Running Legends Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers will Join Joan Benoit Samuelson in the Field at the Special 15th TD Beach to Beacon 10K Road Race in Cape Elizabeth

CAPE ELIZABETH, Maine (August 3, 2011) - Joan Benoit Samuelson announced today that she will celebrate Saturday’s 15th running of the race she founded, the TD Beach to Beacon 10K, by running alongside Olympic marathon gold medalist Frank Shorter and marathon legend Bill Rodgers.

The trio of American runners who together inspired a generation of distance runners worldwide also will be joined by Leon Gorman, the former president and current Chairman of the Board at L.L. Bean., who will wear Bib #1 for the race.

Samuelson made the surprise announcement at the pre-race press conference Friday in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. Race officials also introduced the talented field of world-class athletes from around the globe who also will toe the line on Saturday.

Samuelson, 55, who won the gold medal in the first Olympic women’s marathon in 1984, founded the TD Beach to Beacon 10K in 1998 as a way to give back to the community and the state of Maine. Since that time, the race has grown in size and prestige and is now on the short list of can’t-miss events for elite athletes on the American road race circuit.

Samuelson typically spends race day greeting and embracing runners at the finish line, but every five years joins the field. To celebrate the 15th running, she decided to look back at the people in her life who were “critical to my success and my moral fiber.”

After noting the 40th anniversary of the landmark Title IX legislation that opened doors for women athletes like her, Samuelson said, “As we celebrate 40 years of women, I’ve decided to celebrate a few good men.”

She recalled how inspired she was watching Shorter and Rodgers on TV in the marathon at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. After the race, “under the cover of darkness”, she said, she took one of her first training runs. Eight years later, Samuelson won Olympic gold in the first women’s marathon.

Shorter, 64, won the gold medal in the marathon at the 1972 Summer Olympics, a victory credited with igniting the running boom in the U.S. in the 1970s. Known as the father of the running movement in the U.S., he is the only American athlete to win two medals in the Olympic marathon event – gold in Munich in 1972 and silver four years later in Montreal. He was inducted into the Olympic Hall of Fame in 1984 and the USA National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1989. Shorter now lives in Boulder, Col., where in 1979 he co-founded the popular Bolder Boulder 10K. A life-size bronze statue of Shorter stands outside Folsom Field at the University of Colorado.

“Joanie has always been my favorite runners,” Shorter said Friday, recalling meeting her at a marathon in 1980 or 1981 when she was a relative unknown from Maine. He said he thought he saw the makings of a champion. “I could see it,” he said. “It was just there.”

Bill Rodgers, 64, is a former American record holder in the marathon best known for his multiple victories at both the Boston Marathon and New York City Marathon in the late 1970s. He was ranking #1 in world in the marathon in 1975, 1977 and 1979. His marathon victories made him a hero and secondary fuel for the running boom of the 1970s.
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Rodgers won Boston and NYC four times each between 1975 and 1980, twice breaking the American record at Boston with a time of 2:09:55 in 1975 and a 2:09:27 in 1979. In 1977 he won the Fukuoka Marathon, making him the only runner ever to hold the championship of all three major marathons at the same time. He was inducted into the USA Track & Field Hall of Fame in 1999 and the National Distance Running Hall of Fame in 1998. Rodgers has run the TD Beach to Beacon 10K with Samuelson in the past, but never with Shorter, who is running in Maine for the first time.

Leon Gorman, 77, is credited with guiding and shaping L.L. Bean, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2012, through its growth and rise to prominence as a successful and beloved Maine-based American retailer. He is the last family member to serve as president of the company. Gorman, a noted conservationist and philanthropist, has run the TD Beach to Beacon 10K a number of times, but this is the first time wearing Bib #1.

Each finisher of Saturday’s race will receive a special medal commemorating the 15th race. The wheelchair entrants begin at 7:55 a.m., with runners at 8:10. This year’s expected race-day field of 6,000 will include runners from 17 countries and 44 U.S. states.

More than $60,000 in prize money is at stake, including a $10,000 prize each to the top man and woman, $5,000 for the second place and cash prizes for the top 10 finishers. Also, a $2,500 bonus also is available for any runner who sets a new open course record ($500 in the Maine category), providing added incentive in a race that consistently ranks among the fastest and most competitive 10Ks in the world.

The beneficiary of this year’s race is the Center for Grieving Children (www.cgcmaine.org), a Portland, Maine-based nonprofit organization providing support to bereaved children and families, which will receive a $30,000 donation from the TD Charitable Foundation. The organization also will benefit from fundraising activities and publicity through its association with the race.

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Photo courtesy of Photography by Ann Kaplan

Here is more information about the TD Beach to Beacon 10K