What a wonderful time I had in Washington, DC this past weekend! I arrived in DC on Thursday afternoon and took the subway to the Grand Hyatt Hotel where I was staying. My friend and owner of Pacers Running Stores in the DC area, Chris Farley, picked me up at 6:30 to get me to my talk at The Dome at Rosslyn. What a great place to speak! We had a really good turnout and my talk went well! Friday morning I headed over to the US Senate Building to greet the employees who were going to be running the race, I spent a couple of hours there as they were picking up their numbers. I had a couple of nice workouts that day and Friday evening I made a quick appearance at the volunteer meeting and said a quick hello to everyone.
After a nice 45 minute run on the National Mall on Saturday morning, I headed over to the expo for my morning talk. I had a good turnout and my talk went really well! While at the expo, a lady approached me who had heard my talk on Thursday and handed me a check for the Dick Beardsley Foundation. It was for $1,000!!! I was so overwhelmed I could not believe it! That's our biggest single donation to date! Jill and I can't thank her enough! Saturday evening I attended the VIP banquet and got to sit with my good friend Bill Rodgers. I was asked to get up and say a few words.
Sunday morning was a perfect morning for a race! Sunshine, little wind, and about 50 degrees. The men's race was very close! A young runner from Morocco won the race for the second straight year in a time of 45:57, he was followed closely by 5 Kenyan runners. The women's race wasn't as close but very fast! A girl from Kenya won the race in a little over 53 minutes!
After the race it was time to head back to the hotel, pack my bags, and head to the airport for my flight home to Austin.
A huge thank you to Phil Stewart, a old friend and the race director for inviting me to speak at this 37th running of the Cherry Blossom 10 mile race, what an incredible job you and all your staff and volunteers do! Also, a huge thanks to Chris and Kathy from Pacers Running Stores for having me speak on behalf of their stores and the New Balance Shoe Co. Great job!
I look forward to going back the the Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run and running it next time! :-)
6 comments:
Hi, Dick! I am also facing at least partial knee replacement,at age 58. My doc is against any running after the surgery. Yours seems more flexible. Any suggestions on how to get a relatively balanced, objective perspective on this? Giving up running entirely is pretty extreme.
Thanks.
Most doctors say that, as Dick has pointed out. But there are people running on artificial knees in addition to Dick. Good luck to Anonymous - run someplace where they can't see you. It seems to me that the main objection was that the artificial would wear out sooner and need redoing. Since I have prostate problems and recent forehead melanoma - cancer at both ends, trying to keep them from meeting in the middle - that is not a big concern for me as I ponder knee replacement. Hoping Dick will keep us informed and that he will yet come to our Space Coast Marathon here in Cocoa, FL.
Joe, Space Coast Marathon 2010 look for Dick! Jill Beardsley
It was a great pleasure meeting you in DC at the Cherry Blossom expo. I really enjoyed your speech--it was truly inspiring! I even wrote about it on my blog:
oldschoolrunner.blogspot.com
Jill: Thanks, already looking forward to 2010 Space Coast Marathon. I see you have kids and other livestock but hope you can visit Florida with Dick.
Dick it was great to meet you at the New Balance store at the Boston marathon Expo this past weekend. I love the Tweets to follow your daily running progress. My husband is reading your book (Staying the Course) first, then me. He finished Boston (first) and we are thrilled!!! He loves the book. I am about 1 month later than you with my knee replacement (Zimmer) and I plan to run again as soon as my right quad is reasonably close to my left one. I can't wait!!! Forgot to ask you; what kind of a knee do you have? I have full extension and about 135 ROM now I think and am still pushing so that won't be an issue. Keep at the extension; at some point you'll need it Keep pushing on it.. etc when you do your quad stretches to get more ROM.
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