On yesterday's date:
- 538 Witiges, who we all know was king of the Ostrogoths ends his siege of Rome.
- 1644 New Jersey become an English colony.
- 1894 Coca Cola is sold for the first time in bottles.
- 1912 Girl Scouts are founded under their original name Girl Guides.
- 1930 Mahatma Gandhi leads a 200 mile march to the sea in protest of the British monopoly on salt.
- 1947 The Truman Doctrine is established to stop the spread of communism.
- 1961 MDRA, originally known as Minnesota Road Runners Club, started with a five mile road race around the Columbia Golf Course parking lot in Minneapolis. The race had nine starters, seven finishers and the winner was Rod Lazorik with a time of 26:20, Ron Daws placed second two seconds back.
"JFK was just begining his presidential term. The Dow was in the hundreds. Boston was the only marathon, and had hundreds of finishers not tens of thousands. America had yet to experience: Vietnam, passing of the Civil Rights Act, Watergate, the internet......the list goes on and on, and so does MDRA!!!!
Thanks for being part of such a great legacy!"
And what a great legacy it is. From our spring race series, to the City of Lakes, to the scholarships we provide to up and coming runners, charity work, advocating for safer running conditions, the Victory Labor Day races, marathon and half marathon training classes, polar bear running, beginning woman's running classes/running camp, the Run Minnesota magazine, dome running...
Here's to another great 50 years. So, what does the MDRA mean to you? Any favorite memories to share?
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5 comments:
Wow! 50 years have gone by so quickly! I remember the first day like it was... well, I don't remember it all. But I can say for the past 6 years (nearly 1/8 of MDRA's entire history) I have enjoyed running with MDRA. Through training with the marathon classes I have lowered my marathon PR by 48 minutes, I have discovered some awesome running trails around the Twin Cities and I have made what I anticipate are lifelong friends. Here's to the next 50 years! I hope that I'm still running for the centennial.
Happy Birthday MDRA
As a mere child back then in 1961, I look at those days as so far away. Then I was worried if I could get into college and would those rumblings in French Indo-China (we now know it as Viet Nam) mean anything? No one I knew was a runner and if you said to me then, “Wanna go for a run?” I would have likely though for only a second or two and said “Naaa.”
Well, I graduated from college, survived Viet Nam and cannot imagine my life without running.
When I started running, MDRA was like a youthful “20-something.” A true renaissance guy I found then in the pages of Runners' World, Dr. George Sheehan, threw together a couple of sentences that have stayed with me all these years.
“Running has made this new me,” he began. “It's taken the raw material and hones it an delivered it back ready to do the work of a human being. I run so I do not loose the me I was yesterday and the me I might become tomorrow.”
I'm grateful for the friends and experiences of MDRA and as others have said here, I'd like to contribute to the next 50 years.
Check your math, 2010 - 1961 = 49 years old. So you're actually 364 days early, not 1 day late.
No one will ever accuse us of being Math experts will they? I had to have my 10 year old son run the numbers on it...Happy 49th Birthday MDRA!
Maybe we haven't finished 50 years, but after 49 years are completed, the 50th has begun. we can celebrate the 50th all year long.
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