The Victory Lap: Sara Vaughn🏆
In this week’s Friday interview we had the good fortune to sit down with Sara Vaughn. At 35 years old, she has found a way to do it all. In addition to a successful career as a realtor in Boulder, Sara is a mother to four children and holds personal bests of 4:04 (1500m), 4:27 (Mile) and 9:38 (3000m SC). In 2017, just one year after giving birth to her third, she finished 3rd at USAs to qualify for the World Championships in London. Sara is a veteran runner who continues to advocate for the next generation of women so that they may not have to face the same barriers in their careers and we are honored to help share her story.
This year has seemed like a bit of a come back season, would you call it that? I know you didn’t race much last year and you were definitely improving as the season progressed.
I would call it a comeback season. I didn't race except for like, a few time trials against my husband in all of 2020, and also I was coming back from having my baby. So it was like a delayed comeback season for me, for sure.
Did you plan on competing at an elite level again after your most recent pregnancy?
Yeah! I was actually just looking back through my Instagram and I made a post in April of 2019. He was born in August and my intentions were always to make it back to the Trials. So that's actually the first time that I've done that, announcing publicly that I wanted to try to get back, because before that I was always kind of like, if it happens, great. If it doesn't, I'm fine. But I don't know. I already missed competing at that point, so I definitely wanted to try to get back to the Trials.
You have four kids now and have come back to elite fitness four times. What is it about your process? Because it doesn't seem like it's getting harder. That might be a dumb question as someone that’s on the outside – has it gotten easier or are you just more aware of what you need to get back into that sort of shape? I just think it's remarkable.
I mean, I think it's a combination of those things. I definitely know which boxes to check to get in shape depending on the time I have — where in the calendar I have the baby versus the next big championship.
In 2016 I felt really rushed, I think my third kid was about 10 months old and I felt like I was — I mean, you can't shortcut fitness. But I felt like I skipped a bunch of my base phase or dabbled in it but then jumped right into track training and doing speed intervals and things like that to try to get in shape quicker.
So it just is a combination of knowing what I need to do, but also really knowing my body and how I respond to certain training stimuli and taking advantage of that. This time around though, I appreciate the outside perspective, but it felt like forever until I got back into shape. And I'm so glad the Olympic Trials were moved a year because I don't know I could have made that happen otherwise. I would have been really scrambling to make it happen in 2020.
This season has to have you excited for next year. Just from personally being at a lot of your races this year I know you had a faster 1500 in you, and you’re getting close to your PRs and the times you were running when you made the 2017 team.
Definitely. I think it took me a while to get my confidence back in the 1500. And it took forever for my top end speed to come back. That was sort of discouraging earlier in the season, like in April and May when I was trying to hit track sessions. I just thought that I was succumbing to this whole thing that I hear from everybody that like, once you get older, your speed starts to go. And I was like, well, I guess it happens at thirty-five because I'm not fast anymore. I just could not make the speed workouts happen. It was atrocious.
I remember we went to sea level in March and I tried to do an all out 400 and I couldn't. I could hardly run race pace. I think I ran a 62 and I was just so sad. But I made a ton of progress from then on with my top end speed, and ended up running a 41-second 300 in July which is probably close to my PR. I actually PRed in a flat 400 in Boulder!
I feel like it took forever to get that back. But that sort of changed our decision-making for the Trials, to lean towards the steeple, because I didn't think I was fast anymore and my strength training was going well. But then, for me, I think it just takes racing a ton. I had to start throwing myself into 1500s again. I mean call it rust or whatever you want, It just took getting my feet wet in that specific stimulus to feel confident again. So I would like to think you're right. I definitely feel like I had a faster 1500 if I had been in the right race or had different opportunities this season, but that didn’t quite happen.
I definitely feel at least partially responsible for a couple of those missed opportunities – Nikki somehow ended up in the front off the line and isn’t someone who pulls a race early.
But that's racing! I mean you can get rusty tactic-wise too. I think one of my early season races I took the lead and I definitely wasn't supposed to do that. And then the next 1500 after that, I sat in the back and I wasn't supposed to do that either. It was like I couldn't remember how to race!
So your decision to go to the steeple, was that just sort of, like you said, out of fear that you weren't quick enough? Because I feel like the way those 1500 rounds were run, that was suited pretty well for you.
I definitely regret not running the 1500, but going into the Trials, I just did not think that I was going to be able to qualify. I mean, I did end up getting in on time at the end of the day, but I didn’t get the automatic Trials qualifier. So I wasn't sure that I would be in and, you know, the schedule was a little off, so timing it with flights and hotel and everything was a little tricky.
