By Parker Morse

Photo by Larry Maurer

Trialsjoanie200 In 1979, a young woman in a black Bowdoin singlet stormed down Boylston Street to a course record of 2:35:15, wearing a blue Red Sox cap she'd picked up late in the race.

It wasn't quite 30 years later, but Joan Benoit Samuelson came storming down Boylston Street again today, with another Red Sox cap, to another record. Finishing 90th in the 2008 Olympic Team Trials - Women's Marathon, Samuelson, who won the first Trials in 1984 and went on to win the first Olympic gold medal in Los Angeles that summer, clocked 2:49:08 to lower the American Record for the 50-54 age group. The old record was 2:50:26 by Shirley Matson, set in 2006.

"There have been some great years and some not so great years since then," Samuelson said after the race, "for both the Sox and myself."

Samuelson was listed as representing the "Livestrong" team, affiliated with Lance Armstrong's cancer foundation and Nike, Samuelson's longtime sponsor, and she started the race in a hat of that organization's signature yellow. She ran a "conservative" race, she said, off the lead pace early but well within herself.

"I put immense pressure on myself coming in," said Samuelson. A hard winter at her home in Maine and her own busy schedule limited her training, but she was aware of the 2:50 mark and hoped to make a run at it.

"The support was unbelievable," she said of the crowds on the course. "They kept me going." As a two-time winner of the BAA Boston Marathon, Boston claims "Joanie" more than any city outside Maine, where she founded the popular and successful Beach to Beacon 10K in Cape Elizabeth. Spotters along the course reported that in many places, cheering for Samuelson was louder than for the race leaders.

When Samuelson crossed the line, finishing what will probably be her last Olympic Trials Marathon, Deena Kastor, Magdalena Lewy Boulet and Blake Russell were waiting to congratulate her. "It was tremendous to see her coming down Boylston Street," said Kastor, who watched Samuelson's L.A. run as a young girl. "It was a testament to the person she is on and off the race course."