Joan Benoit Samuelson will be running in the Beach to Beacon 10K for just the third time on Saturday, and will have some significant running mates.

Samuelson, who won the marathon gold medal at the 1984 Olympics and is the Beach to Beacon founder, announced Friday she will be running with Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers and Leon Gorman, three men she she says, “have been instrumental with what I’ve done with my life and how I lived my life.”

Shorter won the marathon in 1972 Olympics in Munich, then went on to win silver in 1976 in Montreal. Rodgers dominated distance running between 1975 and 1980, winning the Boston Marathon four times and the New York Marathon four times in that span. Gorman is the former president and current chairman of board at LL Bean and has run the Beach to Beacon numerous times.

“As we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Title IX, I decided to celebrate a few good men in my life,” said Samuelson.

She first ran the Beach to Beacon in 2002 alongside John Gleason, one of four New York City firefighters and one police officer invited to run after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Then in 2007, Samuelson ran with Jacqueline Gareau, winner of the 1980 Boston Marathon which was notable when Rosie Ruiz was declared the winner but was later revealed as a fraud who did not run the entire course.