Bethel
Sears, a Bethel resident and third-year member of the town’s school board, is preparing for his first 100-mile run, the Rocky Racoon ultramarathon, to be held Feb. 4-5 in Huntsville, Texas.
Sears, 55, is using the event to raise funds for an academic scholarship benefiting a female White River Valley student wishing to pursue a degree in the field of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).
A retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer now working as a planner for Vermont’s Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, Sears was inspired by the 2013 documentary Particle Fever, which chronicles experimentation during the initial stages of the Large Hadron Collider project in Sweden, resulting in the world’s largest particle collider machine.
A self-described physics geek, Sears was particularly impressed by the acumen of Italian physicist Fabiola Gianotti, a contributor to the project and currently the director general for the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
“She has such a clear love of what she’s doing and is so intelligent while contributing to probably the coolest project ever,” said Sears in an interview in a downtown Bethel cafe. “It made me think, ‘Why aren’t there more women in the STEM field?’ ”
It’s part of a phenomenon called leaky pipe syndrome, Sears said, where young women are either steered away from or decide not to pursue these careers because of a multitude of cultural factors.
“So now we have women representing 50 percent of the workforce, but only 25 percent of these STEM jobs,” Sears said. “I hope, in my own way, to be able to encourage girls in our rural mountain area to pursue these fields.”
Sears had thus far raised $285 toward his goal of $1,500 to provide for the scholarship, which will go to a selected graduating female high school student at Whitcomb, Chelsea, South Royalton or Rochester.
That too few females are pursuing STEM careers is one of the fundamental beliefs Sears cites as a motivator of his fundraising efforts. One of the others is that post-secondary education is vital in an increasingly complex and interconnected world.
“Our kids today are competing (for jobs) on a global stage, not within Bethel, Windsor County or the state of Vermont,” he said. “We need to give them as much of an advantage as we possibly can, and in this day and age, an undergraduate degree is the new high school diploma. To maximize your chances out there, you need to have a degree.”
Sears feels all public schools should operate with an expectation that each of its students will pursue post-secondary education, even though he realizes not every child will.
“We’ll probably never get to a point where 100 out of 100 students go on to college, and there are a lot of reasons for that,” he said. “But we should be expecting every student to do so. I’m not overly thrilled with the level of expectation I’m seeing now.”
Sears is keeping tame his own expectations for Rocky Raccoon, a series of five 20-mile wooded loops in a state park about an hour north of Houston. His primary goal is simply to finish, but that might be modesty speaking.
Sears is a veteran of eight marathons, registering a career-best time of 3 hours, 19 minutes, 51 seconds, at the Boston Marathon last April that was 9 seconds under his goal.
He went on to a productive summer, first running the 36-mile Moosalamoo Ultra in Goshen, Vt., in August in 6:39 to win his age group and place seventh overall. Another age-group win came in early September at the Trail Animals Running Club (TARC) Fall Classic in Carlisle, Mass., where he was sixth overall in the 50K race in 4:59.
Two weeks later, Sears ran the Vermont 50 in 8:39, good for third in his age group and 25th overall of 184 finishers.
His next race will be double Vermont 50’s distance, but Sears hopes to be ready.
“The Vermont 50 had 9,000 feet of altitude change, whereas the Rocky Raccoon’s course is mostly flat,” Sears said. “Still, it’s going to be a big step for me. I just need not to do anything stupid in terms of overtraining. I need to keep my training under control and stay healthy and smart.”
To help do that, Sears hired decorated coach Karl Meltzer, winner of a record 38 100-mile runs. Meltzer — who in September set a speed record for completing the Appalachian Trail in 45 days, 22 hours, 38 minutes — has won 52 ultramarathons overall and has doubled as an ultramarathon coach since 2007.
Communicating online, Meltzer issues progressive training plans to Sears designed to help expand his comfort zone without overtraining. Sears is currently running 40-50 miles per week in a series of three or four-mile intervals, demands he expects to increase about 10 percent per week as race day nears. “By the end of December, I’ll probably be doing 160-180 miles per week,” he said. “We’ve been very structured about it, which is exactly what I was looking for.”
Sears’ diligence has made it easier for Meltzer, who called Sears one of his top pupils to date.
“I’ve had hundreds of clients, and he’s one of the best guys I’ve ever had in terms of submitting his reports back to me and doing his homework,” Meltzer said in a phone interview. “He submits a video where he breaks down his workout as well as a spreadsheet, which is important so that we can study his patterns. He does it in such a textbook way. He gets straight As in that regard.”
Rocky Raccoon’s course isn’t hilly, but it contains a fair number of twists and turns as well as plenty of roots underfoot. The shear length of 100-milers typically proves most challenging for first-timer century seekers, even those as diligent as Sears.
“He has the ability to do it, but a big part of 100-milers is the mental game,” Meltzer said. “For runners as good as Todd, it might even feel easy for the first 40-60 miles. It’s that last 40 where it becomes quite a mental challenge.”
For more information or to donate, visit www.crowdrise.com and search for Todd Sears in the upper right corner of the homepage.
Jared Pendak can be reached at jpendak@vnews.com or 603-727-3225.