Salt Lake City’s Jeff Waldmuller talks about his experience as a prosthetics technician at the 2024 Summer Paralympics and how the Finnish word ‘sisu’ describes his approach to endurance sports.

(Feature photo by Matt Johnson / @matoutdor; taken at Cirque Series)

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Life as a para athlete has taken Jeff Waldmuller to many start lines: 100- and 200-meter races on the track, sprint and Ironman triathlon distances, marathons, and even the Leadville Race Series.

Since losing his leg due to a motorcycle accident, Jeff has proven over and over that he can reach new levels of achievement — both professionally and in the world of endurance sports.

“I try not to let the accident define me, but rather the actions that I took after that define who I am,” Jeff explained. “But [it] certainly was a life-changing moment. It was a fork in the road.”

A professional musician for 10 years prior, he explained, he’d bring his guitar along to his prosthesis fitting appointments. One day, his prosthetist asked about the guitar and Jeff told him he built it himself — milled, kiln-dried, and carved the tree it was made out of — during his downtime. Impressed, his prosthetist invited Jeff into the lab to see how they made prosthetics.

“I found inspiration in the work that was being done to create my prosthetic devices,” Jeff said. “This is really cool. The team is awesome. I want to be part of it.”

Today, Jeff is a research and development prosthetist in Salt Lake City for Ottobock, an international orthopedic technology company and a world leader in the prosthetics field. With Ottobock, he’s traveled as a technician to the 2020 Summer Paralympic Games in Tokyo (held in 2021); the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile; and most recently, the 2024 Summer Paralympic Games in Paris.

At home in Salt Lake City, Jeff competes as a para athlete with Team Catapult and advocates for people with disabilities who participate in sports with the Challenged Athletes Foundation. Realizing the need for a social running club, Jeff founded the LakeFront Runners, which hosts monthly, all-abilities group runs on the west side of Utah County.

Find LakeFront Runners on Facebook.

Below, Jeff shares about his time at the 2024 Summer Paralympics, where his running journey is taking him, and how endurance events are becoming more inclusive to athletes of all abilities.

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What was your experience at the 2024 Summer Paralympics in Paris?

Paris was interesting because I played a similar but different role [than in Tokyo]. I was there still as a technician, but I also served a role as kind of a press representative .… I interviewed with The New York Times, Reuters, NBC, and all these other groups from around the world, even meeting with the CEOs of Asics, Salomon, the president of the International Paralympics Committee, and the Foreign Minister of Germany.

People often don’t realize that we repair not only athletes’ competition devices, but also their daily-use equipment — whether it’s a prosthesis, orthotic, wheelchair, or any other device, including those of their support team. We even create flag-bearer harnesses for the opening and closing ceremonies.

There are a lot of repairs — over 3,000 repairs or adjustments documented in the [few weeks] that our workshops are open. In the moment, you gotta do what you gotta do [for the athletes] — to enable them to safely compete at their best, and then maybe they’ll come back later and we’ll make a more long-term repair.

But sometimes…we had this athlete come in and their prostheses were in such poor condition. They came from a country with limited resources. We had to create completely new prosthetics for them .… they were missing both legs. These prosthetics are crucial — our work transformed their life, allowing them to achieve their athletic potential and enhance their daily living, making it easier to care for their children and perform at work or take part in whatever role they have in the community. It’s empowering the work that we do.

The coolest part for me…there may be 20 people in a room, all from different countries, but we’re all there in the spirit of sport and supportive of one another. The heart of the Paralympics is huge and filled with inspiration. Every single person there has the most incredible story. The fact that I can be a part of that journey is special to me.

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What are you currently focused on in your own running journey?

I moved to Utah to pursue career opportunities, and the mountains were calling. I found myself mountain biking [and doing] a bunch of trail running, and I was loving it .… I started running marathons and really kind of honing in on this long-distance running. That’s where my focus has been the last several years, is in the marathon and ultramarathon.