And, yeah, it was just like my strength training was going well and I wasn't really confident in 5k, but l I had steepled in the past and I feel comfortable over hurdles. So it just seemed organically the best choice. Plus training was going well, I can handle the impact of the water jump and the hurdles well, and looked decent in practice doing it. But the steeple at Trials went atrociously bad. Looking back and being this far removed and zooming out it just went poorly for a couple of reasons. And I think I would have done better in the 1500. But you make the best choices with the information you have and at that time that's what we felt was best.
I definitely understand not wanting to compete at the Trials in an event you aren't confident in. You've been in the sport for a long time, have been sponsored by adidas, Nike, and Brooks at times throughout your career, but have mostly trained without a group, do you prefer it that way?
Well, I should clarify. I wasn’t really sponsored by Adidas — it was a couple thousand dollars and gear, it wasn't like they really invested in me. It was supposed to be a two year deal. And I got pregnant with my second kid and they said that they were extremely disappointed in their investment and stopped sending me gear.
And like, honestly, as far as groups, I just got told “no” a lot out of college. It wasn't a choice of like, “Ooo, I’m going to forge my own path and do this completely alone.” It was more that Mammoth Track Club told me no, all of the Nike groups told me no. Everybody just said no thanks. I don't know why.
I didn't take my fifth year of eligibility. I had a degree already and a kid and I just got tired of school. So what would have been my fifth year, I ran like 4:10, which would have been at the top of NCAA, possibly winning in that year. But I had a kid and I think that just prevented sponsors and groups from wanting to sponsor me, especially at that time. Fifteen years ago, people were like, no thanks. They were not interested. Even coaches and agents told me no. I mean, I asked probably six or seven agents out of college to help me and nobody wanted to help me. A lot of groups said that they would want Brent [Vaughn, Sara’s husband], but not me. So in the early days, running by myself was more because we were making decisions based on Brent’s running and I was never formally included in the group, wherever we were.
I’m trying to think of all the coaches and agents at that time, even the people in the marketing positions. Were any of the people you talked to women? Karen Locke is the only person coming to mind and she doesn’t represent a ton of distance runners.
I mean, that's a good point. I don't recall talking to any women in any of those positions, even in sports marketing. And like, there's a story, you know, like what they did with Sarah Brown in 2016. I would have loved doing something like that with a shoe company and could have given them that opportunity four times now! But yeah, at the time, I don't recall ever speaking to any women.
Have you seen the landscape change since you've been a pro? What areas of the sport do you think need more attention?
I was just talking about this the other day with another runner — a lot of the changes I've seen and that I've advocated for. I’ve realized over the last few years that by the time these changes have happened, you know, they’re probably not going to benefit me. But at this point in my career, I'm not going to slow down on being an advocate.
I've seen other women benefit from it. And that's wonderful. I mean, the pregnancy clauses being added to contracts are so, so, so important. I was so naive. Like with adidas, with my first contract, I told people there when I got pregnant with my second and I was so excited and I thought they were going to be excited too. I was completely blindsided by the response I got from them. I just was completely naive. So I want women to feel that joy and excitement of sharing that they're growing their family and have their sponsors be excited, too.
My good friend Katie Follett just had a baby, and Brooks has done a total 180, you know, using her in their marketing and everything. So that's wonderful. And then also just in general, seeing more women in sports marketing positions, especially with that particular company, and also seeing more women coaches are out there as well.
It’s always so interesting to me to see some of these decisions being made by some people at these companies. It seems like such an easy sell to tell a story like yours, versus playing roulette trying to find a fast college kid.
Well, I think it's a two-pronged fight for me at this point, because it's been the “kids problem” my whole career. But now I have age fighting against me, too. And let's be honest, that's a whole other issue in this sport: ageism, but people are moving the needle on that, too. As soon as I turned 31, it was like, okay I'm probably never going to get a deal at this point. That's just that's how it was.
And in the same vein as you being a mom and proving that you can still run quickly, you and quite a few other women in the sport right now are doing the same thing with age, showing you can be well into your 30’s and still competing at an elite level.
Oh yeah, I agree. And I mean, I've reached the point in my life where I'm probably not going to sign with anybody for a small amount of money because I already work a ton. At this point I'm not going to be dedicating more hours to working with a shoe company because I’ve worked too hard in my other career [in real estate] to sacrifice any of that.
How has Brent been as a coach and is that something that either of you want to expand now or down the road?
