1984

Looking back on one of the best U.S. Olympic marathon trials ever

It was early 1984. The men's Olympic marathon trials, scheduled for May 26 in Buffalo, N.Y., approached.

Pete Pfitzinger, trying to adopt the "most simple and pure runner's lifestyle," was training at a career-high 143 miles a week in Auckland, New Zealand, on the terrain used by coach Arthur Lydiard's Olympic greats of the 1960s.



Alberto Salazar, the marathon world record-holder who'd won New York in 1980, '81 and '82, and Boston's "Duel in the Sun" in '82, was coming off fifths at the 1983 Fukuoka and Rotterdam marathons and nursing a foot injury incurred while running a 27:45 10,000m.