40 Years Ago, Dick Beardsley and Alberto Salazar Battle In The 1982 Boston Marathon

(KDLM) – The following is an excerpt from Zeke Fuhrman’s book, Land of 10,000 Aches: A History of Minnesota Meltdowns. It is available online and for purchase at the Becker County Museum.

Minnesota-native Dick Beardsley ran his first marathon in Hurley, Wisconsin in 1977. In each of his next 13 marathons, he steadily lowered his times. In fact, Beardsley is in the Guinness Book of World Records for running a personal best in 13 consecutive marathons. He had tied for first in the inaugural London Marathon in 1981, crossing the finish line holding hands with Inge Simonsen (Beardsley later said it was because neither of them had ever won a marathon before so they won it together) and had won back-to-back Grandma’s Marathons (Duluth) in 1981-82 and set a course record that would stand for 33 years (2:09:37).   

Beardsley was one of 7,623 runners that entered the Boston Marathon in 1982 that included four-time Boston Marathon champion Bill Rodgers, Olympian Ed Mendoza, and two-time New York Marathon winner and former NCAA champion Alberto Salazar. Beardsley entered the race as a serious underdog. The day before the race, the Boston Globe referred to him as ‘The Country Bumpkin from Minnesota’.   

The favorite in the race was Salazar. The former NCAA cross country star from the Boston suburb of Wayland (he was born in Havana, Cuba but grew up in the US) had the hometown crowd behind him and was one of the fastest men in the world at any distance. The former University of Oregon star owned the world record in the marathon (2:08:13), had the second-fastest American 10K time (27:25), and was a member of the 1980 US Olympic team that boycotted the Moscow Olympics.  

Beardsley had run against Salazar once in his career prior to the 1982 Boston Marathon. While Salazar was a senior at the University of Oregon, the two of them were both in the 1980 New York City Marathon. Salazar had never run a marathon before and made headlines by declaring that he would run a sub-2:10:00 race. Beardsley had a great start to the race and led at the 18-mile mark as he crossed the Queensboro Bridge. But Salazar caught him and seemed to get stronger as the miles piled up. Salazar cruised to a time of 2:09:41, living up to his sub-2:10:00 promise, the best debut marathon time ever and the first of what would be three consecutive New York City Marathon victories. Beardsley finished ninth with a time of 2:13:55, almost two-thirds of a mile behind Salazar.   

Salazar was the best in the world, and he knew it. “There’s no other runner here who especially concerns me,” Salazar told the reporters before the race. “If (Robert) de Castella or (reigning champion Toshihiko) Seko were competing, it would be different. But looking at the rest of the field… I’m the fastest man in the race.”  

“Alberto wasn’t exactly bragging,” Beardsley remembered. “He was just extremely confident.”  

The day of the marathon, April 19th, 1982, had a forecasted high of 75 degrees. Before the race, Beardsley was making his final preparations: calming his nerves, sipping water, and poking some ventilation holes in the white painter’s cap he was going to wear to protect himself from the sun during the race. He made his way to the roped-off area where the other pro runners began the race.  

And at noon, the gun fired.  

Five miles in, the group of pro runners started to separate. But Beardsley stayed in Salazar’s back pocket. The large crowds they ran by cheered for Salazar, but Beardsley smiled and waved at them anyways. As the race continued, Beardsley noticed something off about Salazar: he wasn’t drinking any water.  

There weren’t any official water stations at the 1982 Boston Marathon. People in the crowd would hand out cups of water and the runners would grab them, but Salazar always refused. Beardsley would even offer water to him from a cup that he took, but he never accepted.   

At the 13-mile mark, the race came down to four runners: Bill Rodgers, Ed Mendoza, Beardsley, and Salazar. By the firehouse at the base of Braeburn Hill just past the 17-mile marker, 34-year-old Rodgers fell off the pace. Not soon after, Mendoza did the same. Now, it was Beardsley and Salazar neck and neck.  

