How hot was it really during the 1984 Olympic women's marathon?

It was slightly cooler than The Duel in the Sun.

thanks for the recap. don't have anything to add your stats on the weather, but for what little it's worth, i was in the stadium at finish and it felt hot. very sunny as i recall, and this seems consistent with your photos.

Jon Gault, I have enjoyed your "I Was Bored" series. I assume what I am writing has been reported before, but thought I'd give you two major recollections from Joni's run.

1- Because you missed her breakaway, I'm not sure you were able to capture her looking back at the back for a good portion of her run and shaking her head when she turned back. It looked like she was saying "where are you people?" There's always the question of going to soon, but Joni's body language seemed to be "thank you" as she was racing against the best, but they didn't race. If your view was started at 20 miles, that part of the race was the most dramatic.

2- During the Trials, there was a display of Joni's workouts post surgery. I remember well a contraption her coach set up with her lying on her back peddling a bicycle with her hands to keep her heart rate up. If you look at those commercials, you gotta keep in mind the lack of sophisticated equipment. Watching that cut away and then back to Joni, really showed how much of a beast she really was.

With no disrespect to anyone, I still believe Joni was our best women's runner. Thanks again for the series. It's been fun to review those old races.

It's pack obviously. Thanks.

I was along the course in Marina Del Rey when Joanie cruised by. I remember I was comfortable in tshirt and shorts just standing there. Once they headed east away from the coast it must have felt quite warm....and once they were east of the 405 freeway it would have felt damn hot.

I watched it live and it was much hotter than the numbers you give. I have seen people question previous weather history reports before. I wonder whether they are necessarily accurate from this site.

Or, alternatively, maybe it was just sunny and the sun's intensity meant that it was much hotter in the sun than in the shade.

News reports were likely based on looking at temp readings on visible gauges at the arena and at banks along the way, whereas history reports are based on official measures.

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1984/08/06/114314.html?pageNumber=45

Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for the recollection.

I was really bummed that I couldn't find the break anywhere. The video I started watching was part 1 of a series and it went through 2 miles, so I assumed part 2 would resume where it left off rather than skip ahead to 20 miles. By that point, I had already started writing stuff down and grabbing screenshots, so I figured I'd just keep going.

I also couldn't find her half marathon split anywhere. From what the broadcasters were saying, I think it was close to WR pace -- Waitz later said she didn't go with Joanie because she was afraid she would die in the heat -- but I couldn't find an actual number.

The times was probably looking at the range in the Los Angeles Area.

You can easily have 20+ degrees difference between the beaches and the San Fernando Valley.

Burbank shows temps that day for around 90, but they were no where near Burbank.

Alternate Reality wrote:

The times was probably looking at the range in the Los Angeles Area.

You can easily have 20+ degrees difference between the beaches and the San Fernando Valley.

Burbank shows temps that day for around 90, but they were no where near Burbank.

^^^^^ This!^^^^^ I was working at a temporary detail at the Olympic joint law enforcement command center downtown L.A. that day. (I had a 30+ year career with the federal gov. and was assigned to LAX for a few years) I watched the race on television in the center even though it was happening just a couple minutes away -ugh!

We lived much further south near Redondo Beach area. I ran a light 4-5 miles very early that morning I remember thinking it was a little on the warmish side with some humidity.

However once I got downtown it felt brutal. Air quality general was pretty crappy except on days with Santa Ana winds.

Although there were more miserable days in L.A. , I would not liked to have had to race that day for sure.

There is a huge difference between a official weather station temperature and the actual temperature on the road in a city Marathon.

It might have been officially 76 but it also might have been a lot hotter during the race.

LetsRun.com wrote:

What's interesting to us now 35+ years later is we're wondering how hot was it really during the race. The NY Times recap said that the "ranged from the high 60's to near 90 degrees with high humidity" but the stats don't back that up. Here are the temperatures as reported by Dark Sky for various cities in LA area that the course ran through on August 5, 1984. The race started in Santa Monic and went threw Venice, Culver City before ending in LA.

Santa Monica Venice Culver City LA

8 AM 67 67 67 67

10 AM 67 72 72 71

12 Noon 72 76 76 76

I'll explain it to ya.

1) it was a cloudy day, from start to finish. That means the recorded temp 67° through most of the race is the same as the surface temp. At the very end of the race is got up 71° . With no overhead Sun to beat you down and low humidity that makes it good conditions

2) Dew Point was 61°. Great for running.

3) The field was correct to be cautious at the start. Santa Monica is always going to be cool at that time of day, but once you go uphill and away from the ocean things can change quickly fast. It can easily be 90° at the Coliseum when it's 67° in Santa Monica.

4) The big difference on that day is the cloud cover. If it was sunny and 67° the ambient surface temperature is going to be quite different than the weather services recorded temperature (in the shade.) and as the race progressed the conditions would have felt extreme.

Here is the hourly data for Santa Monica and LA on that day.

malmo wrote:

Here is the hourly data for Santa Monica and LA on that day.

https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/ca/santa-monica/KSMO/date/1984-8-4https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/ca/los-angeles/KLAX/date/1984-8-4

A little assist on those links. Click on the text "Santa Monica CA Weather History" and "Los Angeles CA weather history." That will send you to the hourly weather data on those Aug 4, 1984.

If your cursor touches the "Weather Underground" logo, you will be directed to the weatherunderground home page.

That doc you linked about Gabriela Andersen-Schiess showed 90° on the footage

malmo wrote:

malmo wrote:

Here is the hourly data for Santa Monica and LA on that day.

https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/ca/santa-monica/KSMO/date/1984-8-4https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/ca/los-angeles/KLAX/date/1984-8-4

A little assist on those links. Click on the text "Santa Monica CA Weather History" and "Los Angeles CA weather history." That will send you to the hourly weather data on those Aug 4, 1984.

If your cursor touches the "Weather Underground" logo, you will be directed to the weatherunderground home page.

Unfortunately, that was the weather for Wednesday August 4th. The marathon was held on Thursday the 5th. So anyone looking needs to set it for the 5th. But a good link none the less.

Unfortunately what it doesn't account for is the high humidity nor the actual temp at the stadium. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was more humid than normal, especially inland/downtown. I remember stepping out of my car that morning at L.A. police hedquarters and thinking; 'They are going to have a rough day to race'. If there is any doubt how miserable it was for some, just watch the painful finish of Gabriela Andersen-Schiess . Crazy thing was she still set the Swiss national record that day.

Suggest you to pay attention to the temperature at the start at 8:00 and then again at the end, when Gabriela finished. It is much higher than the 'official' stations at LAX or Burbank. The video gets a little hard to watch around 5:00.

We were all a lot tougher back then.

Unfortunately, that was the weather for Wednesday August 4th. The marathon was held on Thursday the 5th. So anyone looking needs to set it for the 5th. But a good link none the less.

k[/quote]

DUH. .....nevermind. Oh my!

Not Done Just Yet wrote:

Suggest you to pay attention to the temperature at the start at 8:00 and then again at the end, when Gabriela finished. It is much higher than the 'official' stations at LAX or Burbank. The video gets a little hard to watch around 5:00.

The temperature at the start AUGUST 5th was 66° and the dew point was 64° which is close to the day that I had cited (August 4th).

What we cannot determine is actual temperature at the finish, I tried getting data close to the fiinish (USA) but couldn't find historical data. LAX doesn't count because that's close to the ocean and gives similar data (71° T 59°DP cloudy) to Santa Monica. It was clear that at the Coliseum is was Sunny, no clouds and the Sun high overhead.

Difficult to find historical data for weather near dountown LA or USC.