Customer Reviews

Duel in the Sun: Alberto Salazar, Dick Beardsley, and America's Greatest Marathon

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I remember the '82 Boston marathon well, and was thrilled to discover this book. The story of the race between Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley is fascinating, and for the most part it is well told here. However, the book could have used a little more refinement before publication. It is repetitious at points and lacks detail at many others. For example, the author includes a chapter on Salazar's comeback victory in the '94 Comrades ultramarathon, which is an amazing story in its own right. However, that chapter is a mere five pages long, including the large font first page, with several italicized sections surrounded by white space. That's pretty skimpy.

As much as I enjoyed reading about the race, I was often frustrated at wanting to know more detail than the author provided. If the story itself wasn't so compelling, I'd give this book three stars -- not because what was published isn't good reading, but because there's so much more that could have been done to tell the story more fully.

Like running a marathon, there are great highs and some steep lows in Duel in the Sun, but it is well worth the read.

Author John Brant chronicles the lives of Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley before and after their epic stride-for-stride thriller in the 1982 Boston Marathon. It was a struggle between two athletes seemingly racing toward peak years of performing on the international stage. But the race took more out of each runner than anyone imagined.

Salazar - perhaps the last great American distance runner - was a superstar on the track, grass and the roads and had the cockiness of Jimmy Connors while delivering a KO punch on his opponents like the young George Foreman. Beardsley was the "everyman's" runner, whose times at a variety of shorter distances paled to his competition, but was coming of age physically and financially in the long distances on the roads.

The book is as much biography and history as much as a review of the race. At times it seems as if Brant is rushed in his writing, which is surprising since the text is a light 203 pages, with the photograph section in that count.

But it is penned at a time when the running boom has long-since cooled, but raced when events like the Boston Marathon commanded front-page stories on sports pages and magazines, and oftentimes covered for hours on live regional or national TV.

And perhaps the best lesson learned is not what happened during the cheers of the fans as Salazar and Beardsley matched strides to the tape, but how that two hour and nine minute journey impacted their lives after the finish line.

I had previously read Beardsley's book "Staying The Course: A Runner's Toughest Race" so I knew most of the details about the 1984 Boston Marathon but "Duel in the Sun" is an excellent book due to the behind the scenes details of not only the race but the lives of Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley. You don't have to be a marathon runner to truely appreciate what these two men went through in their lives as well as in their running.

This book tells two stories. The first is a recap of the 1982 "Duel in the Sun" Boston Marathon in which Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley run within inches of one another for the entire race - arguably the most exciting distance race ever.

The second story tells about the lives of the two very different men - both of which face their own failures and triumphs.

Both stories are interesting but in my opinion could have been more in depth. I read the book in a little over one day. The book was rather thin to begin with and the font was quite large and often there would be a blank page between chapters. Also there were some things, especially in the stories of the men's lives, that were repeated multiple times. I felt that it read more like a very long magazine article rather than a book.

That April day in 82 was incredible, very few were heat acclimated. I trained in the midwest and was not. The race was run at noon adn I had heard the high was 75. The road seemed to be on fire. Beardsley had the advantage of heat training Salazar not. I was only a few minutes behind them but blew up at the base of hill #2 (Auberndale station).

The book gives a good accounting of the race and the battle of these fellows. The painfull part is their physical and emotional catastrophies after such a great performance.

Whether it be the marathon, Ironman or other endurance event one is never the same afterward. You gain experience but you also leave some of yourself behind.

As a beginner in the running world I found it comforting to know that these two extraordinary god-like runners are as human as I am. This book talks about the pitfalls of a high-pressured life and as a bonus we get to meet two legendary runners. They truly are extraordinary human beings. Even if you don't run this book is a great read.

If you are/were a competitive distance runner (particularly from the mid-'70s to mid-'80s), you'll really enjoy this book. Not only is the race itself examined, but so are the lives (both before and after the race) of the two runners (Salazar and Beardsley) involved in this "duel". These two runners couldn't have been more different;their contrasts make the story that much more appealing. While the runners didn't realize it at the time, this one race ended up being not only the focal point of their running careers, but also their lives. This particular race, the 1982 Boston Marathon, can rightly claim the distinction of being one of the greatest American distance races of all time (and one of the last). Even the contrasts between distance running today and 20+ years ago add to the story. In many ways, just like the two runners themselves, American distance running has never been the same.

The book weaves in and out of the race itself, and lets you look into the lives of Salazar and Beardsley from their early days to their present day. Like most of us, both of these men had their personal battles they had to go through and overcome before they could come back to the running community. I felt like I was a part of this book, almost like I was watching it happen.

Great race, great story and very well told.
I liked the way that the story cut between the race and the personal story.
Much of the race story must be conjecture but it is intelegently presented and completly believable.

Hard to imaging you could take one 26 mile race and make it into an enthralling story.

Can be enjoyed by the athletics trainspotters as well as the casual runner

John Brant has always been one of my favorite Runner's World writers. In this book he authors the most memorable moment in my mind of elite running, the 1982 Boston Marathon duel between Dick Beardsley and Alberto Salazar. Brant's writing style is exquisite. He doesn't succumb to distracting styles so many authors try to get fancy with. Brant uses his intimacy with running and great research to spin the yarn of how Beardsley and Salazar got to where they were on that Patriot's Day and intertwined in the tale is the progress of the race itself.
I probably knew 99% of the story from reading Beardsley's autobiography and all the articles and interviews over the years in running magazines or wherever else I could glean a morsel about that day. I remember watching that Boston Marathon on television and being spellbound. Since Boston is on a Monday, I had to have been at school in 1982. I either scammed some television time at the library or on a set in my track coach's office, but I remember as a Minnesota boy, being fixated over my running hero's day in the sun as Dick Beardsley brought small town Minnesota to the pinnacle of running.
This book puts all the pieces together and will long occupy my nightstand as something to reread time and time again. I was locked from page one and read it cover to cover.
A definite runner's library must have!!