He's been wonderful as a coach. In the beginning when I was doing nothing but running, it would have been really nice to be in a group. But at this point, with my work schedule, plus I'm like having to carpool, and drop kids off, and help with homework and all that... I tried being in a group for a few years here in Boulder and I just felt like I couldn't at the time. I was constantly canceling on people and not able to meet for group functions. And I just didn't feel like I could be a good teammate because my schedule was so goofy.
So having Brent be my coach just makes so much sense. We can adjust things on the fly and he understands if I was up all night with the kid with an earache and I probably won't be able to do 10 x 400 the next morning or whatever.
And we’ve coached other people in the past. We coached another miler/5k woman for a little, Ashley Maton, and shaved like 40 seconds off her 5k time. It was so wonderful. And she was working full time too, so her schedule made a lot of sense for her to line up with me. But she doesn't live in Colorado anymore so that's a bummer.
It's something we were just talking about this morning. I would love to coach in some capacity. I don't know if either of us have the bandwidth right now to start a group or take on more than what we're doing. But I have been running a lot of miles every fall and winter and it gets really lonely. And Brent runs a lot of it with me, but a lot of it I'm on my own. So training partners in general and maybe coaching one or two other people would be fantastic. I mean, I don't think he could quit his job or I could quit my job and do it full time. But right now, getting another elite athlete who possibly works or has a family whose schedule looks a little bit like ours would be awesome.
Do you plan on staying close to the sport whenever you decide you’re done competing?
So our oldest is a sophomore in high school and I think I probably have one or two or three more years of serious running. Then I think that my attention and focus on running will probably switch to my kids. If they want to get really serious, I could see myself coaching in high school, especially with my own kid. Definitely not something I want to take on right now. But who knows, maybe in the next few years.
What are your bigger goals for next year and what are the little things that you need to stay on top of in order to get there?
I mean honestly, I think I can PR in everything — the 800, 1500, mile, steeple, and 5k. I think I can do that next year. Then wherever that leads me at least I've given myself a fighting chance to stick my nose in a US Champs final again.
And to do that, I think at this point we've got the training side pretty dialed in. Like I was saying, I know what boxes I need to check as far as workouts and fitness checkpoints. I think what I struggled with a bit this year was just general recovery and sleep and workload. I tried to back off at work a few weeks going into the Trials, but I just couldn't make it happen. And I was really, really overloaded and stressed. So I think next year, if I do want to give myself my best chance of doing something cool at the US Champs, I’ve got to pump the brakes on work a little earlier in the year and or maybe hire an assistant or something like that, just to like take the general workload and make it a little lighter.
And it does get easier. Like every year the youngest gets a little older and that makes things easier. And then I also have partnered with InsideTracker. I've been notoriously terrible about nutrition my whole running career. I just eat whatever the kids want and whatever is easiest and it hasn't been a main focus. So I think, you know, especially now that I'm thirty five, I'll be thirty six before the next year's Champs, those things are probably even more important to fine tune.
How would you like to see sports marketing change their approach to sponsoring athletes?
You know, I think that it's already kind of happening, but the shift away from only investing dollars in people's potential and track times and making it like super black and white, which can be — I saw with Brent’s career — really stressful. If you have to hit certain times or certain rankings or you don't get paid.
Versus maybe having a baseline living wage and using the person's story then coaching them how to use that on their platforms and help them create their own brand that's valuable across the board. That's what I would do if I were in charge. Sign people based on how interesting they are, not necessarily how fast they ran in college and how fast I think they would run in the next five years.
I mean, I think every runner I've ever met and become friends on the track circuit has an interesting story to tell. If a company finds a way to tell that story, they would sell more shoes.
I mean, I buy shoes now and I'm subject to companies' marketing, and I buy shoes based on, honestly, people I like, not how fast they are. And, you know, those athletes, when you put them in a position where they're creating their own brand and it's genuine, they can sell the product more organically because they probably really like the shoes that they’re running in and it's easier for them to tell their audience about that.
Last thing, tell me about &Mother.
They're not a shoe company, but they're raising funds and putting them back into the athletes that they want to support who all happen to be mothers. Giving them a platform to tell their story and help pay for child care. I'm so glad I've coupled with them because they basically are doing — when you asked me what I would do if I was in charge? — they're basically doing that already, which I'm so thankful for.
We’d like to thank Sara for taking time for this interview and letting us tell her story! If you enjoyed this interview and want to follow Sara’s life and career then check her out on Instagram, Twitter, Strava or at goteamvaughn.com. And if you are looking to buy property in the Boulder, Colorado area then make sure to reach out.
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