A Maine running legend suffered an injury recently while training, according to reports.
Joan Benoit Samuelson of Freeport, perhaps one of Maine’s most recognizable athletes, suffered an apparent leg injury while training in her hometown last week, according to a report in the Andover (Massachusetts) Townsman.
According to the report, Samuelson suffered a leg injury while out for a run in Freeport, and she had to be picked up by a car.
She told the publication that that has only happened on two occasions during her career.
Samuelson had been planning on running with her 26-year-old daughter Abby in the Cal International Marathon on Sunday in California, the report said.
Samuelson, a graduate of Bowdoin College, has pieced together an impressive running resume both on and off the roads.
She made Olympic history in 1984 by winning the first Olympic marathon contested for women, and she is a two-time Boston Marathon champion.
Samuelson is perhaps best known in Maine running circles for founding one of New England’s premier road racing events, the Beach to Beacon 10K, which has been run every August since 1998 in Cape Elizabeth.
The race attracts some of the best distance runners in the country and the world to Maine’s coast every summer.
