Benoit ran 2:26:54 at Boston, a strong late-career marathon result documented by NYRR.
On April 15, 1991, Joan Benoit again competed at the Boston Marathon, finishing in 2:26:54, a time recorded in the New York Road Runners Hall of Fame archive of her career results.
More than a decade after her first Boston victory in 1979, this performance illustrated Benoit's exceptional durability as an elite-level marathoner well into her thirties, an age at which many competitors had long since retired from top competition. Her ability to run times in the mid-2:20s at this stage of her career underscored the depth of her training discipline and physiological longevity.
This race took place during a period when Benoit — by then racing under her married name Joan Benoit Samuelson — remained a respected figure in American distance running, mentoring younger athletes and continuing to compete at a nationally competitive level even as new generations of marathoners emerged.
The 1991 Boston result is one of several data points that NYRR's Hall of Fame uses to document the remarkable span and consistency of Benoit's marathon career, which stretched from her collegiate years at Bowdoin through multiple decades of world-class competition.