It was his daughter’s joining middle school cross country that got Jeff Sanda running again.
A cross country and track long distance runner himself, Jeff quit after entering college – “Between classes, girls and running, I had to give up one of them!” But twenty-five years later, his young girl wanted to run and he wasn’t going to let her do it alone. Their first race together was the Refuse To Lose 5K in Hudson – only she ran the race and the fun run!
That began two years of 5K runs, but Jeff hit the dreaded plateau and couldn’t get faster. (Well, longer is just as good as faster, isn’t it?) So he started working his way up to running the Towpath 10K. But he shied away from the trails until a coach revealed the greatest secret of all, “You don’t have to run the whole thing.” That is how he discovered the beauty of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and found a crazy group of runners called the Trail Seekers. These people seemed to have a common goal – have fun and get dirty. They were happy to have him along, and kept him from getting lost.
His attitude is that volunteering is a vital part of the running scene. Other sports have crews and cheerleaders; Jeff figures that volunteers do double-duty as both! He started volunteering with the Fools Run, and has captained aid stations at Green Jewel and Burning River. After seeing truly phenomenal efforts put in by both runners and volunteers at Burning River, he decided that it was something he had to try as well: “The Pine Hollow aid station was overflowing with energy, fun and compassion for the runners. Music and food kept everybody happy and moving. As captain, I worked the one station for twelve hours. As a runner, I can see a new aid station every hour. I heard the Covered Bridge was even better than ours!”
Jeff plans on doing plenty more volunteering, but this year will be a bit light. “Sorry, but my real family has to come before my running family. At least, that’s what my real family tells me!”
Jeff’s philosophy about volunteering is the same as it is for running and life in general. “We are in this together; we get out of this together; helping each other is how we say ‘Thank you for being you.’”
Thanks to Jeff for all of the volunteering!!!
