Jan Seeley
Jan Seeley is a modern Renaissance woman, succeeding in pursuits as wide-ranging as field hockey, running, writing, and race directing. She grew up in Holbrook, Massachusetts, one of three siblings and the only girl. She always loved running as part of play and playing games with her brothers.
Jan talked a lot about being in “the right place at the right time.” She has fond memories of growing up in Holbrook with her parents, brothers, friends, and neighbors. She was 12 years old when Title IX passed, and opportunities for women in sports abounded. She enjoyed running and did well, but didn’t think of herself as a great runner. She did, though, win a 4th of July race in her hometown at age 10, and received ribbons for her effort. She still has the photo with her first-place ribbons. She also organized activities for the kids in her neighborhood, showing her race-director expertise as a child.
In her early years, Jan attended Catholic school, where sports weren’t offered for women. Once she got to high school, Jan went out for cross-country and her first love, field hockey, where she excelled. She was named to the Boston Globe All-Scholastic Field Hockey team. Jan was recruited by, and attended, Yale University and played field hockey there, attending summer Field Hockey camps.
Jan’s talent and ability were evident, and she was selected as first alternate for the United States field hockey team for the Olympics, to be held in Moscow in 1980. Vonnie Gross, who recently passed away, was the team’s coach. Jan traveled to Philly every weekend to train with the team. Sadly, Jan and the team stayed home due to the U.S. boycott of the Moscow Olympics. Jan continues to work as a color commentator for most of Yale’s field hockey home games, as part of the broadcast team on ESPN Plus.
While at Yale, Jan met her future husband, Joe Seeley. Joe was a stellar runner at Yale and set the half-mile outdoor record, which stood for many years. Joe and Jan were part of a group of friends who hung out together, but it wasn’t until April 1, 1982, that shy Joe worked up the nerve to ask Jan out. From then until his untimely passing in 2012, Joe and Jan were together. They ran and raced together, too. Joe coached cross-country and track and taught at the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. Jan taught at the Taft School, not far from Hotchkiss. After four years, they wanted to pursue post-grad degrees and moved to the Champaign-Urbana area to attend the University of Illinois.
The Seeleys were busy: Grad school, marriage, kids (Jake and Paul), and becoming active in the Second Wind Running Club. They attended Road Runners Club of America conventions as Second Wind members, and they were the club’s newsletter editors. When the RRCA’s national publication, Footnotes, needed new editors, Jan approached the RRCA executive director, Henley Gabeau, about applying. Henley told her that the application process was closed.
That didn’t deter Jan. As Jan commented, “You know me, I’m like a dog with a bone.” Jan and Joe got their resumes together using the hotel’s business office. Jan then slipped the resume under Henley’s hotel-room door, and they got the job.
At this point, she was working for Human Kinetics as a book editor. Again, she was in the right place at the right time—Rich Benyo, one of their authors and a well-known runner, proposed the idea of the company producing a publication called Marathon & Beyond. Jan was moved to the journals division and given the role of managing editor. When, in 1998, Human Kinetics decided to close it, Jan and Rich bought it and continued publishing until 2015—19 years total in print. The online archives are now available at Marathon Handbook.
Jan was juggling more than most people could handle—and then came some challenging news about Joe’s health. He had already been through difficult treatments for ulcerative colitis and aplastic anemia, and received regular blood tests. At the end of 2010, one of those tests was abnormal, and he was soon diagnosed with leukemia. Thus began treatments, including chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants from his sister, Mara. While Joe was in treatment at the University of Chicago, Jan got an apartment there, going back and forth between there and Champaign–Urbana, with other family members also taking shifts.
For a while, he rallied, and was able to attend Jake’s graduation from Haverford College near Philadelphia in May 2012, help with the Illinois race weekend that year, and even walk the 5K. He also began writing a blog, calling it “Joe’s Blasts,” which Jan has since turned into a book. But his recovery was short-lived, and on Oct. 13, 2012, Joe Seeley passed away, surrounded by family and friends. Joe was kind, caring, supportive, funny, and a true Mensch. His memory is a blessing.
Jan and Paul race weekend
Jan talked about her grief. It’s always there, it’s just different as the years go by. She attended grief support and is still friends with some of the participants. With grief, Jan feels we can either be “bitter or better.” Jan chooses “better” and has used her grief to become a better person.
Joe requested that Jan run races for him after he passed. Jan will be at the Calgary Marathon in May, where she’ll run the 10K and also volunteer.
Jan was involved from the very first Illinois Race Weekend in 2009, a group of races in Champaign-Urbana. Jan became part of it at the request of Mark Knutson, race director of the Fargo Marathon. She brought in Mike Lindeman, who owned the local running store. They became co-race directors in 2010, and the Christie Clinic was the title sponsor.
The race weekend included a 5K, 10K, and marathon, and it took off and grew … and grew, from 9,700 runners the first year to, at one point, about 20,000. Now, the event weekend also includes hands-on CPR training and Kicks for CU Kids, a non-profit that provides running shoes for underrepresented kids who can take part in the 5K or Youth Runs.
The 2026 edition of the Christie Clinic Illinois Race Weekend just concluded, from Thursday, April 23, to Saturday, April 25. For more information about this year’s event and next year’s, visit https://Illinoismarathon.com.
Note about the author: Freddi Carlip, a founding member of Starting Line 1928, is a runner, writer, former president of the Road Runners Club of America, the RRCA’s Miss Road Manners, and editor/publisher of Runner’s Gazette, America’s first running newspaper.