Anybody who has run the Boston Marathon will tell you the toughest part of the race begins at the 17-mile mark: Heartbreak Hill. Beardsley had trained in Georgia specifically for the Boston Marathon. Not to get away from the brutal winter weather, but because of Georgia’s hilly terrain that was close to what he’d face on Heartbreak Hill. When he’d arrived in Boston in early April to continue his training, he ran the stretch of the race in heavy snow and howling wind. Up one side and down the other, eight times.  

Heartbreak Hill was where Beardsley planned to open a gap between him and Salazar. His strategy was to run hard for 400 yards, then back off for 200. He’d do that three or four times, but after the fourth one he would only back off for 100 yards hoping to catch Salazar off guard. But Salazar countered every move Beardsley threw at him, and the left Heartbreak Hill in a dead heat.  

Around the 22-mile marker, Beardsley could no longer feel his legs. But he kept up the pace with Salazar. He tried to take his mind off the race and think about other things.  

“I began to think about a terrible blind date I went on in high school,” he says. “I knew it would come in handy, and it did! “  

The next thing he knew, he saw ‘One Mile to Go’ written on the street in gold paint. With 1,000 meters to go, Beardsley had the largest lead he had all day…an arm’s length and a half. The crowds were getting so loud, he couldn’t hear himself think. The streets were so thick with people, there was barely enough room for Salazar to pass him if he wanted to, let alone for the pair to run side by side down Commonwealth Avenue.  

But Beardsley knew that Salazar had a kick left him for the stretch. Salazar had a different training regimen than most marathon runners. Usually, runners build up endurance and then speed. Salazar did it the opposite way. He was fast. His 10K time was nearly two minutes faster than Beardsley’s career-best.  

But Salazar was hurting. The decision to not drink any water was catching up to him. His muscles were cramping. He had stopped sweating. His goal at that point was not to lose, especially to some flash-in-the-pan running in a painter’s cap. He figured that Beardsley would drop off in the race soon if he kept up his pace.  

As Beardsley pushed off with his right leg to start the sprint to the finish, he got a cramp in his right hamstring. He could feel the knot bulging out of his leg. He grabbed his leg and tried to rub the cramp out. Salazar saw that Beardsley was hurting and seized the opportunity to pass him. Salazar’s lead increased to about 100 yards. But Beardsley kept moving on. As he was running along the right side of the road, he stepped into a pothole. He hit the pothole, stumbled, and nearly fell, but when this happened it stretched out his leg and the cramp went away.   

Now with about 600 meters to go, Beardsley had some ground to gain on Salazar. He couldn’t see Alberto anymore, but he could see the police motorcade escorting him as he neared the finish line. He picked up his pace.   

“I thought to myself, you could probably walk in from here and get second place,” Beardsley says.  “But if you don’t give every ounce of energy you have left, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”  

Beardsley kicked it into another gear, closing the gap on Salazar. He lowered his head, pumped his arms, weaving his way through the spectators, and is now trailing Salazar by about 20 meters. The final turn of the race was a left-hand turn onto Ring Road, which turned into a straight away for the last hundred yards.  

All that stood between Beardsley and Salazar was the fleet of motorcycles surrounding Salazar. Salazar, nor the motorcyclists, knew that Beardsley was gaining on them. The first three motorcycles made the left turn onto Ring Road. But the fourth motorcycle didn’t make a sharp left turn like the previous three. Unaware that Beardsley was in hot pursuit, the fourth motorcycle veered to the right and cuts off Beardsley.   

“Boy, you talk about the perfect excuse,” Beardsley recalls. “Everybody would have believed it except the person it mattered to most: me. When it comes down to it, I just plain got outkicked.”  

Despite the motorcycle mishap, Beardsley continued to close the gap on Salazar, losing by only two seconds and about 10 meters. Salazar clocked a new course record of 2:08:52. Beardsley finished second at 2:08:54.  

“I remember crossing the finish line, and the clock is reading 2:08-something. There were only like one or two other people who had broken 2:09, and I’m thinking, ‘Wait a minute, I just ran a 2:08, and I finished second!’”  

While both men had broken the course record (the current record was set by Geoffrey Mutai in 2011 with a 2:03:02), neither would run a marathon that fast ever again. It was later discovered that the 1982 Boston Marathon course was 150 meters short, so who knows what Beardsley could have done with another 150 meters to work with.