STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — The amazing part isn’t that few in the Steamboat Springs running community have heard of Nicholas Sunseri.
Sunseri is just another in a long line of Steamboat Springs Running Series champions, many of whom seem to come from nowhere, blow the field away, win the championship and step back for the next runner.
This summer marked at least the fifth in a row that featured a different men’s champ, so it isn’t Sunseri’s burst onto the scene that has left people talking all summer, has wowed opponents and had race directors double-checking their stop watches.
It’s how Sunseri burst onto the scene.
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Sunseri won every local race he entered in 2011 with one exception, but the summer of winning wasn’t something Sunseri prepared for as much as it has been something that has prepared him.
He took to the sport in junior high and flourished in high school, in Raleigh, N.C., eventually earning the right to compete at University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where he ran cross country as well as indoor and outdoor track.
He took a break after two years and went to train in Canada, where he had spent time growing up and earned citizenship, but later returned to collegiate athletics by walking on at Florida State.
He pumped the brakes big time after graduating, however, and packed up with a now-ex-girlfriend to move to Steamboat two years ago.
The Yampa Valley proved another world, one where he skied five days a week and became adept at navigating the region’s backcountry slopes but one where he rarely, if ever, ran.
Sunseri said his lifestyle drove him back to running this year, and he tried to pick the sport back up, first on the treadmills then on trails.
Before long, he was running 100-mile weeks and burning through a pair of shoes nearly once a month.
He has had little trouble slipping into Steamboat’s thriving running community. This fall he has helped coach the cross country team at Steamboat Springs High School.
“I’m super excited about it,” Sailors distance coach Greg Long said. “He comes from a big-time running program at Florida State, and he’s been around a lot of elite athletes, so that’s really fun for the kids.”
The Running Series has made for nice training, Sunseri said, but he’s never had a summer training like he’s put together in Steamboat.
“He was really beating everyone senseless,” series director Cara Marrs said. “He didn’t just win a bunch of the races — he did it with amazing times. A lot of the time, the runners coming in second or third had what were some of the fastest times of the course, but they weren’t close to Nick.”
A question lingers: Sunseri may be good for Steamboat, but is Steamboat good for Sunseri? He has big-time goals in running, ones he’s rededicated himself to after his initial Yampa Valley hiatus. Some are so big, he’s almost embarrassed to mention them.
“If I talk about it and don’t come close, I look like an idiot,” Sunseri said, debating.
He continued talking.
“Competing at Florida State opened my eyes. We had a bunch of Olympians on the team, and I’d train with those guys,” he said. “Occasionally, in workouts during hard intervals I’d beat them. I thought, ‘OK, well, if I can beat them today, why can’t I beat them in a race?’
“I thought: ‘If they can do it, the Olympics, maybe I can do it. Maybe I won’t win a medal, but maybe I can get there.’ “
The dominating summer series has done plenty to fuel his confidence, but he has been unsure just what it all means. He wants to make a dent in his sport but has had few ways to know whether his training is paying off.
“I plan on going to Denver for the Rock ‘n’ Roll half-marathon (Oct. 9) just to see how I do,” he said. “It’s just been really hard for me to gauge. I’ve always had a coach to tell me what to do before, but now I’ve been doing this on my own.”
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