Running Under the Radar: Kyler Sager
Written by Liam Potocsnak, Former Student on Wednesday, January 23, 2013
There is a group of guys who can be seen running through Snohomish almost every single day. In the cold or the rain, they still run, hammering down their shoes into the pavement and the puddles as they train, pushing each other, and stopping only for cars. It takes only a look at their strained muscles to see how hard they work. And the guy at the front? That’s Kyler Sager.
Though his name is often heard over the announcements, Sager, a junior at SHS, is remarkably quiet about his running. He has been running for SHS since he was a freshman, but his history with the sport goes back much further.
“I started running competitively in seventh grade, but I guess you could say it actually started with those Great Pumpkin Races. I think I started in third grade, and I didn’t do very good in the beginning, like top ten. By sixth grade, I got second, and I thought that was pretty good and I’d try it out in middle school.”
Sager presently runs on both the cross country and track teams, and is going to be a captain on next year’s cross country team. In track, he runs the 800 meter, the mile, the 2 mile, and the 4 x 4 relay.
“I like to do sprints sometimes, like the 4 x 4, but I don’t really like the 2 mile very much. It’s too many laps for me.”
Sager’s specialty, however, seems to be in the middle distance events. Last year at the WESCO meet, Sager got 4th in the prelims and 5th in finals for the 800 meter, running a personal record 2:01. The highlight, so Sager, was that he ran that time as a sophomore, getting 5th against a field of juniors and sophomores. This year, he is looking to move up the podium and perhaps even win.
“I’d like to win. It’d be cool to have a WESCO title. Some kind of title, something.”
Sager’s goals go beyond a WESCO title, though. This year, he would like to compete at state in the 800 meter and the 4 x 4 relay, maybe in the mile. For next year, he would like to come away with a state title in track and run times in the low 16 minute range for cross country.
Sager has high aspirations, but he definitely has the work ethic to achieve them. Junior Brenden Perry, his friend and fellow cross country captain, identifies his work ethic as a boost to the whole team. “He tries to be better, so he always pushes me and everyone else, too.”
Sager is motivated by competition, and cites that as being the fun part of running.
“Running is fun. It’s not so much the running, really. The running actually kind of sucks; it hurts really bad, it’s not very fun. It’s trying to win. When you win, it’s just better because it hurt so much. You earned it.”
And Sager has earned his victories. After a tough cross country season filled with unfortunate illness and health setbacks, Sager is taking some time to rest before he gets back to harder workouts, but he can barely wait to get back to competing, even in practice. “They’re our friends, they’re our teammates, but you want to beat the so bad.”
Sager also competes with his role models.
“I want to be like Jared Lenning. I always thought of him as a supreme athlete, you couldn’t touch him. I still try to keep up with him. I go online and check his times every year to see if I’m on track to beat Jared Lenning.”
Despite his impressive record and hopes for an even more impressive future, Sager is modest about how he hopes to be remembered, wanting to be “just another guy running. I mean, we might be different in times, but I’m just a normal friend, a normal guy.”
If it’s his goal to be well liked, then he is succeeding. Perry says that, “Kyler makes it easier on everyone, more fun to hang out and run cross country with.”
His cross country coach, Dave LeWarne, agrees that Sager is much more to the team than he would ever claim to be. “A kid that works as hard as him serves as a role model for the team. He’s a pretty fantastic kid.”
