They're kindred spirits
Jennings emerges, touts Kastor, Benoit
Deena Kastor's bronze medal in the women's Olympic marathon Sunday in Athens struck a chord with former Olympian Lynn Jennings, who won the bronze medal at 10,000 meters in the 1992 Games.
Yesterday, Jennings broke a five-year media silence to talk about the feat, which put Kastor alongside Jennings and 1984 marathon gold medalist Joan Benoit. "There are only three women who know what it feels like [to win medals in distance events]. It's a pretty special club, and you have to be in it to understand the feelings and emotions."
Jennings, a Massachusetts native who also lived in New Hampshire, left New England five years ago, retiring from competition and heading west to start a new life in Portland, Ore. Since then, there have been no interviews, no races, no stories about her. Left behind were a legion of fans -- local, national, and international -- who wondered if she was OK. "I'm fine," she said.
Her name popped up again in February, when a letter from her was published in the New York Times, regarding the BALCO drug scandal.
"You can see by looking at her that Deena is clean," she said yesterday. "Joanie's clean. I was clean. There are a lot more clean ones out there. Maybe more will get the message."
Jennings is a proponent of freezing athletes' "samples" and saving them "forever" to be checked as new testing methods come along. "I want anyone who saw me running a race to know what they were seeing was real and not have an iota of doubt."
There are no doubts about the 10,000-meter bronze she has from three trips to the Olympics, nor about the three straight World Cross-Country titles, the last captured in Boston's Franklin Park, and the nine US Cross-Country championships and myriad national titles and road race wins.
"Deena will be in awe of all this for a while," said Jennings. "Not the medal, but what she did to get it. There are more days when you doubt yourself and your abilities than when you don't. When you wonder if you really have what it takes. Those are the people who were there when she doubted herself and kept assuring her, `You can do this.' You're only as strong as your two feet, your brain . . . and your support group. It's the fear of failure that drives people on. "That little round object [medal] represents so much intangible stuff. That's what gives it so much power. Joan knows it. Deena knows it. The next American man who wins a distance medal will know it. But right now the women have the corner on US distance medals."
As for herself, "My past is in the record books," said Jennings. "I ran every race I wanted to run and did everything I ever dreamed I could do as an athlete.
"That was then, and this is now. I saved my money and can live as I please."
That means a new beau and a life filled with travel, hiking, climbing, kayaking, canoeing, and being an outdoorswoman.
While she no longer races, she still runs 50 to 60 miles a week, almost exclusively on trails and never -- "not once in five years" -- has she been on the track.
But she forever is a member of a very select club. 