Saunders finally receives medal for achievements

A funny thing happened to Shannon Saunders when she won the two-mile varsity race at the county championships as an eighth grader.

"They couldn’t give me the medal," Saunders said. "I wasn’t an official ninth grade runner, so they gave it to the second place finisher."

Unfortunately for the competition, those days are over. Saunders — a two-time Adidas National Championships finalist and two-time Nike Indoor Classic national finalist at Jefferson Forest High School — has experienced success at every level since her running career began in 1998.

"From there the success kept escalating," Saunders said. "We won six state team titles and I won seven individual."

Saunders set the state meet record for indoor track in the two-mile as a junior in 2002, then broke her own record the following year. She set a state record in cross-country as a senior. Both marks still stand.

At JMU, Saunders was named Colonial Athletic Association Runner of the Year for the 2004 crosscountry season. She has qualified for the NCAA National Championships three times and is the reigning conference champion in outdoor track in the 5,000-meter — a title she will look to defend this weekend when JMU heads to Fairfax for the CAA Championships.

"I want to be satisfied with the way I run it," Saunders said of the 5k. "I’d like to win that race."

And this time she’ll be keeping the hardware.