In reply to cgales:
Cgales I believe SamianS is asking something differently, because the configure_phase is also time consuming. But it is a bad approach to mix the run_phase with the sub_phases like the configure_phase. Instead of the run_phase you should use then the main_phase.
But it is unclear to me if you really need the configure_phase, because you do not describe what your non-background sequences are doing.