August 12, 1982 - Beards had ran Boston in 2:08:53, finishing 2nd and creating one of the most exciting marathon memories ever. He and I ran Grandma's marathon in June. He won in 2:14 and I finished 10th in 2:21. Having him come to Brookings to run in a 1 Hour run in August was huge! We hung out at the Starlight Inn all day, trying to stay off our feet and watching the weather. The day was overcast and as they say in South Dakota - "breezy". The race was run in the evening at 6:00 pm. The wind started to die down as we gathered at Sexeaur track on the SDSU campus. It was a small field in that not that many people want to race for one hour around a track, and I think the Prairie Striders/Bob Bartling kept it more of a "by invitation only" event. The Prairie Striders had hosted other One Hour run events earlier in the year and all the results are compared with other similar events hosted around the US. All the results are tabulated into the final results. Randy Fischer and Virgil Tjerdsma have run in their One Hour event on April 4th, earlier in the year. Beards, Rob Kinnunen, and I completed this final One Hour run. So, after all the results had been sent in, the Prairie Striders Club won the National team title. Beards finished 1st in the nation (out of 164 runners who submitted their results) with 12 miles, 394 yards (that's almost 49 laps around a track in 1 hour!). I was 3rd with 11 miles, 1680 yards. Randy Fischer was 7th with 11 mile, 859 yards, Virgil Tjeerdsma was 8th with 11 miles, 846 yards and Rob Kinnunen was 9th with 11 miles, 492 yards.
I love this photo of Beards and me. He is setting a hard pace and I'm on his shoulder, the wind in our faces. We used this image as our website/podcase "logo."
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