Chris Corbett
Brogan Austin running at the 2016 U.S. Olympic Marathon Team trials in Los Angeles earlier this month.
Even before the Feb. 13 United States Olympic Marathon Trials race began in Los Angeles, Madison runner Brogan Austin — a 24-year-old employee at Epic Systems and member of the Movin’ Shoes running store’s elite team — knew carnage would reign supreme on the course due to the heat.
Competing in his first ever marathon, the former Drake University track and cross country standout ended up finishing in the top 40 in a race in which the top three finishers in each race earn a spot to compete for the U.S. at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on Aug. 21. Austin survived and thrived in February weather foreign to the Midwest, and did so as an athlete with a full-time day job.
Liz Boivin
Tyler Mueller, who sat out the Los Angeles race, is the defending champion of the Crazylegs Classic (shown here).
Austin tells Isthmus he had hoped for a top-30 finish, but is “pretty content with the result, [and] it has made me hungry for better results.”
Austin’s Epic colleague and Movin’ Shoes elite teammate Tyler Mueller — also 24 and the defending champion of Madison’s popular Crazylegs Classic 8K race — was not so fortunate. After traveling to L.A. for the race, Mueller was unable to compete due to a stress fracture in his foot.
But the fact that either of them even qualified for the trials to begin with — which takes either a sub-65-minute half-marathon (4:57 pace per mile) or a sub-2:18 marathon (5:15 pace per mile) — while also maintaining the nomadic lifestyle inherent to a job spent largely on the road at Epic, prompts a simple question.
How do they pull it off? How do they make the time to put in 100-110 miles per week of running?
Austin and Mueller — both self-coached, and both of whom qualified for the trials via the half-marathon — spend much of their time on airplanes and on the road, traveling to various hospitals to help install and implement Epic Systems’ electronic healthcare software.
“The key to success is creating a routine and sticking to that routine,” says Austin. “Once I got into a routine I didn’t really have to contemplate my day, and it became second nature, like brushing your teeth before bed.” However, he admits that “running for two hours after working all day is usually the last thing you want to do.”
Mueller — who took 11th place at the U.S. half-marathon championships in Houston in January 2015 with a time of 63:21 and 15th at the U.S. 12K championships in Alexandria, Va., in November 2015 — says he typically runs from 5:30 to 7 p.m. with 5:45 a.m. wakeups for shorter morning runs a couple times per week.
“It can get very tiring and stressful, but it makes the successes so much sweeter,” says Mueller. “Knowing I’m able to contend with people who more or less run full-time is quite gratifying.”
Mueller and Austin are not the only runners who work full-time at Epic and compete on the Movin’ Shoes elite team. They’re joined by Josh Lund — a 27-year-old who focuses on the 5K and 10K and was the 2014 Crazylegs winner.
Austin does most of his training in the Madison area on the Military Ridge Trail in Verona, while Mueller’s favorite routes are Madison’s Lakeshore Path and Picnic Point, the Arboretum and the Lake Monona loop.
Both hope the training they do on those routes in the days and weeks ahead lands them a spot on the track at the University of Oregon’s hallowed Hayward Field for the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials on July 1 to compete in the 10,000-meter race. It takes a top-25 fastest time in the country to toe the starting line.
Mueller first has to heal from his stress fracture. Austin plans to take some time off and then begin what he hopes is the march to Eugene, aiming to compete in the Drake Relays road race 5K on April 30.
Mueller and Austin both intend to train for and compete in the 2020 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, even though Austin said he felt “destroyed” after the L.A. Trials and initially “vowed never to run one again.”
Next training period aside, the most important thing for Austin for now is doughnuts. Yes, doughnuts.
“I’m in need of some new legs or a bounty of doughnuts to get me going again,” says Austin. “Don’t worry, the doughnuts will come regardless of the new legs.”
