Dick Beardsley Foundation "Run for Your Life" 5 mile race

Race Start

Love the pink waterstop!

Getting blasted with water! Perfect way to cool off

Yakking about something!

What a wonderful time I had back in the Fargo, ND/Moorhead, MN area over the past few days! I left early Monday morning for Fargo, but, of course first I had to get my run in, so I was up at 2:30 and out the door by 2:45 for a nice 7 mile run. I know what you’re thinking, "Is this guy nuts!" To be honest with you I really don't mind getting up that early, I've always been like that. You never know what the rest of the day will bring and with me traveling and speaking so much, at least I know I got one run in any way!

I was heading to Fargo to take part in the First Annual "Run for Your Life" 5 mile road race to benefit the Dick Beardsley Foundation. In April of 2007, I, along with partners Greg and Stephanie Hammes, Tim and Shelly Richard, Wade and Kristen Erickson opened up the Dick Beardsley Running Company, the first running specialty store in the whole state of North Dakota! It has been a huge success, not because of me but because of the above mentioned partners along with our new partner Greg Liebl (Junior, as we like to call him) and his soon to be wife Dani, along with the great staff we have there!

A month ago, Greg Hammes who is one of the Directors of the Dick Beardsley Foundation, suggested we put on a race with proceeds going to the Foundation. I thought, my gosh, can we pull it off? We only have a month to get ready for it and let area runners know about it. It was a smash!

After Stephanie picked me up on Monday afternoon, I went back to their place, took a nap, and then headed out for a nice 11 mile run. It was 80 degrees, but that was 20 degrees cooler then it has been in Austin, Texas where I live and it felt great!

Monday evening I spoke at our store to the men's and women's store racing team that is sponsored by the New Balance we handed out new team uniforms, everyone was very excited and it was so nice for me to meet all of our team members!

Tuesday morning Greg and I were up bright and early for a 6 mile run then it was onto the store by 5 am. The local NBC station KVLY was setting up from our store to do some of their morning programming from there. Steve Poitrus was the on-air personality and did a great job and gave our store, the Foundation and the race lots of great airtime.

Tuesday evening I spoke with members of the different training groups that meet every Tuesday evening at the store, and then we all went for our workouts.

Wednesday morning Greg and I were up for another early run and then off to a couple of local radio stations to get interviewed and talk about the race and the Foundation. Later that morning I did an interview with the Fargo Forum newspaper. Afterwards, I helped where I could in getting things ready for the evening’s race.

I still get excited to race and for this race I was as excited as ever because of what the race was all about! Junior had laid out a beautiful 5 mile race course and now it was time for the big show!We had close to 150 runners show up, now some of you might be thinking that’s not very many runners. I was ecstatic! To have that many runners come out on a Wednesday evening on such short notice, I was very much touched by it all!

The race started right at 7 pm and one younger runner and myself took off together, by a half mile he had opened up about a 25 yard lead on me. I can't go out real hard like I could in my younger days, I have to sort of ease into it a bit. By the mile mark he had about a 75 yard lead, but I never let him get any further away. At 2.5 miles I thought I might be closing the gap just a bit, by 3 miles I knew I was and that was really giving me some life back into my legs! I was fortunate to catch him at about 3.5 miles and was able to come in with the overall win in a time of 29:30. It’s not many times that happens for me anymore! I changed out of my racing gear and put on my training shoes and did a cool down going back on the course and cheering the rest of the runners on to the finish line.

************Race Pictures Galore!************

I can't thank our staff at the Dick Beardsley Running Company, the sponsors, volunteers, and all the runners that came out to support this race and the Foundation to make it such a wonderful event enough!

The fact, because of events like this, that raise money for the Foundation, we will be able to touch the lives of people with chemical dependencies and help them get their lives back, it’s beyond words on how that makes me feel and how much I truly do want to thank each and every person!

Please believe me when I say, you have all helped so much in so many ways, for that I will be forever grateful!

Dick