Bloomsday Perennial: Dean Duncan’s first 8-mile run started a 50-year journey

When a friend persuaded Dean Duncan to sign up for the first Bloomsday in 1977, he had never run 8 miles before. He managed to do it even though his friend left him in his dust and was nowhere to be found after the starting line.

“I walked in totally blind,” said Duncan, who has completed every Bloomsday since.

His friend, a runner, did help him prepare for the race in advance.

“I trained a little with him,” he said. “The furthest I had ever run was 5 miles.”

But after his friend sped away during the first race, Duncan stumbled across someone else he knew.

“I met a buddy at the starting point that I hadn’t expected, and he had about as much training as I had,” he said.

The two vowed to stick together, and they did. He recalls that they finished in 1 hour and 40 minutes on what was a hot day for early May.

“We weren’t terribly fast,” he said. “Both of us weren’t sure how this was going to work. Neither one of us was really a runner.”

Duncan grew up in Seattle and came to Spokane to attend Gonzaga University. He got a teaching job in Springdale, Washington, then came back in 1972 to teach. He started a program called “The Bridge School” for Spokane Public Schools to teach at-risk juveniles.

“My job was to get them back in shape and ready to go back to a regular school,” he said. “We made the program fit the kids, instead of making the kids fit the program.”

He did that work for 22 years, until funding was cut. He has also been a volunteer with Hospice of Spokane nearly as long as he has been a Perennial.

After his first Bloomsday, Duncan found himself getting hooked on running. He was a racquetball player and found that running helped improve his game. He started doing several small fun runs and, after a few years, began signing up for marathons.

“Then it became a good part of my exercise style,” he said.

Duncan kept signing up for Bloomsday, partly out of habit.

“I tend to stick with things,” he said.

He admits he did not really think about Bloomsday’s importance until the 25th anniversary.

“It really settled on everybody what a huge thing that was,” he said. “It was just the history of Bloomsday itself that kept you going.”

After a while, all the races start to blur together in memory, but Duncan does remember trying to build his confidence as a runner .

“You didn’t want to be one of the people passed out in front of the courthouse,” he said.

He did his best time, a little over an hour, during the time he was also running marathons.

“I never really broke that one-hour mark,” he said.

Now 84, Duncan doesn’t worry about his time anymore. He walks and chats with friends instead.

“It’s much more leisurely,” he said.

Duncan has had two hip replacements, which forced him to quit running.

“I was told eight years ago that running, for me, is really off the table,” he said.

He is pleased that he is going to be participating in the 50th anniversary run this year.

“Nobody really starts thinking ‘I’m going to do this for 50 years,’” he said. “I didn’t. It’s part of your life that just happens.”

He has been enjoying wearing his finisher T-shirts through the years, but he might have worn some of them a little too much.

“In the beginning, you don’t think about longevity,” he said. “I’ve worn quite a few of them out.”

His 1977 shirt, however, is in pristine condition, but that was more of an accident than a plan.

“The first one is sacred, honestly,” Duncan said. “I was never able to get into it. It’s a medium, and I haven’t been a medium in a long time.”

His nephew has done the last several Bloomsdays with him and plans to return this year. Duncan’s brother, who has done several Bloomsdays over the decades, also plans to sign up for the 50th race.

Duncan, who keeps in shape for Bloomsday by walking his two dogs, said he does not have a time goal for the 50th race.

“I’m shooting to finish,” he said.

Duncan said he plans to continue doing Bloomsday for as long as he can.

“I have no wish to stop,” he said. “You start to realize that all good things come to an end. It’s certainly different doing it at 84 than it was at 74. I’m in a position to realize that every year from now on is a gift.”