Interview: Alan Culpepper

By Scott Douglas

Alan Culpepper has the fastest qualifying time among those who will contest the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Birmingham, Alabama, on February 7. In his only marathon, Culpepper finished sixth at the 2002 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon in 2:09:41; his time there tied Alberto Salazar's from the 1980 New York City Marathon as the American best for a debut at the distance.

In 2003, Culpepper won his second national titles at the 12K cross country and 10,000m track championships, and placed 14th in the World Championships 10,000m. His 10,000m PR of 27:33.93, set in 2001, makes him the sixth-fastest American at the distance. Culpepper ran the event in the 2000 Olympics.

A graduate of the University of Colorado, Culpepper lives in Boulder, Colorado, with his wife, Shayne (a 2000 Olympian at 1,500m), and their 21-month-old son, Cruz.

MensRacing.com: So things have kinda changed for you and the Trials recently. First, [Khalid] Khannouchi pulls out, and now it sounds like [Meb] Keflezighi is questionable. Does all this change how you think about the race?
Alan Culpepper: Not necessarily. When Khalid pulled out, I was not to the point of my mental preparation of thinking about how the race might unfold. I was just working on my physical preparation. Obviously he is one of the best in the world. His not being there is going to give everyone a little more leeway and open up a spot.

MR: What about the more recent news about Meb?
AC: Meb and I are at the same level. Khalid is on a different plane. At least he is now — I never go in thinking, 'I'm going to run for second.' But with Meb and me, it's more of an even playing field. Still, whatever is going on with him, it doesn't change much for me about how I'm going to approach this race. It's not going to cause me to step back and say, 'How can I most easily make the team?' That's just not the way I would approach this race — I'm not going in with an attitude of, 'I'm going to do as little as possible.' I'm going there with all intents and purposes of being in the best shape of my life, and I feel I'm in the best shape of my life. And I'll do what I need to do to win.

MR: You being in the best shape of your life is pretty fit. How does your training for the Trials compare to before Chicago 2002?
AC: It doesn't really compare. I felt extremely rushed in my preparation for Chicago, and then with my broken toe situation, I missed quite a few days. So for Chicago, I was just happy to be able to go there and run pain-free. Well, relatively pain-free. I didn't have the workouts and volume before Chicago that I've had now. And that toe thing took a lot of my focus. Now, I've had almost three times as many weeks to prepare. And with having run in Chicago, I've learned how to prepare much more specific to the marathon.

MR: How so?
AC: Before Chicago, I kept pretty much my same routine as when preparing for the 10,000 on the track. Now, I've made a few changes, getting really accustomed to marathon race pace. I'm not really doing supplementary workouts — quarters at a fast pace are irrelevant. I feel like I'm much more prepared to run 26 miles.

MR: Usually at this time of the year you're gearing up for cross country nationals. How is your marathon preparation different from your usual cross country build-up?
AC: Definitely more volume now. And the workouts are different — I'm not doing workouts on grass, hill repeats, like I would be for cross country. I'm training specifically to race on the roads. You know, I couldn't really do that before Chicago, because of my toe. I had to do most of my work on dirt, and I could feel it in Chicago, the lack of muscular strength for running the marathon on roads.
Compared to cross country nationals, I'm doing more workouts, and the volume of the workouts is greater now.

MR: For example?
AC: For cross country, I might do 10K worth, do 5 x 2K. Now I'm doing 12K worth, 6 x 2K.

MR: How hard?
AC: Same effort as for cross country.

MR: So are you peaking for the Trials?
AC: Definitely. I am 100 percent focused on this race. There's been plenty of time to train for it completely, and there's plenty of time for recovery after it. All of my emphasis is on this race.

MR: So let's say you win the Trials. Do you know when you'll know what you'll do after that?
AC: I feel like I do. I'll let what happens in the race dictate in which direction I go. If I win, I'll most likely run the marathon in Athens. Beyond that — if I make the team but don't win — I'll have to evaluate.

MR: Why?
AC: I still don't feel like I've done all I can do at 10K. The marathon, I've only run one. It's not like I have this huge wealth of information to make decisions from. I'm real happy with the way the organizing committee set things up, that they put this race early in the year.

MR: Do you think you have a better chance of being, say, top six in Athens in the 10K or the marathon?
AC: That's part of why I would decide to run the marathon — it's what I should be doing at this stage of my physical development. I've tried my hand at major championships in the 10K, and well, especially the [2003 World Championships], after what was going on up front… [Editor's note: The leaders ran the second half in 12:57, 30 seconds faster than Culpepper's 5,000m PR.] You still have to give yourself an opportunity to be in the race. That's the beauty of the marathon. It's not just all Africans. In every Olympics, there's some mix, some other people sneaking in.

MR: Even if you had had a great race at World Champs…
AC: Everyone thought that afterward. Those guys just took it to a whole new genre. Even if I had been seventh or eighth in that kind of race, still… The marathon is the direction I want to head in. The last eight years have prepared me to focus on the marathon. Not knowingly, not on purpose, but the marathon plays to my attributes. That's not to say you can be at a high level in just one event. But the marathon, it suits me well.

MR: Do you regret not having run one earlier?
AC: No, definitely not. I would have sold myself short at other distances.

