Transcription of Joan Benoit Samuelson for the show Maine’s TD Beach to Beacon 10K #305
Dr. Lisa Belisle: It is my great pleasure to have with me today Joan Benoit Samuelson, who founded the TD Beach to Beacon 10k Road Race to benefit children’s charities in Maine. This year on August 5th, the TD Beach to Beacon 10k Road Race will celebrate its 20th anniversary. Thanks for coming in today.
Joan Benoit Samuelson: It’s my pleasure, thank you.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You grew up in Cape Elizabeth, and that’s now where this race is being held. How much running did you do in Cape Elizabeth when you were there?
Joan Benoit Samuelson: I did enough running in Cape Elizabeth for the Department of Public Works to give me a little bit of a hard time. Just in jest, but I’ve put in a lot of miles in Cape Elizabeth, and I always thought they were some of the most beautiful roads in the world, and dreamed of bringing a road race to my favorite roads in my hometown of Cape Elizabeth. That was really the impetus for the founding of the TD Beach to Beacon 10k.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: It is, it’s a beautiful point to plan a race. I mean, you’ve got beaches, you’ve got the lighthouse. I really can’t think of another race in Maine that has quite the scenery that you have.
Joan Benoit Samuelson: Well actually, when I was thinking about the race that might be someday, I was thinking about the Examiner Bay to Breakers out in San Francisco. I thought, “Well, why don’t we have an east coast version of that race?” Now we’re on a much smaller scale, granted, but I liked the “B2B” sort of sound, and so I thought, “Where can we develop a course that would include the beaches and Portland Head Light?” It became the Beach to Beacon, and it runs from just outside the gates at Crescent Beach to Portland Head Light. So, Beach to Beacon.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: What size of a race were you hoping initially that you would have?
Joan Benoit Samuelson: I had no idea. I really didn’t. I just wanted to give back to a sport and a community that had given so much to me, and when I came into the tunnel in LA in 1984, I said, “Are you prepared to carry the mantle that will come with a win in the first Women’s Olympic Marathon?” I only had a few seconds to think about it and I said, “Well, there’s no sense in not trying.” I came through into the light of the coliseum, and that was really the moment when I thought, “Now how am I going to give back?”
As I said, I trained on some of the most beautiful roads in the world and I wanted to benefit children; I knew that because I believe children are our most valuable resource. Did a lot of thinking and a lot of talking with people, and it finally came to fruition with the handshake of Bill Ryan, who was then the president of the People’s Heritage Bank, which is now TD.
That’s how it all began, and I really had no idea what we would start with, and where we would go. The event has transcended the sport in many ways; we have a great board, we have a great organizing committee, we have amazing volunteers and sponsors, and we have the best in road race directing in David McGillivray, who also directs the Boston Marathon.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: This year, you’re benefiting Let’s Go! here in the state of Maine.
Joan Benoit Samuelson: Right. I’ve been actively involved with the leadership committee of Let’s Go!. It’s an organization that benefits different children in the state with sound nutritional advice and physical activity programs, and Maine Health has long been a sponsor of the Beach to Beacon, and it made sense to give back to an organization that really benefits the children of Maine.
You know, there are many food deserts in the state, and there are many communities that are lacking sound physical activity programs because of the school budget cuts. I’m very delighted about this choice. I think that you’re only as healthy as your least healthiest person, and it starts with good education at an early age. Not only are we helping the children, we’re trying to help the parents realize what their children can be with positive steps, and positive nutrition, and good physical activity.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: This is an interesting program because as you said, Maine Health is kind of a lead on the Let’s Go! program, and they’re a healthcare organization. You don’t always see healthcare organizations that are so actively involved in public health initiatives like this.
Joan Benoit Samuelson: Well, one of my missions, and perhaps my biggest mission in life, is to bring awareness to the fact that conservation is to the environment what prevention is to health. Really, the two are inextricably linked; this is one of the ways that TD Beach to Beacon has transcended the sport of running. For instance, this year, the students at MECA worked to design a poster that will commemorate the 20th running of the Beach to Beacon.
