MHS runner Mark Cole, age 16 and a sophomore at McKenzie, met with famed marathon runner Dick Beardsley at Dresden over the weekend. Cole is a member of the McKenzie High School Track and Field team.  Photo by Joel Washburn

Famed and internationally known marathon runner Dick Beardsley was in Dresden, Tennessee over the weekend to tell his story of trials and triumphs. He was the guest of State Senator Roy Herron, who is an avid runner, a state senator, lawyer, and ordained minister.

Speaking to a gathering of runners and friends, Beardsley told of his start in running, his injuries, and his unintended addiction to prescription drugs. He now travels with an inspirational message of hope while celebrating his sobriety.

Dick Beardsley's life reads like a Greek tragedy with an upbeat ending.

Dick's Early Running

His running career began inauspiciously in a tiny farming community west of the Twin Cities. Shy by nature, Dick noticed that one way to break the ice with girls was to wear a high school letterman jacket. He hauled all 130 pounds of himself to the football coach, where he lasted one practice. He changed his focus to running, where he wasn't as likely to be killed, and although enthusiastic, was far from top dog on the cross-country team. However, the coach did let him run enough meets to qualify for a letterman jacket.

Dick ran in college, but the farming life enticed him and he dropped out after three years to save enough money to get married.

Dick ran his first marathon in 2:47:14 at the 1977 Paavo Nurmi Marathon in Hurley, Wisconsin. In subsequent marathons he steadily lowered his times: 2:33:22, 2:33:06, and 2:31:50.

Dick's Elite Running Career

In 1980, seeing that the qualification time for the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon was 2:21:56, a mere 10 minutes faster than his best time, Dick entered the Manitoba Marathon in Canada and made the Trials by two seconds. At the Trials he ran 2:16:01 for 16th place, continuing a streak of PRs (personal records) that eventually spanned 46 months and 13 marathons. He was so encouraged that he decided to try running full-time for the next four years with the hopes of making the 1984 U.S. marathon team.

It was the height of the 1980s running boom, and running shoe companies were looking for the next Bill Rodgers. Dick managed to secure backing from New Balance, which signed him for $500 a month and all the shoes he could wear out.

Now a professional runner, Dick took 10th place at the 1980 Nike/OTC Marathon in Eugene with 2:15:11. Six weeks later he took 9th place at New York with 2:13:55. In January of 1981 Dick took 2nd place at the Houston Marathon with a 2:12:48 PR and less than a month later took 3rd at Beppu in 2:12:41.

Eight weeks later, Dick ran the first-ever London Marathon in 2:11:48 (another PR), tying for first place with Norway's Inge Simonson. Three months later, Dick ran what he considers his breakthrough marathon, a 2:09:37 win at Grandma's. In the wake of his successes at London and Grandma's, New Balance doubled his stipend to $1,000 per month. Dick was thrilled.

His PR spree ended, however, when he took second in the '81 Stockholm Marathon (2:16) and the '82 Houston Marathon (2:12). Then came Boston '82 and Dick's famous "Duel in the Sun" with Alberto Salazar, where he ran 2:08:54 and once again took second - this time by a mere 2 seconds. Two months later he again won Grandma's in 2:14:49, but came out of the race with Achilles tendon problems; the injury persisted and later in the year he managed to take only 30th place at New York with a 2:18:12. Dick had the tendon surgically repaired in 1983 and hoped to recover by getting a "bye" into the 1984 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon, but he was turned down. He went into training and reinjured the tendon in a futile attempt to qualify for the Trials at the Los Angeles Marathon in early 1984. The tendon was operated on again, and Dick took several years off from competitive marathoning to build his dairy farm and his fishing guide business.

But the call of an Olympic team surfaced again in 1986, and Dick returned to training, qualifying for the Trials with a 2:16:20 at Napa in March of 1987. The '88 Trials were disappointing (45th place in 2:27:21). Dick retired from competitive running and slid into a nightmare.

