20-Apr-1981 – Boston Marathon – 2:26:46 – ASICS Sortie
Date of birth: 30-May-1956
Nationality: New Zealander
The athlete:
Allison Roe focussed on the marathon distance from early in her running career, competing in no less than three separate races in 1980. This included an appearances at the Choysa Marathon in Auckland and the Tokyo International Women’s Marathon, where Joan Benoit and Joyce Smith set the marathon world records.
Her times kept dropping, and her first marathon of 1981 saw Roe return to the Auckland where she shaved more than 15 minutes from her personal best. It was with little surprise that she would then make her next marathon appearance at arguably the most prestigious such event in the world, the Boston Marathon. Alongside her were none other than Benoit and Patti Catalano Dillon.
The race came down to Catalano Dillon and Roe, the latter of whom was able to break away with three miles to go. It was an incredibly fast race, Catalano Dillon setting the new American record while Benoit set her new personal best. Roe however would win and set the new course record for the Boston Marathon.
Only Grete Waitz ran the distance faster with her win at the 1980 New York City Marathon, but as we know that course was short by potentially as much as 152.4 metres. This meant that, technically speaking, Roe had therefore run the marathon distance faster than any other woman in history.
It was however still not to be enough for the record books. While without question one of the most challenging marathon courses in the world, the Boston Marathon course drops more than the limit set by World Athletics (known as the International Association of Athletics Federations at the time) for record-eligible courses.
Unfortunately this means that by modern standards the still incredible performance of Roe was not the official marathon world record. She would get another opportunity to run even faster later that year at the 1981 New York City Marathon, which you can read more about on this website.
The shoes:
If we look at the shots from the 1981 New York City and 1981 Boston Marathon, Roe is wearing minimalist blue and yellow ASICS racing flats. Those runners have no toebox overlay, there is one piece of nylon with a suede heel counter. That marks them out as the ASICS Sortie, introduced in 1981 as the replacement for the Marup series. The focus of the Sortie is lightness, with the midsole using EVA foam with holes to help with flexibility. Even the outsole was designed to give as much traction as possible with minimal weight penalty.
The version worn by Naoko Takahashi in 2000 to set the new Olympic Record, and the next year to break the 2:20 barrier, weighed an incredible 95 grams. The simpler versions Roe sported would have likely weighed even less. New versions continue to be released, with the latest entry to carry the torch dubbed the SortieMagic RP 5.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_Roe
https://athletics.org.nz/legends/allison-roe/
http://www.allisonroe.co.nz/about-allison/
https://www.lydiardacademy.org/photo-gallery
https://corp.asics.com/en/about_asics/history
https://more.arrs.run/runner/7448
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/1/sports/seko-of-japan-captures-boston-marathon.html
https://www.ebay.com/itm/326174118369