Irv -
I can't put into words how blessed I have been this last year and a half -
but as for adversity - there just hasn't been any this year - it's all been
blessings.  When you're in an accident like I was in you wonder how much
you're going to lose - and incredibly, I can honestly say that I was hit by
a car going 60 MPH and the worst long term effect I seem to have is a small
dent in the back of my head.  Because of the brain injury I was supposed to
take 4-6 months just to get back to work.  I was back to work, full time, in
two months and have continued to develop new skills in a highly technical
job.  As for running - last year's Wasatch 100 was the first day I was able
to run after the accident - since CJ and I were helping at Big Mountain I
went up the hill with Dick Carling and then jogged back down.  From there I
was able to get back to a couple of 50 mile weeks by the end of October.  I
have never been able to push my mileage up so quickly without getting
injured except for last year.  I expected to wait until this spring to see
if I could get my speed back, but I had been doing speed work with Wasatch
Athletics and entered the Cold Turkey run on Thanksgiving Day just for
kicks.  Out of 390 runners I finished 14th.  Another question answered.
This year I wasn't going to pay that much attention to the USATF-Utah
Circuit because of my entry in the 100.  Life had other plans for me - I
have raced so well that I had to keep going and I ended up winning my
division (actually the Top of Utah is the last race, but no one can catch me
anyway).  I even set my first PR in a couple of years, and the one I broke
was one that I declared would be a lifetime PR when I set it back in 1996.
At the Deseret News Marathon I finished 19th overall, but my time was hard
to swallow - 3 Hours 54 seconds (oh for just one more minute).  All the
racing made me nervous about the 100 because I never got a really long run
in, although I had several in the 20's and had covered 2/3 of the course.
Obviously I needn't have worried too much about that either.

Since I work for the LDS Church you can obviously guess mine, and I am a
convert to boot. I do know that two men stopped and gave me a blessing on the
road right after the accident.  I have heard that the gashes on the side and back
of my head stopped bleeding immediately, but I've never been able to verify that.
Anyway, in the whole time I was recovering from what was obviously a major
accident I never had a single setback, not even a minor one.  What I have
experienced is completely beyond my understanding and past experience - I
realized some time ago that if someone else told me my own story I probably
wouldn't believe them.  If you know the scriptures - I can only hope that
when the time comes to meet my Lord I can be the one that returned to thank
him instead of the nine that went their way.

I think one of the funniest moments in my recovery was when I was going
through physical therapy for my shoulder (my left shoulder blade was
basically broken to bits).  After a couple of weeks I asked my therapist how
far ahead of schedule I was and was disappointed when she replied that I was
basically on schedule.  I asked her what we were doing wrong since I was so
far ahead with everything else.  Well, a couple of weeks later she finally
said OK, now you're way ahead of schedule.

This whole thing has raised my expectations instead of sending me looking
for limitations, simply because eveything I have tried to do has gone so
well.  That's why I say that I haven't really continued in the face of
adversity - I simply tried to get close to where I was before and found that
I couldn't - I got even better instead and I absolutely feel that credit
doesn't go to me - there are powers beyond my own at work with me.
Naturally, I'm not complaining about the results.  Of course, I assume
you're aware that Mike Dunn and now Tim Seminoff also have remarkable
stories.

One last thing - my words weren't "kind" - they were well earned.  I wish
you guys could teach lessons on how to run a race right.  If they ever
perfect cloning I would put your volunteers high on the priority list.

You have my permission to share this with others if you want to.

Bill Francis