When people were projecting the winners of the Californian International Marathon, which served this year as the USATF Marathon Championship Race, Brogan Austin was not the most mentioned name. Not even close. After his win the message boards lit up, who is this guy, he must be a doper. Turns out he is not a doper but another Tom 'Tinman' Schwartz trained athlete who has been working hard for his moment. And we caught up with him to talk about his win.
Background
- Dad ran to lose weight and would run with him as young as 5 years old
- 1-mile route would run and kept running
- Tried football in 7-8th grade and was too small
- Made varsity as Freshman in high school and progressed from there
- Senior year took on another coach and went from 30 to 70 miles a week
- Ran at Drake but overtrained by working more on side
- After college ran but cut way back
Tinman connection
- Saw success the Tinmen Elite crew were having and wanted to start working with Tom
- Started working with Tom in July 2018
- Tom proved you don't need to outwork everyone
- An approach of one day at a time and keeping the ball rolling
- All workouts are reasonable, feel you could do more at end of a workout
- Questioned if it was too easy
- Never once did we do marathon pace specific running
Training
- Used to do 3 staple workouts, 6-8 mile tempo a 5:00, mile repeats at half marathon pace, 800 repeats at 5k pace. Was only done one of those a week and Saturday long run as a progression
- Ran 12 miles almost every day
- Tom had mix workouts, one we did every 2-3 weeks with 10k pace, then hills, then 800-1600 pace
- Noticed each time did that workout felt progress
- Ran 62:39 in half marathon and knew he was fit
- Workouts are easy to recover from
Expectations Going In
- Had expectations that could win
- 1/2 marathon gave me confidence
- Tinman said could win it
- Consistently doing 90 miles a week with a few longer weeks here and there
- Longest runs 2:20 minutes
- No marathon pace work had me worried, but Tom said at 21-miles you will be stronger than everyone
- Never had a workout could not do because was fatigued
Race
- When Matt Llano opened the lead had to force himself to not go with him, plan was to go 66
- Mid-race started doubting training
- After mile 20 was told Matt was 2 miles ahead so focused on the pack for second
- With 5k to go tried to make move and was surprised legs responded even though tired
- Started reeling in Matt, could see lead vehicles
- Caught him with 500m to go and surged past making strong move
Final Surge 5 questions in under a minute
Favorite endurance/running book? - Born to Run
Current trainers you are wearing? - Nike Air Pegasus
Favorite race? - Drake Relays
Favorite recovery meal or recovery drink? - Buritto
Your favorite workout - Long Run
Previous interview with Tinman
Brogan's sponsor Rabbit
Instagram: @brogan.austin
Facebook: Brogan Austin
Twitter: @brogan_austin