Bloomsday Perennial: Bob Thornton takes brother’s advice in 50th race – ‘keep running and keep smiling’

Bob Thornton was a high school cross country runner in Tonasket when Bloomsday race founder Don Kardong showed up to speak at an awards banquet and invited the entire team to participate in his upcoming road race.

“He was afraid it wasn’t going to amount to much,” Thornton said.

Today marks the 50th running of Bloomsday, a race that very much did amount to something.

Thornton recalls his experience that first year, when his older brother by eight years, Bruce, tagged along with the team.

“Our whole team went over and ran it,” he said. “We started right behind Don.”

Bob Thornton had originally taken up running to follow in the footsteps of his brother, who had run for Tonasket and then Eastern Washington University. Thornton’s high school team took second place statewide in his junior year, the year Kardong came to speak. They took first place his senior year.

For the first few years of Bloomsday, the cross country team continued the tradition of driving to Spokane to do the race together. He recalls one warm Bloomsday when they all jumped in the Spokane River near the floating stage to cool off.

“It was a hot day,” he said. “That was a mistake. That was cold.”

As the years went on, the members of that team drifted.

“We all did it for several years,” he said. “Then they kind of dropped off.”

At the time, his family was into running, even his parents.

“We were hitting all the road races back then,” he said. “It was just the main one we hit. As we kept going, we just wanted to keep the streak going. We planned everything around it.”

The one person who never gave it up was his brother, Bruce.

“He did them all up until he died three years ago,” Thornton said. “He was a Perennial to the end.”

Thornton said he has a lot of good memories of running with his brother. One year, they started the race together and never saw each other again until the finish.

“Comparing our mile times, we were within 15 seconds of each other the entire race,” he said.

His brother always wanted to visit Burger King after the race and Thornton went along with it.

“Anything tasted good afterwards,” he said. “I was hungry by then.”

He recalls one year when he started the race as fast as he could, determined to stick with the leaders.

“I kept them in sight for the first mile and then they were gone,” he said.

He has been a cheerleader for Bloomsday over the years, often encouraging people to sign up.

“It’s such a fun weekend,” he said. “Everybody’s happy.”

Thornton lived most of his life in Tonasket, where he owned a cattle farm and coached cross country and track for 36 years. He moved to Republic about a decade ago, where he coached for another three years. Thornton is no longer officially a coach, but he can still be found at most track meets, helping out.

It’s a schedule Thornton is used to.

“There were days I had track meets the day before, get home at 10 or 11 at night, then get up and drive to Spokane in the morning,” he said. “It was always worth it.”

Thornton said he was lucky because he never had to do the race injured and never got hurt during the race.

“I fell a couple times and went rolling down the road, but nothing serious,” he said.

His fastest finish times were around 48 minutes, but at age 67, those days are gone.

“I’m not even close to that anymore,” he said. “My knees aren’t what they used to be.”

These days, Thornton usually runs with his wife, her brother and her brother’s family.

“I see them beforehand and after,” he said. “They’re much faster than me.”

He expects to assemble the usual crew for the 50th race and he’ll probably be wearing a memorial shirt honoring his brother. Thornton said he misses running Bloomsday with him.

“It makes it a little different, but he always said, ‘Keep running and keep smiling,’ ” he said.

Thornton said he plans to keep doing Bloomsday “until I die.”

“It’s the only thing I ever want to do,” he said. “I want to keep doing Bloomsday.”