Trey Stanford doesn’t run a lot of miles, but he may be the most important member of the Chattanooga Track Club.
Stanford lives on Lookout Mountain with his wife Katie and their two children, two-year-old Noah and Taylor, a pretty young lady who will celebrate her fifth birthday at the end of January.
His day job has him commuting to Cleveland every day where he serves as a math teacher at Cleveland Middle School and he managed the Front Runner for four years from 2007-11, but he also has another job here in Chattanooga that keeps him on the go most of the time.
He’s the one who keeps the track club on time. He’s the timing manager who ensures the accuracy of the results for all of the Chattanooga Track Club events in addition to a bunch more local races.
He’s normally the first to arrive at a race. More often than not, he’s one of the last to leave. But in between, he’s the one who’s in charge of making sure that race results are accurate and produced in a timely manner.
And he does so in a very efficient manner without losing his cool, even when things don’t unfold as planned, which is almost never.
A veteran race director made the comment a couple of months ago that one of the track club goals is to present quality races with accurate results.
Trey Stanford has gotten that idea down to a science.
“Katie was the race director for the Scenic City Half Marathon a few years ago and the position was open for a timing manager,” Trey said while relaxing in the lobby of the downtown YMCA one morning last week.
“I knew the software and Jerry McClanahan showed me how this particular program worked. And Sherilyn Johnson has taught me a lot as she always makes sure the software is working correctly.
“Most people look at that as a stressful position, but I don’t stress out a lot as I keep my cool most of the time. There have only been two races where the results were messed up, but the situation was corrected within an hour both times.
“I just take a deep breath and get things fixed, but that’s one of the lessons I try to teach my students and that’s how to be efficient and how to get it right the first time.
“It all depends on registration, but I normally get to a race site about two hours before an event begins, depending on the size of the race and the distance being run. I have to make sure that all the results are accurate.
I’m given the active.com file by the race director and re-format the information to what I need. I have to code in all the chips individually, but what I do on race day is the easy part. Once a race begins, it’s all in my hands and race directors can relax,” the 34-year-old said with a smile.
The annual Chickamauga Battlefield Marathon may be the most involving job for Stanford as he has to make sure everything is on track with three races running at the same time.
“I explain to the volunteers how to pass the chips out and how they’re supposed to be attached to the shoes, but I didn’t leave Barnhardt Circle until after two that afternoon,” he remembered.
“We have other folks who can fill in when I’m not available and that helps to give me a break, but out of 34 races this year, I think I timed 32 and about half of those were Chattanooga Track Club events.
“We have it down to a science about the breakdown at the finish line as we all work together. Mike Leary and Paul Wells both help get it all set up and Stacey Malecky makes sure that all of the day of race registration information is entered correctly,” he revealed.
Stanford’s running career started when he was a student at Paulding County High School in Hiram, Ga. He ran cross country and he also wrestled where he was better than average at both.
“My best times for cross country were right at 17 minutes as I could never get under that. I could run a sub five-minute mile and my best time for two miles was 10:30. And I was an All-American in wrestling.
“I finished fourth nationally at 119 pounds as a senior after getting hurt as a junior. I suffered a neck injury and was carried off the mat on a stretcher. I was offered a scholarship at UTC, but my SAT scores weren’t high enough.
“Those things are in my past and I’ve moved on,” he added.
Stanford admitted that his mileage total for 2014 was 15.6 miles. The only race he does on a regular basis is the Peachtree 10K in Atlanta on July 4. And as you might figure, he doesn’t do much training for it.
“Sometimes I run to the refrigerator and back, but I’ll run two miles here and there when time allows. I feel like I can run a 10K at any time, so I normally try to run a couple of miles before that race,” he joked.
So what does this guy do when he’s not teaching school or timing a local race?
“I enjoy doing anything outside. I was a daredevil in earlier years as I loved rock climbing, kayaking and mountain biking, but these days I enjoy playing golf and hanging out with friends and family.
“I like a fast-paced life as I prefer being busy. I used to bungee jump and have done that more times than I can count as that is such an adrenalin rush. I still want to sky dive and want to go hang gliding as I’m a thrill seeker, but scuba diving is my biggest fear as I’m terrified of drowning.
I eventually would like to do an Ironman, but right now, I don’t know when that will happen,” he concluded.
The Chattanooga Track Club has been an integral part of outdoor activity in the Scenic City for a long time and conducting races is a big part of that. It has become known on a national level as a club that does stuff like that very well.
Trey Stanford is one of the primary reasons for that reputation. And he’s one happy fellow as long as everything turns out right and he can stay behind the scenes, watching others enjoy the fruits of his labor.
(This is the 44th in a series of features on runners in the Chattanooga area. If you know someone who might make an interesting story, email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@comcast.net)