Alan Culpepper Puts Family First

Defending Olympic Trials Marathon champion has learned to relax and enjoy the ride

Alan Culpepper, 35, is one of the country’s most successful distance runners. He is the defending U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Men’s Marathon champion, having won the Trials race in 2004; he went on to place 12th in the marathon at the Athens Games. He won the USA 5000-meter title in 2002, and he scored a come-from-behind victory at the 2007 USA Cross Country Championships.

No American runner is more calm, cool, and collected under pressure than Culpepper. These qualities—not to mention a 2:09:41 marathon PR—make Culpepper one of the favorites to make the U.S. Olympic marathon team in Beijing in 2008.

Talent and drive, of course, are the main factors behind Culpepper’s long residence in the highest echelons of American long-distance running. With his professional career closer to its end than its beginning—he has said this will be his final Olympic cycle—what has kept Culpepper on an even keel in a  sport where the dangers of injury and burnout are ever present?

Probably the biggest stabilizing force is family. Culpepper is married to Shayne Culpepper, the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials 5000-meter champion, whom he met when they both ran for the University of Colorado Buffaloes; they married in 1998. The two pursue their careers as world-class distance runners while raising two young sons, Cruz, 5, and Levi, 15 months.

There is a balance to the busy days in the Culpepper household. On a typical morning in their home in Lafayette, CO, just outside Boulder, Shayne rises early and gets the kids up and out of bed before heading out for a run. She then passes the baton to Alan, who finishes up breakfast with the boys and dresses them, cleans up, and then prepares for his own run. When Shayne returns, Alan goes for his morning run. For afternoon workouts, they’ll switch off again, with Alan sometimes making one of Cruz’s activities—tee-ball games, most recently—the final destination of his run.

You might think that two professional runners with such demanding training and schedules (Alan runs up to 130 miles per week during peak training periods) would have little time to be devoted parents of two young children. But somehow—with a little extra help from friends and family, especially when they’re both traveling for races—the Culpeppers make it work. In fact, Alan says, the flexible nature of his job—and the fact that he doesn’t have to commute—actually gives him a parenting advantage.

 “I think parenting, in general, is much more hands-on than it was when I was a kid,” he says. “Of course I’m more involved than most dads because I’m not in an office all day. The advantage of our situation is that we get to spend a lot of time together at home.” When he’s not working out  or recovering, Culpepper loves to spend time outdoors with the boys, doing yard work or just chasing them around.

Already, though, he admits it won’t be long until they’ll be doing the chasing.  “Both kids are already showing signs of athleticism and endurance,” he says. “Cruz and I ran a mile last year, just for fun, and he did it in 10 minutes—as a 4-year-old!”

Culpepper notes that he and Shayne won’t be pushing either son into running. “They’ll have the ability, sure. But running is one of those things that you either want to do, or you don’t. And we’ll let them figure that out on their own,” he says.

Cruz, at least, has already figured out that his parents have out-of-the-ordinary careers. “He knows that we run for our jobs and that other people don’t,” says Culpepper, adding that Cruz also seems to grasp something of the up-and-down nature of professional distance running. “He understands that Daddy can have a good race, even though he didn’t win. But beyond that, I don’t think he really cares!”

That kind of perspective has been eye-opening to Culpepper, who admits that he once applied a lot of negative pressure to his own running. “I used to get so wrapped up in my races that I’d never be able to really have fun,” he says. Raising children has helped him to realize there’s much more to life than PRs and qualifying times, and helped him turn down the intensity a bit when it comes to his own running. Though he remains serious and committed, his job, he says, no longer consumes him.

“Now, I know when to turn on my focus for a race, and then turn it off to enjoy the ride,” he says. He cites his recent visit to Manhattan for the NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE—in which he finished sixth in 1:03:34—as an example. “I got to open up NASDAQ,” he says. “I squeezed in extra runs in Central Park. I just let myself relax more, and that was pretty cool.”

Culpepper hopes this more relaxed attitude can carry him all the way to another Olympic Games. He’ll toe the line at the marathon Trials in New York City on November 3, a race in which the top three finishers will punch their tickets for Beijing. 

 “We try not to get too far ahead of ourselves,” says Alan. “So, we’re focusing on running, family, and just enjoying having the whole package.”