Bloomsday Perennial: Jeff Snow finds it hard to act his age when the starter pistol goes off

Retired ophthalmologist and eye surgeon Jeff Snow is 79 now, but that doesn’t stop his body from having an instinctive reaction every time a Bloomsday race starts.

“When the gun goes off, all the sudden I’m 22 and I just take off,” he said.

His body quickly reminds him, though, that he’s not 22, and he slows to a walk.

Snow is one of 70 Bloomsday perennials who have completed the race every year since it began in 1977.

In 2025, he had the goal of finishing the race in under two hours. When the Spokane County Courthouse came into view near the end of the race, he checked his watch and tried to pick up the pace.

“I’m thinking, ‘Oh, Lord, this is going to be close,’ ” he said. He finished in one hour, 59 minutes, 24 seconds. Goal accomplished.

Snow grew up in the area and went to Washington State University before attending medical school in the Midwest. After he graduated, he joined the Air Force and was stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base, where he began jogging during his lunch hour.

“I was a competitive swimmer before then, in high school and college,” he said. “We’d go out and run around Fairchild. That’s how I got started on the running thing.”

The first Bloomsday was advertised as a chance to “Run with the Stars,” one of whom was Olympic gold medalist Frank Shorter.

“We thought, wow, we can tell our grandkids we ran with Frank Shorter,” Snow said. “We ran it. We never saw Frank Shorter.”

Snow had never run more than a few miles at a time before the first Bloomsday – certainly not 8 miles. The start time that first year was 1:30 p.m.

“It was hot,” he said. “I did OK. It was easier than I thought it would be. It just kind of flowed.”

The race didn’t flow for everyone, however, as numerous people dropped out due to the high temperatures.

“One of my friends got heat stroke,” Snow said. “We went down and put his legs in the river and covered him with wet towels.”

Snow was surprised when the second Bloomsday was announced.

“We thought it was a one-off deal,” he said. “When they said they were going to do it again, it seemed like the thing to do.”

During the first few years, Snow just happened to be available on the first Sunday in May. After that, he made it a point to be there.

“You knew so many people you’d see there,” he said. “It’s just an annual celebration of life to look forward to. It’s a big party, and it’s a social thing. You see people you don’t see any other time.”

In the earlier years, Snow, his wife, Julie, their three daughters and extended family members would turn Bloomsday into an event. Before the roads shut down, his wife’s parents would park their Winnebago in a downtown parking lot, and everyone would gather there after the race for a picnic.

“There’d be cold beer and potato salad,” Snow said.

Though Snow has been dedicated to participating in the first 49 Bloomsdays, he confesses that he’s had to miss out on other events in order to make it happen. Snow loves wine and has always wanted to go to the Walla Walla Balloon Stampede, which includes flying over vineyards in hot air balloons and numerous wine tastings, but it’s usually held over the first weekend in May.

“We’ve missed a lot of things that we might have gone to,” he said.

Still, Snow doesn’t have regrets. He has a complete collection of Bloomsday shirts that he wears often, but he stopped wearing the 1977 finisher shirt when it started to look raggedy.

Snow said he’s grateful that Bloomsday has been a community staple all these years.

“A lot of credit goes to Don Kardong for imagining this event and getting the mayor and city council on board,” he said. “He had the vision and he sold it. It’s been a great thing for Spokane.”

Snow said he’s been lucky with his health and his knees are still in good shape, allowing him to still go out and walk most days of the week.

He’s also been able to avoid injuries on the course, though he does remember one close call. In 1988, a wooden platform in the back of a truck holding photographers and TV cameras collapsed, dumping people and equipment into the street right at the start of the race.

Snow said it was chaos, with the mess blocked by the bodies of runners until they were quite literally on top of it. Camera crews were bumping into runners as they tried to retrieve their equipment, and there were cables all over the road, Snow said.

“I had to hurdle over a camera,” he said. “It was really quite a mess.”

At his age, Snow worries about falling during a race and getting hurt.

He said he’s instructed his family to push him across the finish line in a stretcher this May if they have to so he can officially finish the 50th Bloomsday.

“I just hope to get to the end still alive,” he said. “It’s harder than it used to be.”