Dick Beardsley, 50, discusses his near miss in the 1982 Boston Marathon, his addiction to painkillers and why running remains an important part of his life.

Dick Beardsley is best known for his "Duel in the Sun" with Alberto Salazar in the 1982 Boston Marathon, a battle that Beardsley lost by mere seconds. The marathoner's most important win, however, was his personal victory over his addiction to painkillers. Beardsley, 50, is now a fishing guide and motivational speaker. He also continues to run. His best recent Masters marathon time was 2:43:58.

GJ: Go back. It's 1981. You weren't well known and you ran Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minn., a race that wasn't very well known, and you ran an amazing time.

Beardsley: I ran 2:09:36 that year. And at that time, I was only nine seconds off of what was then the American record of 2:09:27, set by Bill Rodgers. It was a perfect day, the kind you pray and hope for as a marathoner. It was cool, cloudy, misty, virtually no wind and 48 degrees. I knew I was in the best shape of my life, but I didn't have any time I was shooting for. I remember that some of the top runners back then said, "Oh, the course must have been short." Well, the race director went out and remeasured the course and found out that it was actually about 200 meters longer than it should have been.

The next year, you go to Boston and have what is considered the greatest running duel in marathon history. Salazar was heavily favored, the world record holder. You both ran 2:08s, Salazar beat you by just two seconds, and he nearly died doing it.

It was significant, because it was two American kids duking it out right where it all started. It was the first time in history that two runners had ever gone under 2:09 in the same race. It was one of those days where neither Alberto nor myself would have run that by ourselves. It was very hot day. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, virtually no water on the course and crowd control isn't like it was today. But we were both so darn stubborn that we just neither one would give an inch.

Shortly after Boston in 1982 you injured yourself. It was the end of your elite running career.

It really was. Alberto and I, neither one of us ever ran that fast in a marathon again. I think that day in Boston in 1982, I know I left something -- a part of me -- on that race course. I've said this to many people many times, but if I had to leave a piece of me somewhere I couldn't think of a better place to leave it than on the Boston Marathon course.

Let's talk about the late 1980s. They were some terrible years for you.

Yes. I had Achilles tendon surgery in 1984. In 1986, I got the OK to start training again. We sold the farm and moved back to the Twin Cities to get ready for the '88 Olympics, but I was never the same.

And then you had your accident on your dairy farm. It was November, 1989. Tell us about it.

I got in a hurry on Nov. 13, and making poor decisions, trying to take shortcuts, I got caught up in a power-takeoff in my tractor. A power-takeoff is a long steel shaft that has knuckles on both ends. One goes into a tractor and another goes into a piece of machinery. The shaft spins about 600 rpm. I got too close to it and it caught my boot lace and just slammed me to the ground. Before I knew it, it had just wrapped my left leg around the shaft, kind of like taking a piece of string and wrapping it around your finger. And when it couldn't take my leg anymore it took my whole body and spun me around.

How badly injured were you?

I broke all the ribs on my right side, punctured my right lung, broke my arm and somehow a piece of steel got wedged into my chest. I broke a couple of vertebrae in my lower back, but the worst part of my injury was my left leg. It was just about torn off.

You were in the hospital a long time.

Yes, a very long time. Numerous surgeries. Twice they thought they were going to have to amputate my leg. I got a terrible infection in the leg, and I remember a doctor telling me before they put me to sleep... they were very concerned about those types of accidents and of infections. A few weeks after I went home, I woke up one morning feeling terrible. By 11 o'clock that morning my temp was up to 105, and my leg had this orange, green, yellow stuff coming out. At that point, the thought of dying wasn't that bad. Fortunately, I woke up from surgery and my leg was still intact, and for two weeks I was in an isolation ward and pumped full of antibiotics.

So you recover from that accident. Two years later you and your wife, Mary, are driving and you are hit by another car.

We went to take a little vacation from the cows over the weekend and we're coming home and we're 30 miles from home and a lady ran a stop sign on a country road and just t-boned our car. I ended up having severe whiplash and an injured spinal cord.

Then another accident. You were hit by a truck while jogging, right?

About six months later I was back running a little bit, and I was running in Fargo, N.D., in the wintertime. And I was back in the hospital with back injuries, and I had major spinal surgeries and that led ultimately to getting addicted to pain medication, and then stuff really started to spiral out of control after that. The addiction just got worse and worse, and then I had another surgery on my leg. It was just like a tornado getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Pretty soon I ran out of doctors that would give me any medication. So I started forging my own prescriptions. You know, when I was a kid, my parents taught me values that I still live by today. I, up to that point, had never been in any trouble. I had never stolen as much as a piece of bubble gum. I didn't drink, smoke and never had done any, ever, any type of illicit drugs, and here I am forging prescriptions. I mean, honestly, I knew that I was someday going to die or get caught. I didn't know which would come first.

And then you were caught on Sept. 30, 1996.

Thank God for that. I was probably within a couple of days of going to sleep and taking a handful of pills and just never waking up again. By late August 1996, I was taking upwards of 90 pills a day. That day when I got caught, I was so thankful that it had finally come to an end and that I was still alive.

You've survived a lot.

I have. I have been so blessed. We all make mistakes. And the key is do we learn from those mistakes. I am able to pass on my story to other people and give them hope. I remember in treatment thinking that I wasn't going to get any better. And I'm about as positive a person as you'll ever meet. I was very fortunate that I was able to survive and tell my story to others.

Are you still running?

Yes. I just turned 50 this past March, and I still enjoy training. I absolutely love being a geezerjock! For me, I had my day in the sun. But I still love getting out and competing against guys in my age division and hopefully whipping a few of those younger guys, too.