In 1983 (two years after his injury) Saunders was persuaded by his brother, Gerald from Greenville, South Carolina to try entering his first wheelchair race, the Peachtree Road Race held in Atlanta, Georgia, every year on July 4. Saunders signed up, though he had only participated in wheelchair basketball and had never trained for a wheelchair race. About the experience, Saunders has said, “I didn’t even know how long the course was. I could understand distance in miles, but didn’t have a point of reference for how far one kilometer was, let alone 10K.”.
