By Barbara Huebner
When Patti Dillon asked for entry into the elite field of the 1980 New York City Marathon, the race director had concerns about her fitness. So, on Columbus Day of that year, the 28-year-old who was born and bred in Massachusetts took off from the start line of the Bonne Bell Mini Marathon, determined to prove herself.
It took just 32:24—an American record—for Dillon to do so.
After which she asked the New York official, “Now can I run?”
Then known as Patti Catalano, she made history in New York, too, as the first American woman to run under 2:30.
For most of the hundreds of thousands of women who have lined up at the Boston 10K for Women since 1977, it’s been a day of camaraderie on the move, a chance to get some exercise while enjoying an autumn day along the Charles River.
For others, the race has been that and more. Dillon’s pivotal 1980 victory came amid a career already awash in American and even world records, while a roster of other New England legends who have finished in the Top 3 used it as a springboard to their world-class careers.
“The fact that the race began so early in the history of women’s running is something that should be celebrated,” said Joan Samuelson, the lifelong Mainer who became the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal in the marathon, on the occasion of the event’s 50th running. “Having a world-class event in the backyard … was a gift to so many of us.”
Among other top New Englanders over the decades:
Lynn Jennings (Massachusetts) won three World Cross Country Championships and an Olympic bronze medal at 10,000 meters.
Cathy O’Brien (New Hampshire) earned a spot on two Olympic marathon teams.
Judi St. Hilaire (Massachusetts, by way of Vermont) and Gwyn Coogan (Massachusetts) joined Jennings as an all-New England contingent on Team USA’s 1992 Olympic 10,000-meter squad.
Emily Sisson (who set the current course record of 31:05 last year and was based in Rhode Island for about a decade after attending Providence College) notched the first two of her three victories on her way to twice representing the U.S. at the Olympics and setting American records in the half marathon and marathon.
Molly Huddle (who has settled in Rhode Island after attending Providence College) became a two-time Olympian and has held American records in the half marathon and at 5,000 and 10,000 meters on the track.
“It was a big launching point for me,” said five-time winner Huddle, whose 2008 race here delivered not only the first big win of her professional career, but also her first national title.
Twice, the race sported an All-New England, All-Olympian podium: Samuelson, St. Hilaire and Jennings in 1985; Jennings, O’Brien and St. Hilaire in 1989.
Samuelson recently recounted feeling homesick while competing for North Carolina State in 1978, saying that her cross country coach let her off the hook to come back and run the Bonne Bell. “He knew I needed a New England fix.”
Winning in a world-best 33:16 “gave me more exposure in the national press than I’d had before,” she wrote in her 1987 autobiography, Running Tide. “My own running career took off once and for all that autumn.” The next spring, she won her first Boston Marathon.
In 1983, Samuelson won the Bonne Bell again, this time in an American record 31:36 en route to making marathon history at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles the next summer. Two years later, the race had a new name—Tufts Health Plan 10K for Women—but Samuelson was up to her old tricks, winning the race just six days before lighting up the Chicago Marathon course with an American record of 2:21:21 that stood for 18 years.
But when it comes to sparking a remarkable career, it’s hard to outrun the first year of the race—Jennings was just a 17-year-old high schooler when she broke the tape.
“I took the steps two at a time and got the lead on Patti,” she recalls, referring to the stairs up to the Harvard Bridge that runners had to navigate in 1977. “I was faster on the stairs, and that’s that.”
She calls the inaugural race “a big deal” for women’s running. “Without even making a statement, it was making a statement: Watch this.”
Over a span of three decades, Jennings would earn six victories—including five in a row from 1989-1993—and finish on the podium 13 times. “I’m a New Englander,” she told The Boston Globe after what would be her final win here. “I know what it’s like to be durable.”
Elaborating recently, she said, “It was THE race on the fall schedule. I showed up some years not exactly in my prime [after a long track season] but I gave it everything I had. I took great pride racing in my backyard.”
The residents of that backyard—many of them sister New Englanders—have always been glad to repay the compliment, which they do every year on the out-and-back course.
“I love that race for when you turn around and see all the masses of women and they’re all cheering for you, and some of them know your name,” said Huddle, whose five wins put her second only to Jennings. “It’s a big boost of adrenaline.”
Recalling the 1977 race, in which she finished second, Dillon still sounded amazed. “I never saw anything like that in my whole life. I was used to running with guys, and I never saw any other women. It was overwhelming, beautiful, wonderful, exciting. I wasn’t alone.”
Ranking first among career victories, Jennings gets the last word.
“I lived for that turnaround,” she said, re-living the “full-throated roar” that washed over her. I remember feeling like I was aloft with their cheers.”
