THROUGHOUT CAREER, POSITIVE THINKING WAS HER PROPULSION.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

Upon obliterating the world record in the 100 meters in 1988 in one of the more extraordinary sports performances of the century, Florence Griffith Joyner said the secrets of her startling success were ``vitamins, amino acids and water.''

On Monday, Griffith Joyner's close friend Jeanette Bolden let slip one other secret the tireless sprinter had neglected to mention:

Norman Vincent Peale.

Forget for a moment Griffith Joyner's flamboyant racing attire and the legs that could have been sculpted by Michelangelo. What Bolden would like for people to bear in mind as the world mourns the passing of the Suzanne Lenglen of track and field is the extent to which Griffith Joyner was powered by positive thinking throughout her seven-year sojourn toward overnight success.

Peale's 1974 self-help book, ``You Can If You Think You Can,'' was Griffith Joyner's road map as she made her way from a childhood of poverty in Watts to world prominence. Peale's words were oxygen for her soul. She consumed the lessons of chapters such as ``All the Resources You Need Are in Your Mind.''

That's how Bolden will remember Griffith Joyner, as a testament to the power of the perseverance and repose and rapture that Peale preached.

Others may recall that during Griffith Joyner's star turn at the 1988 Summer Olympics, her stunning musculature raised rumors of steroid use. The suspicions that shadowed Griffith Joyner in Seoul, South Korea, as she became the first American woman in track and field to win four Olympic medals are certain to resurface in the wake of her untimely death Monday of a heart seizure at the age of 38.

Griffith Joyner's world records in the 100 and 200 meters, however magnificent, weren't meant to outlast her. We question what we can't comprehend. She was supposed to pass the torch like an invisible baton to Marion Jones, not succumb to something that strikes superbly conditioned athletes and couch potatoes alike.

In the race against time that engages us all, Griffith Joyner had survived at least one false start. She was on a flight from California to St. Louis two years ago when she suffered a seizure. She was hospitalized one night and released and that was the last anybody heard about that.

No surprise there. Griffith Joyner lived her life the way she ran her races, catapulting out of the blocks and never so much as glancing back. She was 7 when she ran her first race as part of a youth sports program spearheaded by Sugar Ray Robinson.

For a long time it seemed the only things she couldn't outrun were the bills. Griffith Joyner set school records in the sprints and long jump at Jordan High, then enrolled at Cal State Northridge where she befriended Bolden and came under the tutelage of Bob Kersee.

She later dropped out of CSUN and took a job as a bank teller, her athletic dreams derailed by financial realities. Kersee accepted a job at UCLA and found financial aid for Griffith Joyner so she could join him.

Bolden also followed Kersee to Westwood and became Griffith Joyner's roommate and confidant.

``She always had the single-mindedness that nothing was going to stand in her way,'' Bolden said. ``I remember our first year at UCLA, she came back from the national (collegiate) championships and said, `We need to have more endurance.' So the next week, instead of running two laps, she'd do four. She just doubled all the distances.''

Griffith Joyner's extra effort didn't go for naught. In 1984, she made the U.S. Olympic team (as did Bolden) and won a silver medal in the 200 meters.

By 1986, Griffith Joyner was wondering if that was as good as it would get. Figuring it was time to get on with life, she took a job as a bank secretary and settled into semi-retirement.

Again, Kersee came to the rescue, coaxing her back onto the track. It helped that she could find triple-jumper Al Joyner there; Joyner and the former Delorez Florence Griffith were wed on Oct. 10, 1987.

The following July, during the quarterfinals of the 100 meters at the Olympic Trials in Indianapolis, Griffith Joyner lowered the world record from 10.76 seconds to 10.49.

To frame Griffith Joyner's masterpiece, people at the time were projecting, based on past improvements, that no woman would run as fast as 10.65 before the year 2000. Griffith Joyner didn't just push the performance envelope, she pulverized it.

In the final in Seoul, she exploded out of the blocks faster than did the men's champion, Ben Johnson, and sailed to a wind-aided 10.54. She set a world record of 21.34 in the 200 meters and was a member of the winning 400 relay and the second-place 1,600 relay.

Before the Games were over, Johnson, a Canadian, would be stripped of his gold medal after testing positive for the anabolic steroid stanozolol. Griffith Joyner came under a cloud of suspicion, having earlier acknowledged adopting Johnson's weight-training program in the year leading up to the Games, but she passed every drug test.

She retired soon thereafter, to the surprise of no one who had seen all the baby clothes and toys she had collected over the years in anticipation of starting a family. Her daughter Mary was born in 1992. The following year, Griffith Joyner was named to co-chair the President's Council on Physical Fitness.

In July of this past year, Griffith Joyner was informed she was being replaced on the council by Jake Steinfeld (of Body by Jake fame). Griffith Joyner, suspecting the move had something to do with the $100,000 contribution Steinfeld had made to the Democratic National Committee, refused to relinquish her post unless ordered to do so by President Clinton.

As we now know, the president had other things on his mind. Griffith Joyner stayed, and in doing so proved the soundness of another Peale lesson: The Perseverance Principle. It's Always Too Soon to Quit.