Late start in athletics hasn’t slowed masters competitor Ken Bronson

Scott Swanson

While the rest of the population is pondering the possibility of getting in better shape now that we’re on the cusp of a new year, Ken Bronson already has them beat.

He plans to spend New Year’s Eve as he normally does: in a friendly “reverse triathlon” with friends from the area. If the road conditions allow, they will run five miles, bike 50 and swim 50 laps in a pool – about a mile and a half.

For most of those who know him, Bronson, 61, is the guy who directs the Sweet Home Senior Center, manages the Community Center facility and the various transit bus services headquartered there.

But he’s also, arguably, the top masters-level athlete in Sweet Home. An accomplished runner and triathlete, he’s a regular visitor at Steelhead Strength and Fitness in the winter months, and spends most of the rest of the year riding, running and swimming.

What makes him particularly unusual is most of his athletic accomplishments occurred well after he was an adult.

Bronson grew up on a 320-acre cattle farm west of Junction City and he didn’t have a lot of opportunity to participate in sports as a youth. His only exposure to high school athletics was two years as a wrestler.

“I had chores to do every morning and every night,” he said. “I had no time for extracurricular activities after school.

“I really had no intention of going out, but my father had just died of a heart attack. I think my mother thought I needed a distraction.”

The wrestling team needed a 98-pounder. Bronson weighed 92 and the season had started a month previously.

“I was a farm kid and a fighter. I might get beat, but I was not going to be pinned. I didn’t know the moves and stuff, so it took a while.”

He wrestled his sophomore and junior years, then got a job as a senior, so he quit high school sports.

He always liked running, though, he said.

“In grade school and junior high I could always outrun the other kids in distances,” he said.

Bronson went on to Southern Oregon State College, where he graduated in 1979 with a degree in business and a minor in natural sciences.

“Science, because that’s what I love to study; business because I have to make a living. I’ve always been an outdoor person,” he said.

During his junior year in college, Bronson and his roommate heard about a half-marathon race in Medford, the Pear Blossom Run, and decided to enter.

“It was January, and we started running. The race was in April.” He finished in 1:30 for the 13.1-mile course.

“I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I thought, ‘That’s not that tough.’ Most importantly I beat my roommate John by 15 minutes.”

He ran it again the next year, after training a little more seriously, finishing in 1:22.

“I noticed the varsity guys at SOC were only four or five minutes ahead of me, but it was too late for me (to run in college).

“That’s when I started running. I ran a 36-minute 10K at Butte to Butte (in Eugene, which includes a long hill). I could run pretty fast in my day.”

He was also working, and married and had three children.

“I didn’t really start getting into endurance and multisports until I was in my late 40s,” he said.

He got interested in the Pole Pedal Paddle event held each spring in Bend. The six-leg race/relay starts with alpine skiing or snowboarding, followed by cross-country skiing on Mt. Bachelor, then continues with biking, running, canoeing/kayaking/stand up paddle boarding and a final sprint footrace to the finish line in Bend.

Bronson had learned to ski in college (“I always do stuff that is fun”) and decided that the race sounded like fun.

“I thought, ‘I can downhill ski; I can cross-country ski, though I’m not very good at it; I love to ride; I’ve got a kayak; I want to do it.’

“I just started doing it every year. My goal was to be in good enough shape to do it every year.”

He did it 15 years in a row except for one, when his arm was broken.

“That was the year I went snowboarding. My kids thought it would be a good idea. It was, for an hour.”

He said he sees “the same group” at the race every year. “There’s people who have done it 30 years in a row. We’re all competing against each other.”

His children were active in high school athletics, the girls in competition cheer at Pleasant Hill when the Billies were going head to head for state championships with Sweet Home. His son Blair played soccer and basketball and ran cross-country and track.

Blair Bronson eventually founded the Best in the West Triathlon at Foster Lake as a college project while a student at Oregon State University, and it has steadily grown over the last six years.

Ken Bronson is a regular participant and won the Half Ironman in his age division two years ago. Last year he was planning to defend his title, but got stung on his foot by a bee and had to forgo the run, teaming up with another competitor to switch to a relay.

Over the years, Bronson has competed in multiple distance running events, cycling and swimming.

He’s also an outdoors enthusiast who loves hunting and has taken five elk in the last five seasons – an accomplishment he’s proud of.

“It’s important to me to stay in shape so, at my age, I can still hunt and cover ground in rough country where the elk are. Five years in a row I’ve gotten my bull. You don’t do that by staying on top on the flat ground.”

He actually started swimming in earnest after arriving in Sweet Home.

He began managing the Senior Center in April 2010 after a custom lumber mill he’d headed in Jasper was sold and he was let go. He took some classes to strengthen his resume and settled down in Sweet Home.

Bronson’s advice to anyone – old or young – looking to get in shape is simple: “Start out slow and stick with it.

“First of all, you have to want to get better.”

That “slow” part pertains particularly to seniors, with whom Bronson has become very familiar.

“What you could do in a month as a young man or woman now takes a year to get in that kind of shape,” he said. “You have to stick with it.”

Meanwhile, he’s planning his own schedule, and the big event is going to be that Best in the West triathlon on the second weekend of September.

“I’ve done the Half Ironman once. Last year, due to that bee sting on my foot, I was not able to defend my title. That’s what I’ll be doing this year.”

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