MR: You live in a dry mountain environment. What will you do to prepare for conditions in Athens?
AC: I haven't got to that point, to thinking of that level of detail. I honestly don't know. I don't know how I'll train my body to run in that environment, whether I might go train somewhere else. It still gets hot here in the summer. And a lot of it in those types of races comes down to how you manage your fluids and fuel sources. That's the big factor, instead of 'I'm not from that type of climate.'

MR: For the Trials, have you been training mostly by yourself?
AC: Pretty much. Almost all of my hard workouts I've done by myself. I meet up with Scotty Larson for the midweek run and the long run. We mesh pretty well for that type of work.

MR: What's been your biggest week?
AC: I've been up to 130. I've had eight very good weeks of high volume, three at a more medium level, three lower. I've had 12 or 13 really good weeks. Much better than before Chicago. It can be tricky — if you have a lot of time, that can be a bad thing, if you overdo it. But I don't think I did. I'm really happy with how it's been going. I made it to the end of this phase and I didn't go overboard — I can tell because I feel fresh mentally and physically.

MR: Who's guiding your training?
AC: I am, based on my past experience. I've talked to my share of people over the years, and have experimented on myself a good deal. For some reason, I've always been able to be really in tune with how I feel day to day, to know and trust that what I'm doing is right. It's intuitive. I'm not the sort to worry about, 'Oh, that run usually takes 70 minutes, and I did it in 71:30, what does that mean?'

MR: Have you always had this innate sense?
AC: Yes, even back in high school. Getting back to the marathon, I think that's one of the reasons I think it's a good event for me. If you don't have a knack for that, for reading what your body is telling you, you can make a lot of mistakes in your training. And in the race, you need to be able to say, 'Okay, how do I feel here at mile 7, what does this mean for how I'm going to feel at mile 25?'

MR: With this intuitive ability, are you the sort to do hard workouts when you sense you're ready, or do you pretty much stick to the schedule you've set for yourself?
AC: I usually stick to it. Typically, if I have a hard session planned for Tuesday, I'm not the type to push it back because I don't feel great the day before. I'll just go easier on Monday.

We have to be pretty organized around here. With Shayne's running and our son and the child care in place, I don't have this kind of running lifestyle that you might read about where I sit around and drink coffee for an hour and think, 'I think I'll go run at 10:30.' That's good. It eliminates a lot of the anxiety, the sitting around and dreading that hard workout in a few hours. I just have to get going.

MR: Do you feel different training for the marathon compared to 10K? Like with there not being as much variation in intensity level from day to day?
AC: Yeah, there's not quite that intensity in workouts now. I mean, I don't get too far away from my 10K preparation — I feel I could do a good 10K right now. But it is different. You're so fatigued from the volume, when you go to do a workout, it's all at the same effort level, because you're tired right from the beginning. If I'm doing a workout now, the first 1K of the first repeat is going to feel the same as the last 1K of the last repeat. When I'm 10K training, the first few repeats feel not too hard, and then you're able to get more intense, and the last part of the last repeat is a lot faster, a lot more intense.

MR: You're known for having a good kick. Have you been doing any of that sort of work?
AC: A little. You never want to get too far away from any of your systems. But I'm an efficient runner at a fast pace, so others doing this kind of marathon training might have to focus on keeping that more than I do. I feel like my leg turnover and efficiency is always there. I could go do 64-second quarters, but for the marathon, with so little reward from it, it would almost be wasting a workout.

MR: You're also known for not racing as much as most people. Your last race was the 10K at World Champs. How do you gauge your fitness?
AC: Workouts, definitely my workouts.

It's funny: As I get older, I see some people say, 'I'll do three-minute surges on the roads instead of 1000s on the track,' or, 'I used to run 4:30 for miles, now I do 4:35, but that's okay, I'm in the same shape.' It's easy to kind of make excuses for yourself. You still need these checks and balances, not to prove to yourself you can do the workout, but to make sure you're building your fitness to where it should be.

MR: What are some of your examples?
AC: Two four-mile tempo runs on the track at a specific heart rate. I also do mile repeats on this dirt loop I have.

MR: How fast?
AC: 4:40 down to 4:30. It might not sound all that fast, but that's in the middle of a 130-mile week, at elevation, which puts it in perspective.

MR: What about the tempo runs?
AC: A little faster than race pace, in the low 4:50s. I've been tested, so I know where my heart rate should be to work the different systems. The tempo runs, that's right around a heart rate of 170. Not that I'm overboard into the high-tech stuff. It's much more important to think about, 'How do I feel?' I could take the monitor off and be within two beats of where I'm supposed to be.

MR: When else do you use the monitor?
AC: Just the tempo runs. I also do 10-mile tempo runs on the roads, or maybe two times 20 minutes, and I'll wear it then so that I don't get carried away. Especially when I start to rest, and my legs will be feeling very good. I used to use it more, but I started to feel like, 'What does the monitor say? I don't know how I feel.'

MR: When you ran Chicago, you weren't in the lead pack. Nobody was really basing their race plan on you. At the Trials, people will be. Have you thought about things like what you'll do if Ryan Shay takes it out hard from the start?
AC: I definitely don't want to get too in depth on that kind of stuff. I don't want to say what I think my competitors are likely to do. I think about that daily.
I can tell you my workouts. People can read that and think, 'Oh, he's really fit' or 'I can do that.' My workouts are just me. They don't involve me and someone else. The mental and tactical areas, I like to keep to myself.

(Interview conducted January 16, 2004, posted January 21, 2004)