We try to incorporate the entire Maine community in this one event, and we draw from every county in the state, and just about from every state and numerous countries. It’s a destination race for many of our runners; when they think of Maine and where they might run, TD Beach to Beacon 10k comes right to the forefront of their radar screens.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: We’ve actually written about you before from a conservation standpoint. You have a large garden, and you’re actively involved in, I believe Friends of Casco Bay, who do yardscaping; you’re very good about trying to create wellness in the land in which you live. How does this tie into the running piece?
Joan Benoit Samuelson: Well, although I’ve left over 150,000 miles of footprints, I try to leave as small a carbon footprint as possible. I’m out there every day, I’m really a human barometer for climate change; I see these little changes that keep adding up. You know, Maine is a beautiful place. It’s where I have my roots and it’s where I choose to live my life, so anything I can do to promote health in any aspect throughout our state is something that I’m happy to do.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Given that you grew up in Cape Elizabeth and you went to Bowdoin, you’ve spent a lot of time here. What have you noticed as you’ve been out running, and talking with people, and living your own life? What have you noticed that has changed?
Joan Benoit Samuelson: I think erosion on the coast is one thing. I think the acidification of Casco Bay is another thing that I’m very concerned about. You know, eutrophication in ponds and lakes and such, the green algae blooms. The changes in weather, the drastic changes in weather that occur almost without notice, and just the air we breathe, and the food we eat.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: In planning the Beach to Beacon 10k, what types of steps are taken in order to ensure that the footprint of this race, which has lots of runners, is going to be ecologically as small as possible?
Joan Benoit Samuelson: Well, one thing that we’re very proud of is our certification from the Council for Responsible Sport, which is an organization that ranks road races and other sporting events based on their commitment to environmental issues and social issues. Just recently, we received the highest level of achievement, which is Evergreen status. We’re the only road race currently to have that status in the country and there’s a 15k, I believe, in the United Kingdom which also shares that status.
We’ve worked very hard with Athletes for a Fit Planet and Bruce Rayner to achieve this status. In this day, it should be that we do everything that we can to leave a smaller carbon footprint, and to have as healthy an event as we can; not only for the participants, but the organizations in our community that benefit from socially responsible and environmentally responsible efforts.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: If one is racing in the TD Beach to Beacon 10k, what types of things will one see?
Joan Benoit Samuelson: Well, you won’t see a plastic bag to take you through the expo to pick up all the little things that some of our vendors and sponsors may want to share with the runners and their families. You won’t see a lot of unnecessary plastic water bottles; you’ll see bigger containers. You’ll see tables set up at every place where it’s possible to dispose of either compostable items, or plastic items, or trash. We used to just use the bins but we found that if we had a sorter, if you will, right there at those strategic places, they’ll sort quickly through what’s compostable, what’s not, what’s trash, what can be recycled, and that’s worked very well for us.
There are a myriad of ways in which we can reduce the carbon footprint, and we’re all on it even when it comes to the serving items at our lobster bake and at our volunteer event. The volunteer event takes place on Wednesday night before the race and the lobster bake is basically a celebration for our invited athletes, our sponsors, our host families, and other people who have really contributed in many good ways to the success of the event.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: When you won your Olympic medal, you were the first. You were the first female to win an Olympic marathon, and I think that the sport has really come a long way. Women and running, it’s almost a given now. But it wasn’t always that way.
Joan Benoit Samuelson: No. I recently, just this past weekend as a matter of fact, ran a race in Washington, DC. It was the 45th anniversary of the Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Race, and 60% of the participants were women, 40% were men. Actually, Kathrine Switzer, the woman who was jostled in the Boston Marathon in the infamous incident with she and Jock Semple, she was there because she was the first woman to win the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler and we had an opportunity to talk about where our sport has come.
Kathrine was very influential in getting the marathon to the point that it was accepted by the IOC for the Olympics. She worked with Avon back then to sponsor races around the world; to bring awareness to the fact that yes, women could run 26.2 miles without doing detriment to their bodies. When I was in high school, it was thought by the so-called experts in the sport that if a woman ran over a mile, she’d do bodily harm and never bear children. Well, two children and over 150,000 miles, I’m still at it, enjoying it as much as I did when I first started out as a young teenager, who was really embarrassed to be seen out running on the roads.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: How do you get past that? If you are a teenager and somebody’s telling you, “You’re going to hurt yourself, don’t go out running any longer than a mile,” how do you push through that?
