It would have been May 3rd, 1986 at Bloomsday in Spokane.  Good times, I've only missed 3 Bloomsdays since then.

Your running carrer's age is the same as my age!  When exactly in 1986 did you start running?

Hey, you gonna run Seafair this year?

I became hooked on running at the 1986 Bloomsday run.  I told my Dad I wanted to run it, so we signed up.  Neither of us had trained.  My Dad told me to go as fast as I wanted, he'd follow me.  I was 11 and ran about 1 hour 22 minutes.  He was sore for days...

Since then I've competed at the junior high, high school, college and amateur levels and have had a blast at each.