Picking flowers revisited

There is a quote I read somewhere… from Joan Benoit Samuelson about when she started running:

“When I first started running, I was so embarrassed I'd walk when cars passed me. I'd pretend I was looking at the flowers!"

http://agoodgroup.com/running/quotes.html

When I first read that… I assumed she was embarrassed because she was slow. I know the feeling… there are times when I have been out running and I wished I could pretend I was doing something else because I am so slow.

Of course, Joan Benoit Samuelson went on to win the first women’s Olympic Marathon. To me, there was some comfort to thinking that even someone as great of a runner as she… was once slow. Well… now I am not so sure. Now I read in this forum… that she may have been embarrassed alright, but not because she was slow, but because she was a women.

http://forums.usms.org/archive/index.php/t-3151.html

That seems crazy from today’s perspective… so crazy that I didn’t even consider it when I read that quote. It seems there are more women runners than men now… so it is hard to imagine a time when they didn’t rule the roads.

To me… it just adds to her legend in my mind. She wasn't following the crowd or anyones footsteps, she was blazing a new trail.