Recently, I did my third speech for Toastmasters.
My wife and I are members of Toastmasters 4 Writers in Burbank, California – District 52.
My second and third speech were connected because what I learned from giving the second speech would be applied to the third. The Second speech was about my family, especially my grandfather, James Shaw, who was from Ireland and came to America. There are many great stories I could tell about him and his life. When it came to telling the third speech I chose to focus on him as a Marathon runner, especially winning one in Belfast Ireland.
But as I began to do research for this speech, I was finding more questions than answers. On top of that there wasn’t a lot of recorded history about the 1909 race, and that the first Belfast City Marathon didn’t happen until 1982.
So this speech began as much about learning the truth about the race as it was about my grandfather winning it.
A big thank you goes out to John T. Glover who wrote the book HISTORY OF NORTHERN IRELAND MARATHON RUNNING for helping me locate the facts.