Games now a runner-up for Culpepper

Olympics will be a distant memory, but family to fill void

By Clay Latimer, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published June 13, 2008 at 3:01 p.m.

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Photo by BRIAN LEHMANN / SPECIAL TO THE ROCKY

With wife Shayne holding Rocco and with Cruz at their side, Culpepper hoists their third son, Levi, in their Lafayette home.

Photo by Sammy Dallal / Daily Camera

Alan Culpepper cools off during the 2007 Bolder Boulder, a race in which he finished second in 2002.

More Olympics

Running couples

Alan and Shayne Culpepper hardly are America's only elite distance and middle- distance running couple. A sampling:

* Adam and Kara Goucher

Home: Portland, Ore.

Married: 2001.

He runs: Adam, a University of Colorado graduate, is a two-time U.S. outdoor champion in the 5,000 (1999 and 2000) and will run in the 5,000 and 10,000 at the Olympic trials.

She runs: Kara, also a CU grad, won the bronze in the 10,000 meters at the 2007 world championships, becoming the first American woman to win a medal in the event.

* Ryan and Sara Hall

Home: Big Bear Lake, Calif.

Married: 2005.

He runs: Ryan should be America's best men's marathon gold-medal hope since Frank Shorter.

She runs: Sara hopes to qualify in the 1,500 or 5,000.

* Jason and Kristen Lehmkuhle

Home: Minneapolis.

Married: 2007.

He runs: Jason will shoot for a spot in the 10,000; he could be selected for the marathon if two of the four runners who beat him in the trials pull out.

She runs: Kristen hopes to make the Olympic team in the 5,000 or 10,000.

* Steve and Sara Slattery

Home: Mammoth Lakes, Calif.

Married: 2004.

He runs: Steve was America's fastest steeplechaser last year.

She runs: Sara won the Pan Am Games 10,000 title and will try to qualify in the 5,000 or 10,000.

The hardest part of all was just sitting still.

In a bungalow on the island of Crete, home of the U.S. track team for the 2004 Summer Olympics, Alan Culpepper flicked on a television and settled in as his wife, Shayne, stepped up to the starting line for her 5,000-meter preliminary heat.

Instinctively, his thoughts began to drift toward his own event, the marathon, the ancient finale of the Athens Games, when the former University of Colorado All-American would retrace the first steps of the original marathon man.

But Culpepper didn't have an opportunity to focus on running that day. Pulling him from the TV and toward the Sea of Crete was his 2-year-old son, Cruz, oblivious to family business.

"He wanted to go swimming," Alan said. "It was like: 'Can you wait a minute?' "

Aloof, solitary, so independent that he insisted on coaching himself - that was the Alan Culpepper many once knew.

But the birth of his first son in 2002, and two more boys during the next six years, changed everything, creating new burdens but also liberating him from old ones.

In the five months after Cruz's birth, Culpepper finished second in the 2002 Bolder Boulder, won the U.S. outdoor 5,000-meter championship and ran the Chicago marathon in 2 hours, 9 minutes, 41 seconds, tying Alberto Salazar for the fastest American marathon debut - a remarkable run and a powerful advertisement for fatherhood.

"I don't think it's a coincidence that it coincided with the birth of our first son," he said.

Culpepper's life will be different this Father's Day. He announced this week that a sports hernia will prevent him from competing in the Olympic trials in Eugene, Ore., which means his Olympic career is over, though he intends to continue running. He also plans to open a shoe store for runners in Louisville in the fall and to spend more time with his growing family.

New perspective

Not only do dads shape the lives of their children, they usually reshape their own lives in the process, sometimes in unintended ways.

Culpepper will unwind Sunday with Cruz (6), Levi (2), Rocco (1 month) and Shayne, who's a two-time Olympian, like her husband. Then it's back to work - and a familiar regimen of T-Ball games, swim lessons, soccer practices and recreation center classes, carefully spelled out on the family calendar in their Lafayette home.

"Physically, it's just so much harder with children," said Culpepper, 35, who had qualified for the 10,000 meters at the Olympic trials.

"But emotionally, it's been a lot better. Just the joy in general, the enjoyment in what I was doing. It just took a little of that day-to-day edge off. I'd have a workout, go home and be done with it. I didn't dwell on it, think about it or overanalyze it like I would have prior to having children.

"It didn't change our intensity and desire and focus to do well. Everything we did (in running) was always calculated and well thought out. We've always been very highly motivated and very focused on what we were doing. But you can get to the point where you sort of squeeze the life out of it. After having kids, I felt fresher at races.

"And when the kids wake up, their faces are filled with joy, without the look of burden and stress," Culpepper added. "It's those everyday moments that are special."

One of those everyday moments surfaced at the 2004 Olympic trials, when Shayne found herself comfortably in second place entering the homestretch of the 5,000. Why settle for runner-up, she thought. Motoring toward the finish, she won the race in the final stride, a dramatic moment that thrilled a crowd in Sacramento, Calif., including Alan, who hurried down the stadium steps with Cruz, who had an upset stomach at the time.

