Bloomsday Perennial: Generous Air Force commander gave runner a break. That put him on path to complete first 50 races

Before he retired in 2022, Rick Cadwallader used to deliver mail for the U.S. Postal Service along a portion of the Bloomsday route. He frequently talked to his customers about his status as a Bloomsday Perennial, someone who has completed every race.

“I’m very chatty,” he said. “I made a lot of friends there. When they see me go by, they cheer. It’s really nice.”

For many years his Bloomsday finisher T-shirt collection would be put up on display inside the Lincoln Barber Shop around race day. After 2020, Cadwallader started putting up his shirts at the Fleet Feet store in Kendall Yards.

Cadwallader is very proud about his status as a Bloomsday Perennial.

“I flaunt it as much as I can,” he laughed. “I don’t have much claim to fame, but I have that.”

Cadwallader was born and raised in Ottumwa, Iowa. He caught the running bug early. When he was 10 years old, he got a paper route. Soon he got the idea of doing the route on the run.

“I thought, ‘Well, how fast can I do it?’ ” he said. He’s been running since.

Cadwallader came to Spokane via the U.S. Air Force. Cadwallader said he joined the Air Force out of high school in 1975 so he could see the world. Instead, he was sent to Spokane, but he didn’t mind.

“I really loved it here,” he said. “I’m a really outdoorsy person.”

He remembers that the first Bloomsday was on a hot day, but he was unphased.

“I’m from Iowa,” he said. “It’s blistering hot back there. I was so used to it, I guess.”

His brief time in the Air Force almost interfered with becoming a Bloomsday Perennial. He recalls the second year, 1978, when he had run a 10-kilometer race on base the week before Bloomsday and he ran with his commander, who knew about his affinity for Bloomsday.

But an operational readiness inspection was scheduled for the first Sunday in May, and that’s not something you can just get out of. Crews would spend the entire day preparing B-52 bombers for a mission, flying the mission, and then service the planes again. Cadwallader showed up at 6 a.m. for the inspection, but his commanding officer spotted him.

“He looked at me and said ‘You’re on night shift. You’ve got a run to do,’ ” Cadwallader said.

Cadwallader left the Air Force in 1979, but for the first 10 years of Bloomsday his former commanding officer would come to a picnic in Riverside State Park Cadwallader did after the race with friends. His former commander stopped coming when he was transferred to a different base.

Cadwallader got a degree in industrial technology and worked for a local manufacturer for a time before getting a job with the Postal Service, where he remained for decades.

Cadwallader always arrives early for Bloomsday, getting downtown at 6 a.m. so he can get a good spot at the starting line. He even did it the year it snowed. “It was bitter cold that morning,” he said. “It was snowing. We kind of had a little party there at the starting line.”

He has done the race because he loves the challenge, but acknowledges that he may have missed out by always focusing on his finishing time.

“I probably missed out on a lot of the party atmosphere,” he said.

His fastest time, 46 minutes and 28 seconds, was in 1994. “I always tell people I was running from a lot of stuff,” he said.

Running wasn’t the only way Cadwallader stayed active. His first long distance bike ride was in 1984, when he rode back home to Ottumwa for his 10th high school reunion. He didn’t have much time for such rides when he was working, but he’s had a full schedule since his retirement.

He’s done the Bitterroot 300k and the Great Divide Mountain Bike Ride from Jasper, Alberta, to New Mexico. He has a lot of day hikes under his belt and has also hiked the Grand Canyon from rim to rim and climbed Mount Whitney.

He plans to do the Great Divide Mountain Bike Ride again this summer.

“I’ve got somebody going with me this year,” he said. “I’m a little directionally challenged.”

Cadwallader has been a bit injury prone, particularly in his knees. His first injury was in 2018 or 2019, when his knees began hurting during a different race.

“Oh my gosh, it hurt so bad,” he said. “I had to hobble all the way back to the Flour Mill.”

An MRI was done of his knees.

“The cartilage was kind of disappearing,” he said.

His doctor told him he needed to stop running, but Cadwallader was still determined to do Bloomsday.

“That year I didn’t train hardly at all,” he said.

Still, he managed to finish in exactly one hour. “I had run every one in under an hour before that,” he said. “Then, after that, I tore my meniscus while I was delivering mail. I had to have surgery. That slowed me down.”

Another year Cadwallader was on the first day of a four-day skiing trip at Whitefish when his left ski tip hit the approach at the top of the ski lift, bending his leg back and breaking his ankle. “I wasn’t paying attention,” he said.

Cadwallader said he has visited the same physical therapist for all his injuries. After he broke his ankle, she told him she knew he was going to do Bloomsday no matter what she said so her only request was that he not run downhill.

In February 2022, before he retired, he fell and fractured his right knee cap while delivering mail. He was determined to be ready for Bloomsday, however. He spent eight weeks not putting any weight on it, then did a lot of physical therapy. “It was fine,” he said. “It seemed good.”

Cadwallader, now 69, has thoughts of trying to do Bloomsday in under an hour again. “I’m trying to up my old man jog to actually running again,” he said.

Regardless of whether he walks or jogs, Cadwallader hopes to be doing Bloomsday for many years to come.

“I’ll do it until I can’t,” he said. “I think I can walk it for a long time.”