A Snoqualmie man has a shot at making the United States Olympic Team.

Sean Sundwall, 34, who works in public relations for a Redmond online game company, Saturday, Oct. 6, ran a time of 2:18:55 at the St. George Marathon in southern Utah to qualify for a spot in the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials Nov. 3 in New York City.

Sundwall was excited. “The initial reaction was elation because I had accomplished the impossible and unthinkable,” Sundwall wrote in an e-mail to the Valley Record. He also told the paper that soon after, it sunk in that he would be vying with the nation’s best runners for a shot at the Olympics. “It will be an experience of a lifetime,” he wrote.

Sundwall is a former high-school track and cross country competitor who gave up competitive running when he went to college at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He would not take up running again until just a couple of years ago, in April of 2005, largely due to his sister’s strong showing on her first try in that year’s Yakima Marathon, which qualified her for the prestigious Boston Marathon. She, also lives in Snoqualmie.

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