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News & Photos
Our Hero Jeff Sanborn
History teacher, coach, and passionate runner Jeff Sanborn doesn’t miss a beat. That’s because a pacemaker, implanted in 2006, corrects his irregular heart rhythm. Sanborn may not be able to run 2:30 marathons anymore, but still, he runs.
While he’s not the kind to revel in—or even reveal—his personal triumph over adversity, Sanborn recently shared his story for a chance to become a Medtronic Global Hero. And it paid off.
Sanborn was one of 24 impressive athletes from around the world honored last week in the 2010 Global Heroes program, which celebrates the accomplishments of runners with medical devices. They received an all-expenses-paid trip to Minneapolis for the Twin Cities Marathon and Medtronic TC 10-miler.
“Hundreds of people apply for the opportunity, but you don't really know what sets you apart because everyone has a device,” Sanborn said. Some have pacemakers. Others have artificial heart valves to replace defective ones, insulin pumps to manage diabetes, or neurostimulators to correct a variety of conditions.
The five-year-old program, co-sponsored by the Medtronic Foundation and the Twin Cities Marathon, Inc., gives honorees the opportunity to run the marathon or the 10-miler. Sanborn ran the shorter race.
“It was very inspiring to be in a race with 8,000 people, first of all. It was the first major race I had entered in five years,” he said.
The other inspiring part was that [my wife] Maureen and I were standing together. She had a double-knee replacement in 1998 and she’s a breast cancer survivor. She’s bionic,” he said.
Jeff Sanborn finished in 1:35:15. While he was disappointed at his own time, he was thrilled with his wife’s 1:39:50. “It wasn’t long before Maureen came along and we could celebrate.”
The Sanborns and Jeff’s fellow Global Heroes—from the United States and nine other countries, including Canada, Chile, China, Finland, Italy, Serbia, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom—were treated like royalty in the days leading up to the marathon. Sanborn considered himself fortunate to be included in such an extraordinary group of distance runners.
Sanborn stumbled upon the Global Heroes program while searching the Medtronic website for information about his pacemaker. To apply, he had to submit a personal essay and three recommendations.
“I think those recommendations were the key to my getting chosen,” he said. Sanborn shakes his head in disbelief over the flattering words others used to describe him.
He had enough trouble writing the personal essay about himself. “Really what I talked about was that my entire life has been devoted to running. In college I ran all 12 seasons. I've never really taken a season off and I've coached almost every season since. I was president of the Baltimore Road Runners Club in the early 90s and coached the team in Training for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for 10 years. It's all I do, really.”
Tristram Thomas ’05 was one of those transformed by Sanborn. He wrote Medtronic about how Sanborn “scooped him up” and put him on the cross-country team after he had been cut from JV soccer. Thomas became one of the best distance runners in school history. He and his mentor were in frequent touch when Sanborn became ill.
Wrote Thomas, “I would get message after message about how he just could not breathe enough oxygen, or how he felt sapped of all energy just on the warm-up, or that how even ten-minute mile pace was becoming struggle. But through it all, he never became bitter or negative. He never once considered giving up the sport that has defined his life.”
”He met with every doctor, and he tried every treatment. The prevailing question at the end of each appointment was always, ‘Will I be able to run normally again?’ If the treatment did not work, he looked for what would. And he pushed the recovery from each procedure. If the doctor said he needed to wait ten days to run, he ran in seven. I would expect no less from the man who once had knee surgery in the morning and was on crutches on the infield at a track meet by that afternoon,“ wrote Thomas.
Sanborn got word of his selection last May. “At that point I was pretty excited, but I also started training. In the month of August I made a statement to my cross-country team if that I could run 50 miles a week, they could. There were days I'll admit that I regretted making that statement,” he said.
Meanwhile, members of Sanborn’s girls team had no idea why running 50 miles a week might be a challenge for their coach. Only his history department colleagues and a few others knew about his pacemaker and replaced heart valve. Even fewer knew about his selection as a Global Hero. He told the girls a few days before his trip, and they sent him off with a t-shirt each of them had signed.
“Medtronic treated me phenomenally well,” said Sanborn. “Now we’re supposed to become ambassadors for our conditions. Who knows, maybe somebody who has an arrythmia will read my story and get some benefit out of it.”
