Sammy Pelletier

"He just kind of folded up like a lawn chair."

Sammy Pelletier, a native of Fort Kent, started running at an early age, the youngest of 10 children. A standout track and cross country runner at the University of Maine during the late 1970s, Pelletier peaked in 1983 when he recorded the fastest marathon ever run by a Mainer in winning the Philadelphia Marathon in 2:15:26. Pelletier also set a course record that exists to this day at the Portland Boys Club 5-Miler, a sizzling 23:33.

Pelletier grew up the son of a woodsman in a large family of wrestlers and runners. He had an older brother, Bruce, who had been a county champion runner during the late 1960s. Sammy started running in 1968 at age 11. "I was one of ten children and we used to have family races around a big field that was approximately 1.5 miles. I was the youngest that ran, It took all I had to keep up with everybody."

At Fort Kent Community High, from 1971 through 1975, he, like his older brother Bruce, became county champ in cross country. He went on to win the Eastern Maine Championship and took 6th in the state meet. In track he ran a 9:50 two-mile and placed 6th in the state meet.

At the University of Maine he was a member of the strongest cross country squad the school had seen in 13 years. The team included Peter Bridgham, Phil Garland, Bill Pike, and Mike Rodin. Every one of these runners could average under five minutes a mile in a cross country race, said Pelletier.

In track, Pelletier won the college state meet in the steeplechase in the first year they held that event. In indoor track he took second in the state in the two-mile, running 9:12. But he says years later, "I've run faster than that on a way to a 10-K now." He ran 9:03 in the first two miles" of one 10-K in later years, and also broke 14 minutes in the first 5-K of a 10-miler. "My best running came after college. I'm one of those guys who matured really late and I really came on after I graduated from college."

Pelletier always had the feeling that he was too big to be a good distance runner. He was 5-foot-10 and 150 pounds, "a tough Frenchman," as Garland puts it. Yet he proved that he was good, even great, at even the marathon distance. It was while he was still at the University of Maine when he made his debut in the marathon. At the time, the only marathon in Maine was the annual Paul Bunyan Marathon in Orono during the dead of summer. He ran it three times during the late 1970s. It was on a 90-degree day in July, 1979, that he won the Paul Bunyan Marathon in 2:33. This was a beginning. But his real rise in the world of marathoning came during the years he was in optometry school in Philadelphia. It started with 100 miles a week, building up to 130 to 140 miles a week over a three-year stretch of consistent running.

In 1981, he put his serious training to the first test, running 2:22 at Philadelphia. He was back again the following year. He ran with a pack for about 17 miles when Bill Sholll suddenly started reeling off 4:50 miles. Pelletier tried to go with him but couldn't keep the pace and allowed Scholl to get about a 30-second lead. At the finish, Scholl had a 40 second lead just dipping under 2:16. Pelletier was clocked in 2:16:34. He was getting there.

In 1983, Scholl was at the starting line again, ready for a repeat. Pelletier had other ideas for the outcome. But he was going to the race on his terms. "I was determined to run my own race. I figured that if I could run 5:06s, I could probably win. The first mile was about 4:55, and there were about 20 of us. And I remember thinking to myself, 'None of us are going to run this fast,' because we didn't have that caliber people there. So I consciously put the brakes on right at the mile and I left. It was the hardest thing I ever did. I let that group of about 10 runners pull away from me, and they put about a minute on us. So, I just went to 5:05s, and just began listening to the splits.

"There was a group of about five or six guys with me, and another group ahead of us. And I remember right at eight miles hearing the split was 5:20. I said, 'Oh no.' This is where it happened. So I consciously pressed a little harder, brought it back down to about 5:05, and you know what, didn't we start reeling those guys in. It took us about four miles to catch them and, by about 12 miles, we caught them. All of a sudden I was going up Chestnut Hill (one mile long) and there is me and one other guy. And I basically dictated the pace there on in because the other guy that ran with me to about 20, it was his first marathon. "But when I put a surge on him at about 20 to see what he had in him, he just kind of folded up like a lawn chair. Then I was on my own and I thought to myself, 'Why did I do that?' I ran by myself the last six miles. I ran it as steady as I possibly could, as even as I could. I ran negative splits. I ran 1:04:50 the first half and the second half was 1:04:30.

"Maybe I could have run faster. I don't know. If there is anything I can say about training, it is consistency over the long haul, and that's what I had when I got to the Philadelphia Marathon in 1983."

After winning the Philadelphia Marathon, the Army brass took notice of their now famous running doctor. They offered him a rare opportunity to go live in California, just to train for the 1984 Olympics. He ran in the Olympic Trials in 1984. "That was the only marathon I ever ran where I wasn't 100 percent, but I ran it anyway. But I didn't even finish that day."

Some of the best performances Pelletier had were times when he might finish 10th or even 20th place, but against world class competition. He ran in the Philadelphia Distance Run, a half marathon, while in the Army, clocking 1:04:30, taking 10th place among over 7,000 starters. "That was one of the best performances of my life." The following year he nearly duplicated that with a 1:04:40 for 12th place on the same course.

Also while in the Army from 1983 to 1987 he ran in some international cross country races "in places that didn't mean anything." Yet, in these military championships were Olympic team members from third world countries who were in reality paid professionals supported by the government. They came from counties such as Morocco. In one of these races Pelletier remembers averaging 4:51 per mile for 12-K and still finishing only in 20th place, "running the race of my life. You'd go out in the first mile and run 4:30, and they were already 15 seconds ahead of you!"

His best racing distance was the marathon, and his PRs for other distances include: 4:20 for the mile; 14:00 for 5-K (the first half of a 10K race); 23:33 for 5 miles; 29:16 for 10-K; 48:48 for 10 miles; and 1:04:30 for the half marathon.