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Local hero.
    
That was the term often used to describe Pat Petersen, the Long Island, New York-born marathoner who held an American record and finished in the top five at the New York City Marathon Stravas 2024 Yearly Report Is Here.
    
While Petersen was indeed a local favorite in the ’80s—he was recognized and cheered on the course, especially in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, where he lived at the time—he was more than the best New Yorker ever to run the five-borough New York City Marathon. He was also one of the best American marathon runners of his era. Petersen never made it to the Olympics—Running Shoes - Gear Trials, where he was one of the favorites—but at the 1989 London Marathon, Running Shoes - Gear.
    
Petersen was part of the second generation of modern American marathoners. Their predecessors in the 1970s and early 1980s—Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, Alberto Salazar—typically ran faster, won more races, and drew more attention during the first Running Boom. “As such, Pat never got the due that was his,” said running broadcaster Toni Reavis. “I saw him as a fighter and a grinder who got the most out of his abilities.”

During Petersen’s decade-long elite running career, the mild-mannered financial analyst battled some of the best runners in the world. That rarely fazed him.

“He wasn’t afraid of anyone,” said Alex Cuozzo, president of USATF’s Long Island chapter, and a runner who knew and competed against Petersen since they were in college. (Petersen went to a two-year state school on Long Island, and then attended Manhattan College.)

Petersen was a good but not great high school runner, and when he arrived in Manhattan College, his teammates weren’t initially impressed. “At that time, we had some great runners,” recalled Paul Nugent, a teammate at Manhattan and a close friend. “In the workouts, Pat couldn’t keep up. But in a race, he blew everyone away.”

In his two years at Manhattan, he notched ten sub-25:00 finishes at Van Cortlandt’s legendary five-mile cross country course. “That’s when he started to flourish,” said Cuozzo, who was then at Auburn. “I’d see him in the summer, running close to 30:00 10Ks, and I knew he was going places.”

At first, it appeared as if the only place Petersen would be headed was the accounting department. After graduating college, according to Nugent, “he said, ‘I’m done with running.’” But while he was looking for a job in finance, he was offered a part-time job at Long Island’s Super Runners shop, owned by 1970 New York City Marathon winner Gary Muhrcke. There, he began training with a group that included Nugent, Mark Bossardet—a qualifier for the 1980 Olympic Trials and later an executive at Nike, Reebok, and Saucony—and Muhrcke.

His enthusiasm for the sport rekindled, he connected with Tracy Sundlun, Manhattan-based coach of the elite Warren Street AC, and began competing again. In April 1984, Petersen ran a 28:19 10K at the Penn Relays. That October, he ran 2:16:35 at the New York City Marathon, finishing fourth. The following year, he ran 2:12:59 to finish third at New York.

Petersen had found his race, and his distance. “He was made for the marathon,” said Sundlun, who went on to co-found the Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon series. “He was not world-class in other events, but he was made for what the marathon exacted from you.”

Like the number of participants, the city’s embrace of the marathon was growing in the 1980s, and Petersen soon found himself the focus of attention. “I can’t believe how many people recognize me in the street and subways,” he told Newsday in 1985.

His running style also attracted attention, much of it negative. It was an ungainly, arms-flailing motion that one reporter described as “awful.” But Sundlun insists that all the upper body motion didn’t affect his running. “He had table tops for hips,” said the coach. “All the extra motion up top didn’t do anything down below.”

While Petersen may have been at his peak at a time when American marathoning was in the doldrums, his timing was good in one sense—the age of “shamateurism” was over and athletes could finally be paid openly for performing well in top events. According to the Association of Road Racing Statisticians, Petersen’s career earnings in racing were $87,900.

Yet he proudly maintained a full-time job in finance during his career as a runner. Like other top working marathoners of the past, such as seven-time Boston winner Clarence DeMar, Petersen ran to his job—10 miles from Greenpoint to Wall Street.

He didn’t view the constraints of employment as a hardship. According to Sundlun, one employer offered Petersen the opportunity to come into work an hour later to allow more time to train. Petersen refused. “Pat didn’t like special treatment,” Sundlun said. “He liked being part of the team, and part of the running community.”

Despite his New York City Marathon accomplishments, Petersen was equally if not more impressive at the London Marathon, where he finished in the top ten three times—sixth in 1985 (2:11:23), fourth in 1986 (2:12:56), and seventh in 1989, the year he set the American best of 2:10:04.

The 1989 race represented a sort of vindication for Petersen after his bad race at the previous year’s Olympic Trials. He was still in his early 30s; trying to make the 1992 Olympic team was a possibility. But in the spring of 1991, he passed out while doing intervals in Central Park. Petersen was diagnosed as suffering from atrial fibrillations, an irregular and often rapid heartbeat.

Through the summer and fall of that year, Petersen battled the condition. "It's hurt me," he admitted to a reporter, discussing his preparations for that year’s New York City Marathon. "There are times I can't even walk up a flight of stairs, much less run." Despite not knowing if or when his next step would trigger a dangerously rapid heartbeat, Petersen finished 21st at New York in 1991 in 2:20:29.

In the years that followed, Petersen—who worked on Wall Street and later for corporations on Long Island as a financial analyst—continued to run, but the focus of his life changed to his family. He and his wife, Bea Huste, a 2:45 marathoner, met as teammates on the Warren Street AC.

The couple had four children. In honor of their two sons with autism, Eric and Jack, they started the EJ Autism Foundation, to support autism awareness and support schools that work with children on the spectrum. The foundation’s activities include a popular four-mile run in their Long Island town of East Islip, where Petersen’s presence was always a draw among local runners.

In March, Petersen was diagnosed with late-stage cancer. “He deteriorated very quickly,” Nugent said. “I took him to chemo a month ago. We’re coming out, I’m pushing him in the wheelchair. He looks up at me and says, ‘Two weeks ago, I was running eight miles a day.’” It was a rare moment of self-pity.

“We were watching the Rangers game just a few days ago,” Nugent said. “I asked him if he was in pain. ‘Discomfort,’ he said, ‘not pain.’ He had a high tolerance for pain.”

“In the end, he just had more character than anyone else,” Sundlun said. “You have to have character to do well on the biggest stages, and Pat always achieved on the biggest stages.”