Alan Culpepper was the race favorite and he didn't disappoint. The 31-year-old trained for the Olympic Marathon Trials by running 120 mile weeks near his hometown of Lafayette.

"It's not very glamorous," he said about running twice a day, six days a week. He ran 20-mile long runs on Sundays at the Boulder Reservoir and did mile repeats around the trail at Harper Lake in Louisville. He practiced running at his goal marathon race pace often and loved to run around the South Boulder Trail. "I had a really good training block with no injuries. It feels great to be healthy," he said.

While training for his debut marathon at Chicago in 2002, Alan was confined to doing a lot of his training on trails because of a fractured toe. Despite the injury, he ran 2:09:41, tying him with Alberto Salazar for the fastest American debut in history.

Culpepper got his start in running during his high school years in Texas. After graduating from Coronado High School in El Paso, he attended CU so he could run for the Buffs. He entered the ranks as one of the top U.S. distance runners after winning the NCAA 5,000 meters in 1996 in 13:47:26. He ran the 5,000 meter Olympic trials that year and placed tenth. Culpepper graduated from CU with a degree in geography and sociology.

By the 2000 Olympic Trials, Alan raced the 10K. He placed second in 28:03:35, earning a spot on the Olympic team. Unfortunately at the Sidney Games, he caught the flu and only finished 17th in the first round.

Culpepper has won five U.S. titles in track and cross country and made four World Championships teams in track. His personal bests include 13:27:52 in the 5,000 meters and 27:33:93 in the 10,000 meters.

Culpepper didn't run any road races in preparation for the Olympic marathon trials. "The last race I ran before the trials was the World Championships 10,000 meters in August." He said he felt tune up races weren't important because of the distance, plus he didn't want to travel around the holidays, but wanted to spend time with his family instead. "I'm still naive to the event also, so that helps." He did most of his hard training solo but sometimes trained with Superior's Scott Larson and Boulder' Peter Julian, guys who were also training for the Trials.

Now that the marathon trials are over, Culpepper plans to take a short break from training until the Colorado weather warms up and dries out. "I want to take a little time off and spend some time being with my wife Shayne (also an elite runner) and my son Cruz."