Joan Benoit Samuelson: Well, I always tell people to run their own race in life, and that’s really applicable to anything one sets out to achieve. You can’t run anybody else’s race but your own, and I took a lot of grief by the commentators, unbeknownst to me at the time I was running, that I’d made a grave error in not taking water at the first water station, but I knew I had to find my own space and run my own pace, and run my own race in order to run as efficiently and as well as I possibly could. That’s what I did, and that’s what I do.
You know, I was trying to shed a tomboy image at the time; I grew up with three brothers and I lived in a neighborhood full of boys. I was really not wanting to be seen by the public out on the road, so most of my running was done within the confines of Fort Williams, because at the time they didn’t allow any vehicular traffic in there. I would walk from our home to the Fort, run to my heart’s content, and then walk home.
Then one day, I was walking home and I saw a woman who I knew, who was running on the road. She was actually the coxswain for the Princeton eight, and I said, “you know, If she can get out there and run, so can I.” I never looked back after that time. We all inspire each other; it’s a two-way road out there. Everybody has a story to share, and I just encourage people to get out there and tell their own story.
As a matter of fact, it’s great to see the elite athletes come across the finish line, all attempting to run personal bests or improve the course record, but it’s really the runners at the back of the pack who never thought they could cover the distance or do anything like this and to see them come across the finish line, achieving something just really makes them feel so good and gives them self-esteem to power forward is something that’s a reward that I never expected.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: This race is so popular that people literally sit online and wait with their fingers on the mouse or the keypads to be one of the first to register. Then you have to cap it, because there’s only so many people that you can actually have run. Why do you think that this is so? After 20 years, there are other races that are out there that aren’t as popular as this one.
Joan Benoit Samuelson: Well, I really think we have the best race committee, the best race director; people who are passionate and committed to the sport, selfless people. You know, as I said earlier our volunteer force is just incredible, as are our sponsors, and I really think our greening effort has helped with our sponsorship because everybody wants to be part of something that’s positive.
To say that any one person, or any one organization, or any one sponsor is solely responsible for the successes of the event would be very wrong. It’s a collective effort, it’s a happy effort, it’s a positive effort. In this day and age, we need something positive to grab onto and run with, literally and figuratively.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: I’ve been surprised in my lifetime, and I’m getting up there in years so maybe that’s a long lifetime-
Joan Benoit Samuelson: You’re talking to the wrong person.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Okay, all right. But I’ve been surprised to see running really increase in popularity, recreational running. Well, also at the college level and professional level as well, but the races I used to run in where there would be like a couple dozen of us here in Maine in the middle of the winter, you know, they are full. People are doing triathlons, people are … I mean, we have the Pub Run here in Portland. There’s just lots of different ways to run. In some ways, that kind of surprises me because this is Maine, and it’s not always easy to run in this state. What’s your take on that?
Joan Benoit Samuelson: Well, I think running is affordable, and it’s accessible. With all the messaging out there about taking control of your own health and wellness, running is really the first thing people can grasp onto, as far as getting themselves out the door and getting themselves into a routine. You don’t need a lot of special equipment, you don’t have to travel to a facility; most people can run right outside their front or back doors, or workplaces.
You know, I encourage people who want to get in the game to find a partner to run with, because if you’re expected to meet somebody in the early morning hours or after work, it’s a lot easier knowing that somebody’s waiting for you out there. It’s harder to say, “Oh, I’ll just bag it for the day,” or, “I’ll do something else.” I think one mile leads to the next. I think people start to realize how much better they feel by doing some sort of physical activity, and for a lot of people, it’s walking, or jogging, or running.
Then when people decide that they want to test their fitness or join something positive, the Beach to Beacon is there to support those people and the elite athletes. You know, every year we have the most competitive race amongst the Maine runners, and we have some of the best runners in the world here in the state of Maine. I mean, Ben True won the race; he was the first American to win the race last year, and he’s homegrown. I was just thrilled to see that happen, and the main component of the race is always highly competitive, and there are a lot of bragging rights associated with the victories, and that component of the race.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: You’ve had to run through some injuries yourself. I mean, anybody who runs over a lifetime is of course going to have injuries, and any woman could potentially even be pregnant and run through those phases. How do you keep, I don’t know, focused on the after-injury?
