Jennifer Teppo

Jennifer Teppo was born at “the hospital of champions” and hasn’t looked back since. She recently won two medals at the USATF Club National Cross Country race in Seattle. Let me tell you her story.

Jenny Teppo(in white, red and black singlet)
from the 2011 Club XC race

Jenny entered into this world at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. The very next year, both Carmen Troncoso and Kelly Kruell were both born at the same hospital. More than 50 years later the trio is still winning medals in USATF races. So is it a coincidence or was there something in the environment that was partially responsible for all of these wonderful athletes coming out of one place and time? I guess we’ll never know.

Jenny moved around some as a kid, first to New Jersey, North Carolina and then to Virginia for high school. Wherever she lived, she loved sports and any running game in particular. She tried out for the track team more than once as a sprinter but wasn’t fast enough. Then in 11th grade, her PE teacher in Martinsville VA told her to go to the track and run “for awhile.”

It was at this point that the junior discovered her affinity for distance racing. That spring she won almost every mile race she entered and ran something close to 5:30 for the distance. As a senior she was allowed to run with the boys cross country team, since there was no team for girls. She beat “a whole lot” of the boys, causing many of them to quit the sport. Thus began her life long success as a runner.

But Jenny was no trick pony. She also played basketball, volleyball, tennis, and she skied and swam too. She was also involved in dancing, singing and modeling at this stage of her life. In fact she says that she was brave about trying anything people would let her try.

After high school, she attended a small Jesuit college in Mobile Alabama called Spring Hill College. The school is academically rigorous, but at the time did not have women’s cross country or track teams. Jenny still ran a lot by herself, and competed in the Azalea Trail race one year, which is a large 10K race held every spring.

During the summer between her junior and senior years, she met Arne Teppo when they both worked as collegiate staff at a YMCA conference center in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Black Mountain, NC. The couple quickly formed a serious bond and Arne moved from Washington State to Mobile to attend the University of South Alabama and be close to Jenny, while she taught school for a year after her graduation.

After leaving Alabama, they moved around some, living in various places in eastern Washington and a stint Denver before settling in the Portland area in 1987. Once ensconced in Portland, they had four daughters over the next few years, Kirsi now 24, Senja (22), Anika (19) and Ilsa (16). Despite the responsibility of raising her young and growing family, Jenny continued to find time to train and even started running marathons.

However, running had to take a backseat to some serious medical problems that Senja developed at a very young age. She was diagnosed with choroid plexus carcinoma in her first year of life. The choroid plexus is a structure in the ventricles of the brain where cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) is produced, and cancer in these tissues is a devastating diagnosis for a young child and her family.

Senja endured two surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation therapy in the next couple of years. Fortunately the treatments worked and her cancer was beaten. However, she paid a high price as her brain functions were significantly inhibited.

Jenny said “it is the scariest thing to let them take your kid in for brain surgery, watching as she is wheeled out with her little big bird stuffed animal next to her. You don't even know what to pray for other than hope to get through another day. And yes she did survive and I am thankful, but it is still very hard.”

These days Senja has a job at a local nursery in the Portland suburb of Vancouver and she is a gifted pianist. When I heard her play I was truly amazed at how good she is. It is also amazing to know how well Jenny downplays this aspect of her life when she is out in public, but you can’t help but know how difficult this must have been for her family.

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But through all of her troubles and responsibilities, Jenny continued to run. She traded babysitting with other moms, and worked at daycare and park department jobs whose main perk was allowing her the opportunity to run and work out. And she not only ran, but ran well. And as her girls got older, she continued to get faster too.

She remembers first meeting me at a local cross country race in the 1990s and our paths continued to cross at various races in the following years, although we were not close friends at the time.

She turned 40 in 1998, and it was as a master’s runner that she truly hit her stride. She won USATF team titles in cross country in 2001 with a club called Nike Portland, and in 2002 (twice) and 2003 with a woman’s club called Team Oregon. She describes the time she spent with Team Oregon as “tons of fun” and it was during this time that I got to know her a little better as my ex was a team mate of hers.

She also ran very well on the road and track too. On the roads, she got her 5K PR down to 17:45 and she did well in longer races too. She won the Newport Oregon marathon running 2:57, and at age 45 she won her age group at the New York City marathon.

On the track, she won a USATF title at 5,000 meters in 2003 at age 44 running 17:57. At the same meet she ran 4:53 for the 1500, which was good for 6th and 2:29 in the 800 for 4th place.

Jenny joined” my” club, Team Red Lizard in the fall of 2007. I remember hanging out with her at our Christmas pot luck that year and talking about the prospect of running on a 50 plus cross country team with her, as she would reach AARP age in the fall of 2008. With Club Nationals in Spokane in 2008, we could look forward to a strong showing. Unfortunately, she would suffer a stress fracture the next summer. Our team still wound up third without her, but it could have been better.

In fact Jenny I and would not get to run Clubs together until 2011 as one or other of us kept having issues. Jenny did lead our W50 team to another bronze medal at the USA masters cross country race in 2010, as I watched from the sidelines. She also continued to run well on the road and the track once she recovered from her injury problems.

She also has been enjoying her most recent job change. She now coaches track and cross country at Heritage High School in Vancouver, and it has been a very enjoyable four years for her and chance to broaden her running experience.

Two of her daughters are now enrolled in college as Kirsi attends St Louis University, while Anika is studying at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Coming into last fall, our club got very excited about Club XC and we wound up with full teams in every race that day. In fact we had two teams in both the master men’s and women’s races. As team captain for the master’s women, I had a little dilemma about what to do with Jenny. She certainly was going to be our first runner home over the age of 50, but she was also good enough to possibly score on our W40 team, which I had projected to place second.

On one hand I certainly wanted the strongest W40 team we could manage, and I also wanted Jenny to come home with a team medal, but on the other hand, I had hopes that maybe our W50 team could scrape out a bronze. In the end I kept her on our W50 team, and it paid off as Jenny lead the team to third. While she would have wound up as the third scorer on our W40 team, we finished second to Club Northwest (CNW) in that race and we never would have beaten CNW, even with Jenny on the team.

Jenny had one of her best races ever as she finished 2nd in the W50, behind only Carmen Troncoso, and ahead of many terrific runners. But more than just the tangible rewards, she enjoyed the experience, as she was running on a team with friends. She also had this to say: “For me the best part of the race is about 5 minutes into it, when you know where you are and you start working with people to move up. I did have a good race but I find the process way more fun than the result.”

She has continued her strong running into 2012, with a 19:50 5K and a 1:31:55 half marathon. I also got to do a lovely trail run with her and several other teammates this past weekend.

I have included a picture of the two of us, taken by our unofficial club photographer, Torrey Lindbo. She was kind enough to let me lead her at that point in the run. I’m sure there will be plenty more great races and fun runs in her future.



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