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Jon Brundell is an active member of the Alexandria area sports scene along with being a landscaper.
Brundell played about 30 games this summer for the Alexandria Classic Clippers (35+ senior mens team) and was a player-manager for the Alexandria Redbirds (50+ team) for this season who finished second in the state tournament.
And on Thanksgiving Day, Brundell ran in the Alexandria YMCA Turkey Day 5K, where finished where he finished in just over 29 minutes (29:02) and 38th overall, the best of any competitor in the race over 50 years old.
This was Brundell’s first 5K ever.
“This was my first ever 5K so I don’t know what to compare it to,” Brundell said. “I thought I ran pretty well. It’s tough, it’s a numbers game. I finished it better than I thought I could’ve timewise.”
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Brundell was encouraged to try his first ever 5K by his daughters Mariah and Chelsey, who also ran in the race on Nov. 24. He was also motivated by some of his friends and teammates on the Redbirds and Classic Clippers’ teams.
“I had never really thought about it too much,” Brundell said. “It’s maybe a little bit in the back of my mind I guess. I know a couple of my fellow baseball players had run half marathons and I thought that was always pretty good.”
After Brundell completed landscaping early in November, Brundell’s training increased.
“My daughters signed up first and I had just got done with landscaping on Nov. 4 so I had a little bit of time,” he said. “I wanted to stay in shape and so I started training for two weeks. I was walking and running three to five miles a day or at least four times a week.”
The Alexandria native said he isn’t much of a runner and he used to run more 10-12 years ago than he does now.
Brundell said he’s open to running another 5K in the future.
Brian Storhoug, 31, won the 5K with a time of 19:31.
Whether it’s landscaping, playing baseball or now running in 5K’s Jon loves to be active and be outside working when weather permits.
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“There were a lot of baseball games on almost every weekend this summer,” he said. “It was at least two sometimes four days of games. And we practiced once a week, usually on Wednesday nights. My baseball teammates are a motivation for me. They’re all in pretty decent shape. I’ve got two Hall of Famers with me on my Redbirds team with me, Mike Weber and Roger Johnson. They give me the motivation to continue to play baseball and other stuff like that.”
Jon is thankful for those he plays with.
“I just want to thank my teammates for letting me be their manager,” he said. “They motivate me to stay in shape. Joe Korkowski, Greg Serum and all of those guys are in good shape and are good guys.”
Brundell encourages all who are able to be active.
“Just find something you enjoy to do,” he said. “The Redbirds are a 50 and up team and we started in 2019 and we’ve placed sixth in the state and now second. We've got a lot of good athletes on our team. So it keeps everybody motivated for next year to stay in shape.”
