STATS--Rodgers Wins A Falmouth Division For Sixth Decade; Samuelson Too

Racing an early Falmouth, from left:
Mike Roche, Alberto Salazar, Bill Rodgers

We learned the other day that Bill Rodgers won his age group in the recent Falmouth Road Race. No big deal, especially not for Rodgers, but that’s precisely the point. It marked the sixth consecutive decade in which Rodgers has been an age-group winner at Falmouth. He won in his 20s, he has now won in his 70s, and he has won in every decade between.

Here at LifetimeRunning.net, we try not to focus on performance. We’re more interested in runners who keep going for reasons of personal persistence, health, and wellbeing. That said, who’s not interested in staying as fast as we can? Who’s not interested in excellence?

We certainly are. So we say, "Go for seven straight decades, Boston Billy."

Rodgers is quick to point out that Joan Samuelson beat him to six decades of age-group wins at Falmouth. She got there last year, roughly three months after she turned 60. She took home her first Falmouth age-group crown at 19.

As many are aware, Samuelson has remained ferociously fast in her 40s, 50s, and 60s. She may still have her sights set on a sub-3 marathon at 60+, which has never been achieved by a woman runner. That said, she has been troubled by injuries of late, and hasn’t run a serious marathon since her 2:54:26 at Boston 2015.

Here are the basic stats on Samuelson and Rodgers at Falmouth: their first wins, their fastest times, their most recent age-group wins. As far as we know, the 7-mile course has remained essentially the same through the years.

	Born	First Falmouth win	Falmouth PR	Recent age-g win
Rodgers	12-23-47	1974--34:16	1978--32:21	2018--58:08
Samuelson	5-16-57	1976--43:07	1985--36:18	2017--44:49

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