By Nick Rosa

Ry Sanderson, a senior cross country runner at CCSU, recently won the NEC championship at Stanley Quarter Park to help CCSU capture its second consecutive NEC championship. While Sanderson has been  training the majority of his life for that moment, it was a long hard journey to get to that point.

Sanderson first started running in eighth grade at Rumsey Hall middle school and then continued his track career at Forman High School in Connecticut, which were both private schools. The high school didn’t have a track program and only had a cross country program.

Sanderson’s parents never pushed him into sports, but they didn’t necessarily want him to play football.

“Soccer was my only other option but I didn’t enjoy that, but I knew I was fast so I picked up cross country,” said Sanderson. He’s stuck with running ever since.

During his senior year at Forman, his team won the New England prep school championships for cross country. Sanderson, who trained under a private coach that year, also competed in two outdoor races unattached and two high school races as well.

He knew he wanted to run in college and had met Coach Eric Blake, who at the time was the assistant coach for CCSU, through a family friend during his senior year and that’s where his recruitment had started.

“I liked what Blake said about the school and thought the team was a good fit for me,” said Sanderson, and that’s how he came to run for Central.

Sanderson’s college career in track and cross country was productive but the struggles with nagging injuries made it a challenging one.

His freshman year he got ninth overall at the NEC championships for cross country and was a “great performance at the time for me,” Sanderson said. He then went on to the track season where in the outdoor season he had his first set back with a stress fracture in his leg that shut him down for the rest of the year.

This moved him into his sophomore year where new and good recruits were coming in. Sanderson said he didn’t do well that cross country season and going into indoor  he had another set back with a second stress fracture in his opposite leg. This shut him down the entire indoor season where he said he did three months of solitary pool training.

The outdoor season was looking better the next year. Sanderson was healing and won the 10k in the outdoor championships at Monmouth. He was the only champion that year.

Sanderson, who didn’t really enjoy running until his senior year in high school,  started showing extreme dedication after his sophomore season. He went to Colorado for altitude training for entire summer where he did odd jobs and lived with his girlfriend.

“The reason I’m drawn to the sport is because it’s so demanding physically and having to be dedicated to it has brought me to where I am now in the sport,” Sanderson added. “The team was coming back strong and good recruits like, Sam Alexander and John Kroll, which helped shape our team,” Sanderson said of his junior year.

That year in indoor Sanderson won the 5k and in outdoor got second in the 5k and 10k.

“That summer we had a good training group since a lot of our runners are from Connecticut and we trained together as a team and a lot of teams don’t have that privilege,” Sanderson said.“This was the best team we ever had on paper.”

During Sanderson’s senior year he took a chance by red-shirting his cross country season and the team won the NEC without him in the lineup. However during the season he had yet another setback, with a third stress fracture in his hip and once again had to train and rid himself of another injury.

After recovering from the injury, Sanderson won the 10k and got third in the 5k helping the school place third overall at NEC’s, which was the best placing in schools history.

The summer after his senior year he went back to Colorado for more altitude training with his cousin and came back stronger than ever for his final cross country season. Sanderson won an NEC championship individually and with the team. He also set the course record at Stanley Quarter with a time of 24:50.0 and with that got the NEC outstanding performer award.

“This was my first ever outstanding performer award for cross country, which felt amazing,” Sanderson said.

Now with his college cross country days behind him he gets to look forward to his final track seasons.

“I am eligible for indoor and outdoor this year because of the previous injuries I’ve had, which is a blessing in disguise,” Sanderson added.

Sanderson, who is an exercise science major here at CCSU hopes to continue his running after college. “It’s something I would want to continue to do for as long as I can… It would be awesome to continue something I love after college, even if it’s only for a few years,” said Sanderson.

His proudest moment of his running career was winning the NEC this year with the team and individually and also  running a 30:20.0 in the 10k last year which was a personal best. “A break through race for me, it was pretty special,” he said.

Sanderson has shown his dedication to his running and juggling his academics at the same time. Ever since he was in high school through his many injuries, going to Colorado to train, and his performances on and off the track has proven himself as a leader and a role model for the younger runners coming up through the CCSU program.