A Few of Jeff’s Favorite Races:
RUN|SLC Series
Wasatch Trail Series
Cirque Series
Chevron Houston Marathon

Now, the marathon is more my competitive side .… I race in a para-pro category. I’ve qualified for Boston five times, but I’ve been twice. I’m going again this next year. New York City Marathon, London Marathon this last year.

And then Leadville 100 .… I love being on trail. That’s my place. And I love these long, hard races where it’s testing every bit of my energy and my grit, testing me to see how far I can push myself.

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Have you always pushed the limits of what you can accomplish?

I always dove in the deep end — put the cart before the horse, as people would say. I’m just now realizing, it’s not only my sports career, but pretty much everything .… I’m not going to just sign up for a 5K if there’s a marathon available. I tend to go for the biggest, and perhaps that’s the way I’ve always been. But it was especially after I lost my leg that I really had to see, ‘what can I do?’

I still don’t know what I can do. I’m still trying to find, at what point does my body stop and go no further? I don’t know what that is .… I went through a lot at Leadville last year, like broken bones, and still managed to continue. So does it have to be more severe than that?

There’s a word in Finnish: sisu …. The word has been growing in popularity I’m finding. People are starting to use it globally, but it doesn’t translate to English very well. Sisu describes one’s ability that, whenever that person is faced with the most extreme adversity, where everyone else would fail to even consider moving forward, they find the extreme determination and grit to continue on. It’s like this undeniable determination to continue. That is my word.

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Do you find that endurance sports are becoming more inclusive of athletes of all abilities?

Yes, they have become more inclusive. For sure. I’ve been competing for 14 years now as a prosthetic user. It was pretty tough starting off with because I would show up to these events, and I would have to just sign up in able-bodied categories …. I’d sign up just normal age group, or however I could get in. And that’s fine. I certainly earned my way up to be able to race with them. But I have needs as a prosthetic user. I have needs that sometimes weren’t accommodated.

There are reasonable accommodations that are needed for para athletes to participate in some of these events. When I first started competing in these races, I would rarely see other para athletes out …. Especially in the last probably five or six years, [there’s been] huge growth in sport for inclusion. We call it para inclusion or adaptive inclusion. To the point that race directors are actually reaching out and saying, ‘Hey, come race my race.’

It is good for [races] to show that they’re inclusive, and what better way to show inclusion than having someone with a physical disability on their race course? That makes people feel good about that race, and so they want to go. Houston Marathon, for example, we had 200 athletes out there, in the para athlete division, last year. It’s amazing! When I first did it, there were only 20 athletes.

Now we have our own competitive categories, and we have para-pro at some of these races. So I can race in a professional level category where people take competition seriously, where I can go to a race and not be standing by myself on a podium …. Maybe I’m standing in third place. Maybe I didn’t even make podium because there were other athletes faster than me. So that’s really cool and also pushes me.

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What advice would you give to para athletes who want to participate in endurance races, and to endurance race organizers on building more inclusive experiences?

It’s a worthwhile endeavor. It can be challenging. It can be frustrating for all parties involved, and it’s not easy …. You have to take everything situationally.

From the adaptive athlete side of things, we should not expect anyone to do anything bending over backwards. We should only ask for reasonable accommodations. What do you actually need in order to participate in this event versus what do you want? Do you want special treatment? Because endurance sports, and sports in general, is not where you go to get special treatment …. If you want to be an athlete, go in, have an athlete-first mindset, and be an athlete.

[For race organizers,] have conversations. Ask questions. Are there accommodations we can make for this race or event that can encourage more adaptive athletes or more adaptive inclusion? And what do those look like?

The biggest thing is making sure you’re open to having that discussion and not being afraid to make those reasonable accommodations, whether it’s to the race course or something the athlete needs to compete.

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Read more stories of inspiring runners and run clubs.

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MORE ON RUNNING IN SALT LAKE CITY:

Your Guide to Running in Salt Lake City

Destination Races in Salt Lake City to Add to Your Calendar