Bill Benson dies at 96; prolific distance runner set M85 mile record

Bill Benson in early 2016.

Bill Benson in early 2016 still had big goals.

Bill “Billy” Benson of Valley Stream, New York, a former M85 mile record-holder who was profiled earlier this year about his goal of running 1,000 races and aimed to finish the Fifth Avenue Mile for the umpteenth time, has died at age 96, Mary Trotto reports. Bill was a member of her USATF Masters Awards Committee. Mary writes: “Bill has been involved in masters track and field and masters long distance running for the past 35 years. … He has been a major help to me in selecting the nominees for the yearly awards. Bill lives on Long Island and is a lifelong friend. I ran at his 90th birthday 5K run and enjoyed cheering him on at local 5K and 1 mile races. I also ran at his 95th 5K run in which he lead for the first mile. … He was a wonderful person, a great competitor and an inspiration to all of us.” Last September, he was the oldest entrant at the Fifth Avenue Mile.

Pete Taylor added that he also was called Uncle Billy and “was a very popular guy at our track meets and road races. And why not? He was friendly with everyone, remembered who you were, and would love to put on a big kick at the end of the race. e was one of those athletes who was loved by all who knew him. I, for one, certainly enjoyed announcing him over the years.”

Bill was USATF Masters Long Distance Runner of the Year in the M95 age group.

Ten years ago, I reported his mile breakthrough at 86:

Bill Benson of Valley Stream, N.Y., demolished his own M85 American record in the mile Saturday, clocking 9:18.42, reports the Durham Herald Sun in North Carolina. He did it at the 35th Southeastern Masters Track and Field Meet at Duke University in Durham. His old record was 9:56.93, which he set in July 2004 at age 85. (But he had a hand-timed 9:42.4 last August at the GLIRC Mile & Relay Carnival in Farmingdale, N.Y.)

In January, a local paper profiled him:

Bill Benson was 60 in 1979 when he told his wife, Annette, that his clothes seemed to be shrinking.

“She said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with your clothes. You’re just fat.’ And I agreed with her, when I thought about it,” Benson said.

After 40 years of smoking, he threw away all of his pipes, gave up drinking beer and read a book by a track coach that detailed how to start a running regimen. And run he did — more than 20,000 miles in the past 36 years, every mile accounted for in a logbook Benson faithfully attends to. While he’s already surpassed his goal for miles run, he has yet to achieve the figure he set for races: 1,000. He’s at 983, just 17 to go.

Benson’s running career officially started when he was in college. He was on the freshman track team at Ohio University, in Athens, Ohio, in 1941. World War II interrupted his academic career, and he was drafted as a quartermaster. He remembered working with German prisoners of war in that role — “They were good workers,” Benson said.

He returned to Ohio University in 1946 and graduated the following year. But his running career was again interrupted, this time by a career as an agent for Liberty Mutual Insurance. Benson moved to Valley Stream in 1951, where he and Annette raised three sons, Jeff, Don and Richard, in a house near the Gibson train station. Jeff, who ran track at South High School, eventually died of cancer. Don still lives in the village with his family.

Benson didn’t run again until his encounter with his tightening clothes, three years before he retired from the insurance industry. He started off by intermittently running and walking the mile-long track around the lake at Arthur J. Hendrickson Park. Once he could run a full lap around the lake, he entered a 5K race he saw advertised in the newspaper.

“I ran it,” he said, “and almost died.”

He ran the Long Island Marathon at 62, then the New York City Marathon. He joined the Greater Long Island Running Club, of which he remains a member — and was honored by the group on Dec. 15. Club president Mike Polansky called Benson a personal friend whose enthusiasm for the sport has never wained.

“He’s certainly one of the most durable runners to ever come out of Long Island,” Polansky said. “There is no one like him.”

What did Benson’s wife think of his new hobby? “She thought it was ridiculous — ‘Who wants to see these sweaty old men?’” Benson remembered her saying. She was good-humored about it, though, and supported him. This is Benson’s first year without Annette. She died in August.

Benson has won a considerable amount of accolades and titles: He was 70 when he was on a five-person team that won gold in a World Masters Track and Field Championship in Oregon. Ten years later, he took silver in England. By the time he turned 80, he had nine national championships under his belt.

Benson’s favorite race is Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue Mile because he loves the crowd that turns out for it. He’s been joined on the route by the likes of world-class runners Kathryn Martin and Sid Howard. At his age, he times himself against the All-American standard for a given distance, even though it doesn’t include a bracket for people older than 89.

Despite a few injuries through the years, his doctors “think it’s great” that he keeps at it. He prefers to practice alone, still circling the lake at Hendrickson Park, and takes up the rear at his club’s events. He beat the one-hour-and-13-seconds standard in his last race, he said.

“I’m always last now, and it’s nice back there. I meet some nice people back there and have some nice conversations,” said Benson, adding that two people are assigned to stick with him, walking nearby as he runs at his own pace. “In case I die on the way or something.”

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July 20, 2016

2 Responses

  1. MICHAEL DE JESUS - July 21, 2016

    R.I.P.

  2. Mary Harada - July 23, 2016

    Bill was one of my favorite runner friends. It was always a joy to see him and talk with him at track meets.
    He set such a positive example for competing as we grow older and slower.

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