregnant, friends and relatives would ask if she was planning to lace up her shoes again.
"It was the Trials!" she'd say. "I'm not out to run marathons while pregnant — it's not a fun thing to do."
Running on fumes
Freeport, Maine, resident Benoit famously had arthroscopic surgery on her right knee less than three weeks before the Trials.
"I don't know what I ran on," Benoit said. "Raw adrenaline, I guess."
The 1984 Olympia trip was a blur, but Benoit noted the warm reception from other runners, who were concerned about her health and outwardly happy she made the trip. Benoit's left hamstring, pulled while favoring her repaired knee, was the actual problem and what could have derailed her day.
It was a shame she had to be there, her fellow competitors said. Her qualifying time was fast enough. But rules were rules.
"My feeling was if I had been given a bye or anything like that, and hadn't gone on to do what I did in L.A., then I wouldn't be able to look at myself," Benoit said.
She arrived the night before, and doesn't remember where she stayed or what she ate. She was so focused on getting to the starting, then finish line. Looking back she sees the circumstances as a blessing in disguise, as she probably would have overtrained and things would have gone badly in a different direction.
Eleven weeks later in Los Angeles, Benoit won the first women's Olympic Marathon in 2:24:52, an Olympic record until 2000.
Benoit turned 67 the day the May reunion began.
"The city pooled on all its resources and efforts and love for the Trials," Benoit said. "I've been really busy recently, almost out of gas, but I just felt I needed to show appreciation and respect for what this city did 40 years ago."
The Flying Nun
Sister Marion Irvine, the oldest competitor in the Trials, took up jogging at 48 at the urging of a niece, who wanted her to take her health more seriously. Irvine, a school principle in San Francisco who belonged to the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael, was out of shape. She needed to quit smoking and lose weight.
So off she went, in some men's shorts from a lost-and-found pile. Soon she'd discovered a hidden talent and was running four miles every morning in the dark before morning prayers, then going back out for a longer run in the afternoons. Her sisters at the convent were supportive, she said, but didn't come to races.
She was competitive and driven, she said. Good or bad, she committed to her vices. She was a competitive runner for 15 years and broke several age-group records in distance events. She won the "veteran's division," or women's 50-59 age group, at the 1981 Boston Marathon with a time of 3:11.00.
She was nicknamed "The Flying Nun" and sponsored by Nike, who set her up with the newest clothes. She had briefs, or "bun-huggers," in green, blue, yellow and white.
At 54, her top-level running days were numbered, and she knew it. She beat the 1984 Trials qualifying time by 15 seconds. During the plane ride to Washington, her coach turned to her.
"This is your Olympics," she remembered him saying. "You're not going any further than this. You're not going to win. So should we have fun, or should we train?"
"I said, 'Let's have fun.' "
They went out every night. They went to every expo. A race coordinator called Irvine one of the biggest partyers in Olympia that weekend — top two at least, in that respect. She remembered running past the well-manicured lawns, spruced up extra for the national spotlight. Someone hollered "You're making history!" as she ran past.
She knew. She was the 131st finisher in 2:52.02. Now 94, she attended the 40-year anniversary, her weekend booked solid with speaking engagements. Still, by all accounts, having fun.
'We remember you!'
Davis flew in from Australia for the reunion and posed, ever so appropriately, with the statue of a pregnant woman. Once downtown Olympia traffic cleared, Davis wanted a picture in the road and approached a passerby with the odd request. They were there at the race, her amateur photographers said. They asked how she finished. She said she didn't, and why.
"Oh!" she recalled them exclaiming. "We remember you!"
The official record may not reflect Davis, but perhaps she had a hand in showing 1980s America that this "delicate condition" wasn't so delicate. Maegan Krifchin competed in the U.S. Olympic Trials this year while seven months pregnant. Krifchin completed 18 miles at a 7:15 pace before bowing out, in part, because of the heat — all with her doctors' blessing.
"I think it's marvelous. Lea (Hayer) and I were part of that, I hope," Davis said. "Of getting people to realize that they can do those things. Women have done it for generations — women used to just power through. We stepped away from that."
Long-term residents stopped them all weekend, happy to reflect on that May weekend 40 years ago.
"There was no way New York City could have matched the compassion and organization," Ettle said. "From our perspective, I don't think we could pick out any flaws."
There was another full-circle moment at the Capital City Marathon that Sunday as Julia Harrison of Minneapolis captured the women's title. Harrison's mother, Sue Schneider placed 22nd in the 1984 Trials and greeted her daughter at the finish line, according to The Olympian.
Other 1984 Trials veterans were there too, rooting for the next generation of women who set their minds to a similarly brutal feat of endurance and made it happen.
"It's cool to be part of that legacy," Davis said.
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