UNION SPRINGS - By the time Russ Ebbets was 11 years old he had established a passion for running that has sustained throughout his entire life.

“I played basketball,” Ebbets said. “And that was right around the time I got into running. All through high school I ran and played basketball and I ran in college, too.”

Ebbets would go on to run in the Empire Games for many years before tapering off his own competitive running career, but still the chiropractor is never far from the sport he has loved most of his life.

“I never got much beyond (the Empire Games), but I think I still hold a few records in the 800 and I won a few gold medals,” Ebbets said. “I haven't run competitively in over 15 years; I still jog once in a while and I still do some writing on the sport and I teach at the (Chiropractic) college and we go and provide care at at least 25 different events a year, so that is how I still stay active in the sport.”

But this is also a passion that Ebbets, who spent 11 years coaching on the high school and collegiate levels, converted into something more.

Ebbets was responsible for the creation of The Deuce, a 2-mile road race in Union Springs.

“I started it seven years ago,” Ebbets said. “There used to be a triathlon here, but that petered out for one reason or another and when I moved here 11 years ago, I thought this was the kind of thing that we needed and I had a lot of experience organizing these kinds of things from my years coaching and I just thought it would be great to get something like this going.”

Ebbets took the idea to various organizations in the community, hoping to use the event as a charity fund-raiser and the Frontenac Museum was quick to jump at the opportunity.

“They bit,” Ebbets said. “And it has been very successful ever since. I think it is their largest fund-raiser of the year and it has really worked out for them and for the runners.” Right out of the gate runners took to the idea. Ebbets oversaw much of the race, but recently it has grown into a true group effort to make the race run smoothly.

“The first year we had a pretty good turn out,” Ebbets said. “When it started I marked out the course and did a lot of that stuff. Now the museum takes care of a lot of those things. We have meetings and I talk with Pat (Kimber, president of the museum's historical society) and we consult with the museum's board and they do so much to get this together, especially in the past few years. It has been run really well, which is something that the runners have really come to expect from this race - that it will be an exciting and safe race. And we work with the police and we have a lot of support and sponsorship in the village as well...it has really become a true community event.”

The race continues to draw more and more participants, from the casual runner to high school athletes to collegiate and other competitive runners.

“I'm very pleased,” Ebbets said. “I think we have something kind of unique. We're pretty small here (in Union Springs) but we draw a pretty good number of runners each year and I think that is because we do offer something unique.”

This has been through the hard work of everyone involved in the race.

“There are other races out in Seneca Falls and Rochester,” Ebbets said. “And we make a point of getting the information out there and making people aware of us.”

So far the response is something Ebbets believes bodes well for the future of the race.

“We had high school runners in the first three spots in the open men's division,” Ebbets said. “I think that this is really good for the race. These are the people that will come back year after year and will help this race keep developing.”

The race just celebrated its eighth year this past weekend and looking toward the future, Ebbets sees a lot of potential in what the race can offer and directions it could potentially evolve in, but no matter how the race develops, Ebbets will always be able to take a certain sense of satisfaction from having a hand in getting it going.

“There has been some talk of doing a grand prix,” Ebbets said. “There are a number of different races around here and we've talked about doing something with one of the other ones, but we haven't made any plans yet. Right now things are cooking along really well. It is a really well run race and things have been going very smoothly, a tremendous amount of planning and preparation goes into this and I am very proud to be a part of it.”