Seville rocks RunWild

Sean Seville was unstoppable in his quest to repeat as the half-marathon champion in Sunday’s Leading Edge RunWild.

After a brief detour on the 21.1-kilometre route the St. Albert speedster got back on track to roar across the finish line with a course record and personal best time of one hour, 15 minutes and 39 seconds.

“It’s incredible and just to repeat is amazing,” said a stoked Seville after sharing a long victory kiss with his girlfriend, Jen McCormack, the top female in the RunWild 10-km race.

“You have to subtract two minutes off probably from that time, just as a result of going the wrong way, so I’m extremely happy,” added Seville, who lowered his half-marathon PB by 12 seconds while breaking the RunWild record of 1:22:02 by Robert Brunelle in 2013.

An early snafu in the race saw the lead runners bolt from the start line, located across from St. Albert Place, then turn left off St. Anne Street and cross the Perron Street Bridge before they hastily reversed direction.

“We turned to go down the bridge and towards Mission hill and then we peeled back because we were going the wrong way,” said Seville of the front-runners who had a pace bike in front of them. “As soon as that happened my nerves went off. We were playing catch up for about three kilometres after that catching the pack and then once I started to peel away and feeling comfortable it just became a really good nice flow.”

Seville, 31, was rubbing shoulders with Marc Meunier (runner-up at 1:18:52), Alexander Petrosky (third place at 1:19:12) and James Acheson (fourth place at 1:19:55) when the starter’s horn blew.

“We started off pretty quick, a 3:30 pace. Marc and another fellow had a little conversation saying it’s a pretty good pace so we started off hot, but once we went the wrong way it put us back about two minutes and then it was catch-up time,” Seville said. “I managed to find my flow down Sturgeon Road and pumped it right up the hill. They added an extra hill this year, which made it even harder, but my legs were working really well. My form has improved since last year so I was able to pick up my feet to my glutes a little bit easier. My glutes were in better shape this year so it meant that I was more efficient overall.”

Meunier, 42, and the rest of the contenders needed a GPS device to locate the runaway locomotive.

“We weren’t even in the mix, honestly. Sean took off and I could see him in the distance and there was no way we were going to catch him. He was two minutes ahead of us the whole time,” said Meunier, the winner of three out of four RunWild marathons, the only marathons in St. Albert history, before it was dropped from this year’s lineup of run/walk events.

Last year, Meunier and Petrosky placed first and second, respectively, in the RunWild marathon at 2:47:26 and 2:51:43 but were unable to wrestle the half-marathon crown away from Seville.

“Sean defended his title like a good champ should so good on him,” Meunier said. “He is just getting stronger every year and I think the guy is going to go 1:10 here some day so I’ve definitely got my money on that kid for the next five years. He’s a strong runner and he’s a good guy too.”

Meunier was all smiles after one of the rare standalone half-marathons of his career.

“I looked down (at my watch) and saw 1:18 even with our slight little detour so it was pretty good,” said the Paul Kane High School athletic director of equaling his PB time. “(The detour) was about 400 metres we figure, 200 metres out and 200 back, and then Sean was gone.

“Hats off to guys like that when you see them go. You know you’re not in that same zone. I just sat in fourth until 17 K and pushed into second in the last two kilometres.”

Meunier soldiered through a nagging hamstring injury for the podium finish.

“It was tight but there was no way I was not going to be going in this one.”

Seville was also locked in mentally and physically for the big race. The Paul Kane alumnus was spotted Saturday afternoon zipping around the Grandin neighbourhood with a determined look etched across his face.

“Was there pressure to repeat? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. My nerves were shot. Even when I picked up my kit yesterday I could barely talk. I’m confident with my training but the nerves were more I would have to say excitement because this is such a wonderful event,” said last year’s champion at 1:23:14 and the 2013 runner-up at 1:27:16.