Joan Benoit Samuelson: Well, I’ve been blessed with very few injuries, and I think the reason for that is because I really believe in living a balanced and healthy life, and in athletics we talk about the mind-body-spirit triad, and I just try to keep those components of my life as balanced as possible. I do a little more cross-training now that I’m aging than when I was younger, and that helps with balance. I think a balanced diet helps.
There are lots of things that go into the equation to balance one’s life, and I think people need to make choices, and prioritize what’s important to them; what’s going to make them feel better, act better, and contribute in a healthy way by inspiring other people to take notice of an improved life, and running is a vehicle in which to do that.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Food, as you’ve mentioned, is very important to you. I know that you grow your own, you make a lot of the food that you eat, and this has become more in the forefront of people’s minds at this point, but it hasn’t always been the case. We definitely went through our processed food, Betty Crocker phase as Americans. What are you seeing in, I guess, younger people today as far as food choices?
Joan Benoit Samuelson: Well, I tell people I’m on a strict “see food” diet. I see food, and I eat it. I eat what I crave, and you are what you eat, we often say in our sport. Certainly the local food movement; I think more people are embracing that movement, supporting our local farmers and growers. I think that’s important to a healthy community; not just the diet, but supporting those who are trying to make a community cohesive and improving that community as we contribute to the efforts of others.
You know, I love to garden. It grounds me. I love to feel the good earth, if you will, and going to the garden is something that really helps to balance me and calm my nerves. I mean, I’ve been known to go out with a headlight, returning from a trip late at night just to see what’s grown while I’ve been away.
It’s part of who I am, just like my running is. I try to balance all of that with other interests as well. I talk about balance all the time, it’s just so important when we’ve tried to balance the success of the TD Beach to Beacon 10k by reaching out to others in our community, as people reach out to us.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: After 20 years of doing this, I’m guessing that you’ve probably learned a thing or two about putting on a road race; specifically, this road race. What are some thoughts that you have?
Joan Benoit Samuelson: Just the important of collaboration, and listening to others, and having great leadership, and having committed people; people who are passionate about what they’re doing. Mike Stone for instance, our current president, came to the race because he was working at People’s Heritage Bank at the time, and he didn’t have a clue about running, but his business was the title sponsor of the event, and he wanted to be part of it. As being part of the race, he decided he should start running, and he started running. He runs just about every day, and he’s run a marathon, and that’s really to me a success story.
Not only are we benefiting a different children’s charity, but we’re pulling people off the sidelines to embrace their health and well-being by participating in a race. They see these great runners, and these beginning runners, and these mediocre runners, and these runners of every description pass in front of them as they cheer them on. They say, “Well, maybe I could do that,” and then they challenge themselves to get out there and do it. I think everybody who has run this race has a story that will motivate and inspire others.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: What would you like to see happen in the next 20 years?
Joan Benoit Samuelson: Oh boy. I just want to see a healthy Maine community and people who find passion in whatever it is they choose to do with their lives. We all have the ability to contribute in one way or another, and I think people just have to realize that, and find out whatever it is that floats their boat, and get in it and start paddling.
Dr. Lisa Belisle: Very well said. Along with several members of our staff from Maine Magazine, we will be out there running the TD Beach to Beacon 10k coming up here on August 5th in Cape Elizabeth, 20th anniversary. It’s really been my pleasure to have a conversation with Joan Benoit Samuelson, the founder of the TD Beach to Beacon 10k Road Race, and also of course, the winner of the first Women’s Olympic Marathon in Los Angeles in 1984, and also a fellow Bowdoin grad, so go U Bears. Thanks for coming in today, and thanks for all you’ve done for Maine, and for runners in our state and around the world.
Joan Benoit Samuelson: Well, thank you, Dr. Lisa. It’s my pleasure and honor, and we’re just delighted to have Maine Magazine involved this year. I think it’ll be a great partnership going forward.