With the record for the fastest mile in Wayne County (Jesup, Georgia) history, 4:36, in his back pocket, Benji Durden tried out for the University of Georgia track team as a walk-on.
With talent he describes as ‘good enough for the university, but not for the Southeastern Conference,’ he made the team. He was fast enough to make the Bulldog squad but not fast enough to be competitive with the elite runners of the other schools.
In his junior year, Durden competed in an indoor meet at Auburn on ‘an oval painted around the basketball court—12 laps to the mile.’ (To be fair, this was back in 1970.) Nursing a twisted ankle he incurred the week before the meet, he informed his coach that his ankle couldn’t tolerate the turns the oval required him to make. The coach, in turn, called Benji a quitter.
So that’s exactly what happened next: he quit.
However, before the decade was over, this ‘quitter’ would become one of the top runners in the country. And, if given the chance, maybe one of the top runners in the entire world – ‘if’ being the operative word. But more on that later.
First things first: Durden’s rise to prominence as an American runner.
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In 1974, Durden started thinking about the Olympic marathon trials, partly because of Frank Shorter’s Olympic gold medal in 1972, and partly because he ‘didn’t think (he) had a chance in shorter races.’ (In his first Peachtree Road Race – 1972 – he finished 31st at 36:06; a quick time, but nowhere near the elite athletes at that distance.)
He ran the hilly Atlanta Marathon in December 1974, only to drop out halfway through the race on a hilly and very challenging course. His performance wasn’t the encouragement he was looking for towards his goal of qualifying for the Olympic trials, which required a marathon in 2:23:00 or faster, but it didn’t take away his dream, either.
Durden’s confidence was boosted while competing as a member of a nine-runner team competing for the Atlanta Track Club in a 24-hour event in August 1976. In a relay format, each runner ran one mile before ‘passing the baton’ to the next runner. This continued for 24 hours. Durden’s team won the event by compiling more than 288 miles, setting a world record in the process that, by all indications, still stands to this day.
Durden personally accounted for 37 miles, 35 of them under five minutes. (His average time per mile was an exceptional 4:49:46.) Durden says ‘looking back, it was the turning point in my career. I moved from regional class to national class in my next marathon.’
That ‘next marathon,’ incidentally, came six months later. A 2:19:03 finish in Columbia, South Carolina, was not only fast enough to win the marathon, it also met the Olympic marathon qualifying standard. (While it was too late for the ’76 Olympic trials, it showed promise for the next one.) Over the course of the next three years, Durden ran eight more marathons with finishing times faster than Columbia, more than enough to qualify him for the trials.
Benji - Then
Now, about that world stage …
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Durden competed in the Olympic marathon trials in May 1980 in Buffalo, New York, albeit with a heavy heart. In December 1979, Russia, the host of the forthcoming Summer Olympics, invaded Afghanistan. Three months later, President Jimmy Carter announced an Olympic boycott. For Durden, this meant that win, lose, or draw, he wasn’t going to have his chance to prove himself on the world stage.
As fate would have it, Durden ran the fastest marathon of his life at the trials - 2:10:41 – crossing the finish line 22 seconds behind winner Tony Sandoval and 14 seconds ahead of third place finisher Kyle Heffner. The three runners congratulated one another in the finish chute, if only with the satisfaction of knowing they qualified for ‘the team that was going nowhere.’ As a consolation prize, they were invited to spend a week in Washington DC as guests of the White House – Durden shook hands with the three Carter’s during his visit – although it paled in comparison to what could have been.
Maybe one day Durden will write his autobiography so the rest of his story can be told, including:
He started the coaching business with his longtime friend and training partner, Lee Fidler; Lee was the coach, while Benji provided the ‘name recognition.’
His contract with Nike and competing on their elite racing team, Athletics West.
Earning a living as a professional road runner.
Beating ‘the man (he) wanted to beat the most,’ Bill Rodgers, for the first time at the 1982 Houston Marathon (Benji won the race; Rodgers finished in fifth, four minutes back).
His best finish was 10K, 28:36 for 6th place at the 1981 Peachtree Road Race.
His friendships with Frank Shorter, Bob Varsha, Gayle Barron, and many other widely-known runners of prominence during the Running Boom of the 1970’s.
Various ‘oddities,’ such as having the world’s record for the longest period between marathon victories. (40 years and 292 days, 3 ½ years ahead of the person in second place, in case you’re interested).
Durden hasn’t lived in Atlanta for more than 40 years. He and his future wife, Amie, moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1985. (They married in 1989.) They’ve lived out west ever since. They are both still running, walking, and participating (not necessarily competing) in road races.
Benji – Now
Durden has had several health scares in recent years. He had colon cancer in 2016 and lung cancer in 2021, followed by prostate cancer in 2023 – a recurrence of a first bout with it 20 years earlier. Thanks to radiation treatments, he’s currently ‘free and clear,’ although every three to six months, he gets a scan to make sure all is well. While doctors have no explanation for his run of bad luck, Durden thinks it may have something to do with things he may have been exposed to as a child when his family lived on various Air Force bases, especially since his sister - who is three years younger - has had the same cancers … at the same time.
With Amie’s encouragement, Durden has run a marathon in the 50 states and DC in less than four hours. (Amie has also accomplished it, although not quite as fast.) Although it’s now close to four decades since Durden thought of himself as an elite runner, he still puts on his running shoes, gets out there, and does what he’s always done.
Taking it one step at a time.
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I hope Durden gets around to writing his autobiography one day. If he does, I have just the right title for him to use:
Benji Durden is no quitter.
