Images from the graphic novel Fahrenheit 75, chronicling the 'Duel in the Sun,' by Jindrich Janicek. Now available for purchase at The Trackhouse in Boston.
Stars Aligned For
'Duel In The Sun'
By Paul Clerici
There was a unique trajectory to and connection at the 1982 Boston Marathon between winner Alberto Salazar (2:08:52 CR), runner-up Dick Beardsley (2:08:54), and coach Bill Squires. For the “Duel in the Sun” - so named for their hot-weather mano-a-mano battle - Squires had coached Salazar at the Greater Boston Track Club (GBTC) and Beardsley individually for this race.
By the time Salazar left GBTC in 1981 for Nike’s Athletics West, he’d already benefited from the Boston-specific simulator training from Squires, who at GBTC coached the likes of Bill Rodgers, Greg Meyer, Jack Fultz, and wheelchair champion Bob Hall, all of whom received the same (but tailored by skill level) training.
“I broke the course down to four sections,” noted Squires. “And they’d really notice the way the course drops so quickly [that] you can make time like hell and actually float. Let other people lead it and you just float along. And when you get to the six-mile mark you have the strength to really get your pistons going and really drive to the finish.”
Salazar was boosted by “Track & Field News” world rankings (first in the marathon; sixth in the 10,000). “Bill Squires started coaching me when I was a junior in high school,” said Salazar of his Wayland High days starting at GBTC as the 16-year-old “Rookie” star. “That club was primarily devoted to the marathon, so at an early age I was sort of indoctrinated into the marathon. They were telling me, ‘Rookie, you’re going to be a great marathoner, but wait. Develop yourself on the track first [with] your speed.’ So I waited and I kept developing my speed.”
At GBTC, Squires added distance to Salazar’s speed. “I got him with a group of people to train with - the faster kids - so they can feel some speed and learn to float the rest of the race. You need some rest periods; you don’t want to [always] be the leader. Being the leader tires you like hell. He absorbed the material, although there were times he wanted to do too much and I’d explain I’d need, like, 70 percent.”
For Beardsley in flat Minnesota, Squires had him replicate Boston as best he could. “I knew Boston was famous for all its hills,” said Beardsley. “For hill-type training without the hills, I would do many of my runs into the wind for resistance. Not sure how much that helped, but in my mind I thought it did! [And] a couple of times a week I’d try to find some areas of road that weren’t too iced up and I’d do lots of stride-outs and some fartlek just to keep my leg turnover going.”
Beardsley also increased his weekly mileage to 140. “He had to get used to running longer - 15- to 17-mile runs - on a regular basis,” said Squires. “And instead of doing it once a day, he had to do it twice a day as he matured. And every three weeks he’d go and run a fast 10K race against 10K people, so that kept him in the top three or four and mentally fit for the marathon. I’d break things down and he understood the system.”
Interestingly, Squires was a WBZ-TV on-air commentator for the race. “It was very difficult,” he chuckled. “You don’t want to lean toward one; you have to be very honest.”
Special thanks to Dick Beardsley for permission to use Alberto Salazar quotes from a 2003 television program in which he interviewed Salazar.