Bloomsday Perennial: Terry Hemingway already has his sights on a new goal after reaching 50 next May

It was good old-fashioned peer pressure that got Terry Hemingway to sign up for the first Bloomsday in 1977. He was persuaded by a coworker at Kaiser Aluminum.

“I went along with it,” he said. “I really didn’t have a concept of running 8 miles.”

Previously, Hemingway had only run a mile and a half. That was the exact distance he had to run for his annual military fitness test while he was serving in the Air Force. Hemingway, who grew up in Michigan, came to Spokane via Fairchild Air Force Base and stayed after he got out of the military in 1975.

He and his coworker did, however, get in some training runs before the first Bloomsday, but those were only 5 or 6 miles long. In the early Bloomsday years, the course was the reverse of what it is today, which sent runners down Doomsday Hill and up the hill on T.J. Meenach Drive.

“I definitely remember that,” Hemingway said of the Meenach hill. “It’s a steeper pitch.”

Beyond that, details of the first race are fuzzy.

“I must have enjoyed it to a point, because I continued.”

Since then, Hemingway has completed all 49 races. His wife, Elaine, has completed all but the first two. The couple had four sons together, all of whom did Bloomsday at some point. Two of them became marathon runners.

Hemingway can’t recall his fastest time, but said he was never able to finish in under an hour. “I just wasn’t dedicated or fast enough to do that,” he said. “I was close a few times.”

Some of his favorite race memories include doing Bloomsday with family and friends.

“Those are the high points for me,” he said. “We enjoyed those so much.”

Hemingway said he had friends that used to park a motorhome downtown for a post-race gathering. Other times they would visit Fast Eddies, a downtown bar, when the run was done.

After a few years, doing Bloomsday “became a thing.”

“It was something you wanted to do,” he said.

Hemingway said he enjoys the bands and the festive atmosphere.

“The community involvement is what really sticks out in my mind,” he said.

But there were a couple years when getting to the starting line was in doubt, including the year that Hemingway spent the night before the race vomiting.

“I had some kind of food poisoning,” he said. “I was up all night retching.”

His wife was signed up to start with the stroller group pushing her grandson, which had a later start time. As she was preparing to leave for the race, she told Hemingway he had 10 minutes to pull himself together if he wanted to join her at the back of the pack. He went.

“I was dragging the whole race,” he said.

In 1991, Hemingway was deployed to Iraq during Desert Storm with his National Guard unit. When April rolled around, he began to worry about not being home for Bloomsday.

“I got in touch with Don (Kardong) to see if I could get it set up to run it over there,” he said. “We were in the preliminary stages of figuring that out when we were told we were going home.”

In 2018, Hemingway was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, which is now in remission. In recent years he’s been struggling with spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the space within the spine, which causes pressure on the spinal cord and nerves. Since then Hemingway has been diligent about exercising and doing physical therapy.

“You just have to stay on top of it,” he said. “For years I did nothing to prepare for Bloomsday. Now, without preparation, it wouldn’t be possible.”

He and his wife go to the gym several times a week and go on walks together. He also has a stretching regimen. Hemingway said his symptoms are manageable right now.

“I can’t go out and jog for a mile, but I can go out and walk a mile, or 8 miles.”

Between Hemingway and his wife, their house is full of Bloomsday finisher and Perennial T-shirts. There were also the T-shirts their sons collected over the years, which his wife made into a quilt. Hemingway said he’s fond of the Perennial shirts in particular, which he often wears to the gym.

Hemingway said he’s considering what to do with his shirt collection, including the possibility of making more quilts.

“We’re at the point now where we’re wanting to reduce what we have,” he said.

Hemingway said he’s looking forward to the 50th race in May, which is only a couple weeks after his 79th birthday.

“It’s a milestone that you target,” he said.

And he’s already looking forward to his next goal after that. “We’ll have 100 combined races in 2027,” he said. “That’s the next milestone.”

Hemingway said he’ll keep doing Bloomsday as long as his back holds up.

“You just take it year by year,” he said.