"As soon as the race was over, Shayne already was asking about Cruz, how he was feeling," he said. "That night, we were thinking more about him than the fact she'd just won the Olympic trials. Talk about perspective. It's like: Parenting goes on."

Inner drive

Culpepper grew up in El Paso, Texas, the youngest of three sons. Though Stan Culpepper had run the mile at Texas Christian, his oldest boys turned to basketball and baseball. Only Alan liked running.

"I've always been pretty independent-minded and self-motivated. Running really brought that out for me, allowed it to flourish," he said. "Team sports were always frustrating. I always felt kind of held back by different coaches' styles, that kind of thing."

But during his senior year of high school, when Culpepper's coach ordered him to run the 800, 1,600 and 3,200, he quit the team.

At CU, Culpepper won an NCAA 5,000-meter title in 1996, earning a reputation for faultless preparation and coolness under fire. As a fifth-year senior, he met a transfer student from Vermont - Shayne - a runner who'd only begun to realize the potential that would make her one of America's best middle-distance runners.

Turning pro in 1996, Culpepper coached himself, negotiated his own endorsement contracts and devised his own workouts - a reflection of his independent temperament and a fascination with tactics and business.

"Alan was very intense, a very intense trainer," said Mark Plaatjes, the 1993 world marathon champion and a Boulder resident. "He was always a loner as far as training. He was really content to do his own thing when he did his hard workouts. If you're a professional athlete, that's all you do. You tend to get obsessed, and all you think about is running and competing and, 'Am I getting enough sleep and enough weight work?' "

There were ups and downs on the track for the Culpeppers, who were married in 1997. Shayne finished fourth in the 1,500 at the 2000 Olympic trials but then received a last-minute berth when Regina Jacobs dropped off the American team because of illness shortly before the Sydney Games.

Alan appeared poised for the race of his life in Sydney, Australia, but a flu bug sapped his strength and he placed 17th in the first round of the 10,000 meters, a devastating turn that brought Shayne from the stands to console him.

Cruz control

But running became a secondary matter April 10, 2002, the day Cruz was born.

"The thing that stands out the most is that I just started laughing. I was giddy," Alan said.

At the Bolder Boulder six weeks later, Alan sprinted into Folsom Field and across the finish line in second place, the best performance by an American since 1989. Shayne and Cruz were waiting for him at the finish line.

Less than a month later, he outlasted Meb Keflezighi to win the U.S. outdoor 5,000 title at Stanford. A dazzling debut in the Chicago Marathon in October 2002 opened a new door for Culpepper, who helped lift U.S. distance running out of the doldrums with consistently impressive performances during the past decade.

"He certainly deserves to be recognized as one of the top American distance runners of all time," Keflezighi's coach, Bob Larsen, said then.

The Culpeppers were quick to develop a winning routine centered on their children.

"It's wacky," Shayne said last year. "But we make it work. We definitely put the family first. That keeps us happy and grounded. If your family life is in order, running comes easier."

The daily routine begins with Shayne waking the kids and getting things rolling. As she leaves for a morning workout, Alan takes over at the breakfast table, then leaves for his morning run when his wife returns. They reverse the routine most afternoons. At night, one handles bathing and bedtime stories while the other plops on the couch.

"That's one of the other benefits of being professional athletes," Alan said. "We've been able to stay home a lot, spend a lot of time with our children."

Added Plaatjes: "It certainly mellows you. I've seen that with Alan. Kids are just happy to see you; glad to see you come back. How you did in a race isn't even a factor with them."

The Culpeppers' strong family bonds became evident at the 2004 Olympic trials, before Shayne's title run, when she read a note her husband had left by her backpack.

"There were some words in there that reminded me of what is really important in my life - our baby, our love for each other, our relationship," she said after the race.

Next chapter

Now, 12 years after he left CU, Culpepper is nearing the end of his career, preparing for the next phase in his life.

Though he won the 2007 U.S. Cross Country Championship in Boulder, he ran out of energy and dropped out of the Olympic marathon trials in November.

Now, with injury ending Culpepper's hopes for a final Olympic appearance, he plans to open Sole Pepper in Louisville this fall.

Shayne, meanwhile, plans to resume her competitive running career in January.

Alan will be cheering her on from the sideline, and though his Olympic days might be over, he'll always have Athens.

On an August day four years ago, Culpepper started running in the historic town of Marathon and, more than two hours later, crossed the finish line in 12th place at Panathinaiko Stadium, retracing the steps of Pheidippides in fifth century B.C.

Ancient history, though, wasn't on his mind as he walked out of the legendary arena and worked his way through the crowd, searching for his wife and 2-year-old son.

Cruz was tired and wanted to go home.

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