"In his later years, Winston Churchill gave a speech at the English Prep School he attended as a boy. The headmaster told the boys, 'This is a historic moment. Winston Churchill is the greatest speaker of the English language. Write down everything that he says. He will make an unforgettable speech.'
When Churchill walked out to give his speech, he peered over the top of his glasses and said: 'Never! Never! Never! Never! Give up!' With that, he sat down...
It was that attitude that inspired England in WW II to continue fighting when others might have surrendered.
Persistence means sticking to your guns..."
Ken Blanchard
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Secretariat Award
"He was just dying to run...So I said to myself, ' I ain't going to choke this horse' "
"First by seven lengths with a half-mile to go. Secretariat won by a mind-boggling 31 lengths...Secretariat was a running machine...All you had to do was head him the right way and he'd take care of the rest." (1973 Belmont)
"Not long after the incomparable Secretariat died...a group of research pathologists examined his body...
Almost everybody knew what Secretariat looked like on the outside,...inside they found a heart that weighed 22 pounds. The average horse's heart weights 8 1/2 pounds." Sporting News
The Secretariat award is for the person who has heart. A fire in the belly and a passion.
2001
To Jim Lindley
This is Jim. Steady Eddy. Jim shows up on storm days!
On December 25, 1978, many of us were not born. Some of us with a little gray were in High School worrying about pimples and a date for Saturday night. It was that day that 39 year-old Jim Lindley began a running streak that has not been broken since then. He has not missed a day of running since then. Ten years during that period, he averaged 62 miles a week. Today, at 62, he is at 30-35 miles a week.
He has had three operations since the streak began. He ran in the morning, had the operation (one was knee surgery), and ran the next day.
One 20 degree frozen morning in March, on a quiet, woodsy bike trail by the River in Fargo, another runner passed me coming from the other direction. I was startled because it was 6AM on a Sunday morning, pitch dark where no one should be...and the runner was in shorts! It was Jim.
He has run the London Marathon. He is the race director for several races in Fargo. His wife runs, his daughter runs, his son-in-law runs, his 5 year-old grandson runs.
What happen when the streak ends? "I'm too old to start another one (and beat the current one)."
Are there days when he doesn't feel like running? "Yes". I'm glad to hear that answer because it tells me that Jim is human after all.
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