Never Give Up Boston Marathon Legend Dick Beardsley Runs Through Life Filled With Pain

By Judy Monchuk

Running legend Dick Beardsley is best known for losing one of the most memorable races in Boston Marathon history: two seconds behind Alberto Salazar in 1982 for the closest finish in the history of the premier event.

But his subsequent addiction to painkillers after a near-fatal farm accident, public arrest in 1996 and road to recovery is an even more inspiring tale.

When arrested, he was forging prescriptions and ingesting upwards of 80 pills a day: a cocktail of Valium, Percocet and Demerol.

“It’s a miracle I survived. It’s a miracle I never killed anyone,” the 54-year-old Minnesota native says during a kickoff event for the Scotiabank Calgary Marathon.

“I had always dealt with things in a positive way. I thought I could use (pills) to make other things go away. And of course it made things worse.”

His bright blue eyes and sunny outlook distract from the difficult road he has travelled. The son of two alcoholics, Beardsley views running as a way to cope with his own addictive personality, and notes that “when I was forging prescriptions and abusing pills, part of it was that I wasn’t able to run.”

He returned to running in rehab, noting, “It cleans my mind and my soul.” But his ordeal was not over. In a short period of years, a truck hit him while running, he rolled his vehicle in a snowstorm and he had a cliff collapse under his feet.

Yet he refuses to view the trials as anything more than bad timing, preferring to look for a higher purpose.

“God put me in a place where I was right on the edge and told me I had a mission.”

Beardsley tells his inspirational tale to more than 200 groups of people each year, from high school students to corporate executives and running enthusiasts. His message? Never give up.

Despite having both knees replaced since January 2009, he has added swimming and cycling to a fitness regime that has seen him run more than 240,000 kilometres over the past 38 years.

Sometimes when he is out with other runners, his mind is drawn back to the moment when the world watched his duel with Salazar.

“There are times when I have flashbacks to the Boston Marathon,” he admits. “As I start telling stories, I can feel the pace getting faster and faster. I can almost feel the pace picking up.”
And he just keeps running.


March/April 2011 Issue