History teacher, coach, and passionate runner Jeff Sanborn doesn’t miss a beat. That’s because a pacemaker, implanted in 2006, corrects his irregular heart rhythm. Sanborn may not be able to run 2:30 marathons anymore, but still, he runs.
While he’s not the kind to revel in—or even reveal—his personal triumph over adversity, Sanborn recently shared his story for a chance to become a Medtronic Global Hero. And it paid off.
Sanborn was one of 24 impressive athletes from around the world honored last week in the 2010 Global Heroes program, which celebrates the accomplishments of runners with medical devices. They received an all-expenses-paid trip to Minneapolis for the Twin Cities Marathon and Medtronic TC 10-miler.
“Hundreds of people apply for the opportunity, but you don't really know what sets you apart because everyone has a device,” Sanborn said. Some have pacemakers. Others have artificial heart valves to replace defective ones, insulin pumps to manage diabetes, or neurostimulators to correct a variety of conditions.
The five-year-old program, co-sponsored by the Medtronic Foundation and the Twin Cities Marathon, Inc., gives honorees the opportunity to run the marathon or the 10-miler. Sanborn ran the shorter race.
“It was very inspiring to be in a race with 8,000 people, first of all. It was the first major race I had entered in five years,” he said.
The other inspiring part was that [my wife] Maureen and I were standing together. She had a double-knee replacement in 1998 and she’s a breast cancer survivor. She’s bionic,” he said.
Jeff Sanborn finished in 1:35:15. While he was disappointed at his own time, he was thrilled with his wife’s 1:39:50. “It wasn’t long before Maureen came along and we could celebrate.”
The Sanborns and Jeff’s fellow Global Heroes—from the United States and nine other countries, including Canada, Chile, China, Finland, Italy, Serbia, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom—were treated like royalty in the days leading up to the marathon. Sanborn considered himself fortunate to be included in such an extraordinary group of distance runners.
Sanborn stumbled upon the Global Heroes program while searching the Medtronic website for information about his pacemaker. To apply, he had to submit a personal essay and three recommendations.
“I think those recommendations were the key to my getting chosen,” he said. Sanborn shakes his head in disbelief over the flattering words others used to describe him.
He had enough trouble writing the personal essay about himself. “Really what I talked about was that my entire life has been devoted to running. In college I ran all 12 seasons. I've never really taken a season off and I've coached almost every season since. I was president of the Baltimore Road Runners Club in the early 90s and coached the team in Training for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for 10 years. It's all I do, really.”
Tristram Thomas ’05 was one of those transformed by Sanborn. He wrote Medtronic about how Sanborn “scooped him up” and put him on the cross-country team after he had been cut from JV soccer. Thomas became one of the best distance runners in school history. He and his mentor were in frequent touch when Sanborn became ill.
Wrote Thomas, “I would get message after message about how he just could not breathe enough oxygen, or how he felt sapped of all energy just on the warm-up, or that how even ten-minute mile pace was becoming struggle. But through it all, he never became bitter or negative. He never once considered giving up the sport that has defined his life.”
”He met with every doctor, and he tried every treatment. The prevailing question at the end of each appointment was always, ‘Will I be able to run normally again?’ If the treatment did not work, he looked for what would. And he pushed the recovery from each procedure. If the doctor said he needed to wait ten days to run, he ran in seven. I would expect no less from the man who once had knee surgery in the morning and was on crutches on the infield at a track meet by that afternoon,“ wrote Thomas.
Sanborn got word of his selection last May. “At that point I was pretty excited, but I also started training. In the month of August I made a statement to my cross-country team if that I could run 50 miles a week, they could. There were days I'll admit that I regretted making that statement,” he said.
Meanwhile, members of Sanborn’s girls team had no idea why running 50 miles a week might be a challenge for their coach. Only his history department colleagues and a few others knew about his pacemaker and replaced heart valve. Even fewer knew about his selection as a Global Hero. He told the girls a few days before his trip, and they sent him off with a t-shirt each of them had signed.
“Medtronic treated me phenomenally well,” said Sanborn. “Now we’re supposed to become ambassadors for our conditions. Who knows, maybe somebody who has an arrythmia will read my story and get some benefit out of it.”