Week 5

Wednesday, October 17

The Good Life

It’s all good: the family, house, future, and life of defending U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Men’s Marathon champion Alan Culpepper. And yet in a sport fueled by adversity, can life be too good for a marathon runner? Can a contented man such as Alan Culpepper muster what it takes to nab a spot on the Olympic team for the third time?   

“I like being under the radar,” concedes the soft-spoken, universally liked Culpepper. “That’s how I felt at the Olympics—do your own thing; it’s more relaxed.”

With guns like Meb Keflezighi, Abdi Abdirahman, Ryan Hall, and Brian Sell all locked and loaded, fellow 2004 marathon Olympian Dan Browne suddenly finding form, and former world record-holder Khalid Khannouchi in the wings, there are no certain spots on this Olympic marathon team. But with his understated presence, and a proven ability to perform in championship-style competitions, Culpepper is hungry for another bite of the Olympic apple.

“Birmingham [the 2004 Olympic Trials] was the most stressful marathon I ever ran,” he says. “It’s harder to get excited to do the same thing over again, except I want to improve on my last Olympics.  Meb inspired me, and I didn’t go into Athens at my best. I still have a chance to win a medal. But I don’t feel like this is it.” 

Alan, along with wife Shayne and sons Cruz, 5, and Levi, 1, has constructed an enviable existence in Lafayette, Colorado. At age 35, the El Paso, Texas native’s high-anxiety days of youth are long behind. He and Shayne, both two-time Olympians, met while both were students at the University of Colorado. They will celebrate their 10th anniversary during Trials week in New York City. So, the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Men’s Marathon may feel more like a victory lap than a trial by fire.

“The 2004 Trials had a feeling of do-or-die, I have to make this team,” says Shayne. “And he desperately wanted to win. He’s way more relaxed now, which is no reflection on how he will perform. But he’s not as intense.”

That lack of tension may actually play out very well in New York City. The athletes with a handle on their emotions will have a distinct advantage. “The great ones rise to the occasion,” says Culpepper. “They control the energy; others crumble and don’t run their best when it counts most.”

“He knows how to get the best out of himself, he shows great composure, and I’ve never seen him fall apart,” says 20-year Boulder resident and former marathon world record holder Steve Jones. “He’ll be there.”

In February at the 2007 USA National Cross Country Championship in Boulder, Culpepper ran down early leader Dathan Ritzenhein and bested the top runners in the country. Nobody expected that.  

“In life and running Alan’s greatest strength is his patience,” concurs Shayne. “He’s smart. He executes races well. He has an intuitive sense of how hard to go to finish well.”

The Big Three

For nearly a decade now, Culpepper has been one of America’s Big Three. Along with Keflezighi and Abdirahman, he holds national titles on the track, roads, and cross country.  He is also a clear-eyed student of the sport with a real knack for TV commentating.

“It’s a different world now,” he begins. “The depth has improved by leaps and bounds.  The team wasn’t set in stone in ‘04, but a few of us had separated ourselves. Now I’d say eight to 10 guys have a legitimate chance to make the team, and a few more will have the Trent Briney effect and surprise themselves on the day. Meb knows what it takes, and he’s been running well this year. Abdi has had the best last 12 months of his career. Hall clearly had a great debut [at the 2007 Flora London Marathon]. A guy like Khalid—his bad marathon is a 2:08, so if he’s healthy…then there’s [Brian] Sell and [Peter] Gilmore.  Dan Browne has come back around. Plus there are two or three others to watch.”

And Alan Culpepper?

“The marathon is so difficult,” he says. “My first one has been my best one [Chicago `02], and there I went out aggressively. But in Boston I did one out hard, and the other conservative. So it’s more a mindset. And this is a championship mindset. This has been my focus.”

Neighborhood Watch

Lafayette, Colorado, rests 10 miles east of Boulder on what was once open farmland. Out beyond the rooflines across the street, the snow-capped Arapahoe and Shoshone peaks loom to the west. Alan and Shayne Culpepper have lived in the Boulder area since graduating from CU. Today, they live in Indian Peaks, one of those instant, upscale developments that defined the housing boom of the last decade.

“It’s definitely a challenge,” Culpepper admits when asked about the selfishness of a professional runner and the selflessness required of a parent. “I laugh when I meet other runners. [Shayne and I] have full-time jobs being parents. But we are mindful of what we need to do. We coordinate and adjust schedules.”

Cruz was just six months old when his dad ran his first marathon. Back then he didn’t realize dad had tied the American marathon debut record with his 2:09:41 performance. 
“I winged my training before that race,” admitted Alan. “I was naïve about things like nutrition. Now I’m more an advocate of event-specific training, roads surface, tempo to prep the nervous system.”

He won the Olympic Trials in his second marathon, then took 12th at the Games in Athens. He followed in the spring of 2005 with an aggressive fourth at the Boston Marathon where he challenged the Kenyan leaders up Heartbreak Hill. But, perhaps thinking he needed just a little more strength to bridge the gap, he pushed too far in preparation for Chicago that next fall. “I had an off day in Chicago 2005,” he concedes.  “I went over the top in training, got sick race week, and was never in it.”

He readjusted for his second Boston Marathon in 2006, where he finished fifth and qualified for the Trials in 2:11:02. “I trained more like a 10K runner, tried and true stuff.  I had no speed in Boston `05. Over the last two years I’d lost contact with my speed.  Now I feel snappy again. I’m doing 105 miles per week, not 125-130.”

Then last fall in New York, Culpepper did not finish for the first time in his career when he developed anemia after training through a particularly hot summer. 

One could say that Culpepper has traded spotty success in the marathon for quality of life off the road. But he has tapped back into the speed that took him to his original 2:09.  “I’m more fresh if I’m doing hard workouts rather than grueling workouts,” he says. “Plus, in Central Park, with all the ups and downs, you don’t have to run pace, you need acceleration, all muscle fibers firing.”

But there is the matter of the Central Park Trials course. Culpepper is not a fan, and hasn’t run particularly well on it at shorter distances. But he has come to terms with it.  Tall and lean, Culpepper is a rhythm runner. He has captured national track titles at 5000 meters and 10,000 meters, cross country national crowns, and the Olympic Trials Marathon laurel. But the 2004 Birmingham Trials course was ideal and almost gentle compared to New York. 

“I spent two extra days in town after the NYC Half-Marathon [Presented by NIKE] to train on the course. I couldn’t get over the lack of flats,” he comments. “This course is brutal, but in some ways it suits me, too. When it’s harder it’s more likely to expose weaknesses and flaws in training. It has a cross-country type feel to it, and I do well in cross country.”

In 2007, Culpepper has come within eight seconds of his 5000-meter PR of 13:25 run in 2005, and his 27:50 in the spring was his first track 10K in more than three years, and just 17 seconds off his 10,000 best of 27:33 run in 2001. “I’m happy with my year,” says Culpepper, but in truth there has only been one goal in 2007, and that comes up on November 3 in New York. And if he manages to get that right, he just might find himself bordering on a wonderful life.