Dick's Accident

In November of 1989 Dick was using an auger on the back of a truck to lift corn into a crib. Somehow he became entangled in the auger and it began to tear him apart. Before he lost consciousness, he managed to stop the machine. "To this day, I still don�t remember how I did it," Dick recalls. "I busted all the ribs on my right side, my right arm, mangled my left leg, and beat up my head pretty badly. I was crawling on my belly toward the house when my wife found me. I was laid up for five months."

Dick recuperated enough to continue working on the farm and even to hobble through an occasional run. Then, in July of 1992 he and his wife, Mary, were blind-sided by another driver, and Dick spent 15 days in the hospital with an injured back and neck. In January of 1993 while on a run during a snowstorm in Fargo, Dick was hit by a truck, which put him back in the hospital for two weeks. A month later, again in a fierce snowstorm, he rolled his Bronco "a bunch of times." Again, Dick injured his back and neck.

In January of 1994 Dick underwent his first back operation. He was operated on again in March to remove some of the hardware the surgeons had installed and then had a third back operation in October. A year later he had knee surgery.

Dick's Addiction and Recovery

With each hospital stay, Dick was prescribed pain medications. As his tolerance to the medications increased, he was prescribed more and more pain pills. He suffered a litany of disasters and he persevered, but at a price.

"I knew I was addicted," Dick recalls. "But at the same time I was in denial."

Then he received a call from his father, whom he learned was dying of pancreatic cancer. It was too much for Dick to handle. He wanted to visit his father, but he was low on his prescription pain medication and his doctor was out of town. He had a prescription in his wallet so he doctored it, photocopied it, and forged a signature, photocopied it again and forged a signature. By the end of the day Dick had collected pain pills from nearly a half-dozen pharmacies. "At the end of the day I had 240 pills," he said.

He suffered his father's death while his addiction spun out of control. "My whole world revolved around pain medication," he told the journalist Paul Kenney in 1997.

Then, on September 30, 1996, he was caught. "It saved my life," Dick recalls. "Getting caught put the brakes on my downward spiral."

After nine days in a Fargo psychiatric unit, prescribed methadone, outpatient treatment, going cold turkey on the methadone, and more outpatient treatment, Dick emerged in June 1997 free of drugs.

Dick's Running Today

Since that fateful time in 1996, Dick has turned his life around. In spite of a series of accidents that would have put a mere mortal into a wheelchair for the rest of his life, Dick has managed to restart his running program. He jogged the 2000 Napa Valley Marathon in 3:23:05, and he trained in 2001 to try to break 3:00 at Grandma's to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his breakthrough performance there. He succeeded, running a fine 2:55:39. Dick called this Grandma's his "biggest triumph."

Today, Dick is enjoying his running more than ever. He completed five marathons in both 2002 and 2003. He also returned to Boston to run in 2002, celebrating the 20th anniversary of his "Duel in the Sun" with Alberto Salazar. In March 2004, Dick ran a 2:43:58 at Napa, his best times since before his farm accident. Dick is also once again a member of Team New Balance.

Dick continues to work as a radio and TV personality and fishing guide in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, and is a compelling speaker at races, schools, corporations, and non-profits all over North America. In 2002, the University of Minnesota Press published his autobiography, Staying the Course. In 2002, Dick also received the Minnesota Meeting & Events Assoc. "Best Speaker Award." His newest venture is a marathon running camp, held each June and September at Rainbow Resort in Waubun, Minn.

Order a personalized copy of Dick Beardsley's book Staying the Course: A Runner's Toughest Race today!
This inspirational autobiography recounts the stunning race in Boston that made Dick a celebrity and the difficult years that followed. It's a story of overcoming extreme obstacles and speaks to anyone who loves competition, who has survived catastrophe, or who has pursued a seemingly impossible goal.

To order a book ($16.95 plus $3.85 for shipping and handling - check, Mastercard and Visa accepted) call Marathon & Beyond toll free at 1-877-972-4230.