November 28, 2007

Portland, Oregon

This past Sunday, after my duties with the Seattle Marathon, Bill Kaemmer along with his friend Tony picked me up at the Westin Hotel and we headed for the 3 and a half hour drive down to Portland. I actually was in the suburb of Hillsboro, Oregon.

Sunday night I spent about a hour with kids and parents from Bills XC team. I told how I got started running and about the Boston Marathon I ran in 1982. I signed some books and New Balance cards and had a great time!

Monday morning I went for a run with a group of runners from Portland, we ran along the beautiful Willematte River.

I then spent some time at Bills office and talked with some Portland St. University runners and some National Guardsoldiers. Bill is a Chaplin in the Guard and runs the GOLD program there.

Monday afternoon I spent a couple of hours at the Portland Running Co. store and had a great time chatting with folks.

Late Monday afternoon I ran with the XC kids from Hillsboro High School in the pouring rain, we had a blast, GREAT kids!

Monday night I gave a talk to the public at Hillsboro High School. I really enjoyed myself! I gave a motivational talkabout the ups and downs we all face in life and also talked about my drug addiction and our new Foundation.

Tuesday started early with a 10 mile run and then off to Salem, Oregon with Bill to the Oregon National GuardHeadquarters. We attended a prayer breakfast where I spoke about my addiction and my faith.

Bill also received a promotion and it was awarded to him by the Major General of the Oregon National Guard, it was quite a honor for me and a honor for me to meet the Major General!

After that it was off to meet and greet at the Portland Running Co., in Beaverton, Oregon. Owners Dave and Paul were there along with their staff. If your ever out in that area and need some advise or need some running gear, that's the place to go.

After that, back home to Austin! It was a very busy few days, but I had a ball!

Have a great day! Dick

November 26, 2007

Seattle Marathon

Hi everyone! I had a great time out in Seattle this past weekend!

I was the guest speaker at the Seattle Marathon and what a beautiful city it is!

I spent Friday afternoon at the expo signing books, New Balance cards, taking pictures with runners, and just chatting with lots of folks.

Friday night I was the invited guest of race director Louise Long to the Sponsor dinner, had some great food and conversation!

Saturday morning I did a 10 mile run along the bay in Seattle, it was beautiful.

I then went and talked and ran with the kids in their 1.2 mile run. They had over 3000 kids! It was absolutely amazing seeing that many kids running with their moms and dads and all having huge smiles on their faces!

I spent the rest of the day at the expo then delivered the keynote address at the pasta dinner.

Sunday morning I ran but did not race the half marathon, what a beautiful course with a couple of big hills thrown in.

The weather was perfect and it was a great race weekend!

Have a great day!

Dick

November 8, 2007

Drake Counseling Services

Last week I spoke at Drake Counseling Services in Fargo, North Dakota Drake is an addiction treatment center and it is where I went to treatment in 1996.

It's a wonderful place and the staff there is absolutely the best!When I got into treatment in October of 1996, I was taken to a large room with about 50 other addicts and sat in the back and listened to someone tell their story.

Thursday night I was in the same room as in 1996 except instead of listening, I was telling my story!

It is always very emotional for me when I speak at Drake, knowing what I do now about addictions, and seeing these folks that are here, many for the first time. As I was telling my story, I kept thinking of when I was in treatment and especially early on how I wasn't sure if I ever would or could ever get better and get my life back.

Sometimes you lose hope and when that happens it's much easier to give up and go back to your own ways again.

My main message is one of hope and not to give up and that no matter what it takes you need to put every ounce of energy into your recovery and that YES, you can get your life back and life can be better then ever before!

I get emails and letters from people saying thank you so much for sharing your story, and that you have given mehope.

As much as I appreciate their thank you's, I also want to thank them for letting me share my story!

As much as I hope it helps them with getting their sobriety back, it helps me just as much in maintaining mine, and for that I will be forever grateful!

As I tell them and myself, "You can live 40 days without food, 7 days without water, a few minutes without air, but you can't live one minute without hope"

Last Thursday, I gave myself more hope and I pray that's what they left with also!

Take care and God Bless, Dick

November 5, 2007

Bass Pro Outdoor Fitness Festival

I had a great time this past weekend in Springfield, Missouri at the Bass Pro Outdoor Fitness Festival!

I arrived in town on Thursday afternoon and local runner and business owner Danny Correll picked me up at the airport. We went out for a bite to eat and then he took me for a drive along the marathon course that I would be running on Sunday.

We went out that evening to a great little Italian restaurant called Nona's in downtown Springfield.

Friday started off early with a trip to the local NBC TV station for asn inteview, where I was on their early morning news program and talked a little about my struggles with accidents and addictions and got to talk briefly about the Dick Beardsley Foundation.

After that I did a radio talk show with announcer Ned Reynolds talking about the race coming up and about some of my past running days. Ned, a marathoner himself, really did a great interview! Then I met with Pam from News-Leader.com. Pam does the video for the newspaper website. She really got a chance to visit with me and got some great clips from my talk at the Park View High School.

Friday afternoon I had the honor of speaking to 1400 kids at Parkview High School in Springfield, the kids were absolutely awesome and gave me their utmost attention!

I spent the rest of the afternoon at the New Balance booth (they were one of the major sponsors, and the local NB rep Bob Brown made my whole trip possible, just a great guy!) signing cards, race numbers, selling books, and just talking to folks running in the races.

That evening I had the opportunity to attend the banquet for the Team in Training Alumni get together and also gave a short talk, I had a wonderful time.Saturday was spent at the expo which was held at the Bass Pro Shop, the National Headquarters are there in Springfield and it's a gorgeous store, I'm like a kid in a candy store when I'm there!

There was a 5 and 10K run and afterwards I helped with the awards ceremony.

In the afternoon, myself, along with running legend Frank Shorter and Olympian Jason Pyrah helped out with the kids mile run. It was great fun and the kids really had a good time!

That evening, myself, Frank, and Jason each gave a short talk at the pasta dinner which was free to all the folks in the marathon and half marathon, they had 800 guests enjoying some good homemade pasta!

Sunday was a wonderful day for running the half and full marathon. It was about 45 degrees at the start under sunny skies and light winds.

I ran the marathon and was hoping to run in the 2:40's and was feeling pretty good on the hilly course through about 15 miles. The balls of my feet, at that point, got so sore it felt like I was running on a bed of nails!

There were quite a few sharp turns that we had to make on a bike trail we were running on and perhaps that's why my feet hurt so much....I just can't take those turns like I could back in my younger days!

I was fortunate to finish 4th place overall and win the Masters title in 2:54:14I was a little disapointed in my time, but also very pleased I didn't bail out with my feet hurting like they were. I have to admit though, the thought crossed my mind several times!

It was a great fun weekend and hopefully I will get the opportunity to go back again to a super fun event!

A big thanks goes out to all the folks at Bass Pro Shops, New Balance, and my wonderful host for the weekend, Danny Correll and his family!

Dick