Sam Daniels

Athlete of the Month

Sam Daniels

Coach: Brogan Austin

Event: Marathon

Interview with Sam Daniels

Hey Sam, welcome to The Axe. How you feeling today?

What's up! I'm doing well and feel rested. Ready to get back to training soon, but enjoyed the time off relaxing with my wife and puppy.

Give the readers a little bit of some background on your running career. Why'd you get into running, and why are you still doing it?

I'm the youngest of 7 and the rest of my siblings and parents grew up either running, biking, or swimming so it was something I was always around. And although my family was big into endurance sports, I didn't run cross or track growing up and started getting more serious once I got into college. I actually got into triathlons first before focusing more on running. For me it was a way to build relationships with new people and also spend more time with my family (cycling with my dad and running with my sister who was big into marathons). I'm a very go, go, go person and running gives me a chance to slow everything down a bit (bit ironic, eh?) and I feel more mentally clear after. I also love setting big (sometimes a bit unrealistic) goals and putting in the work to reach them and get that sense of accomplishment at the end.

You're currently being coached by Brogan. How long have you been working together, and why did you choose to work with him in the first place?

Yeah! Brogan and I have been working together for about 6 months now and it's been great. Brogan stood out to me for two reasons. First, he went through some injuries and continued to put in the work to get healthy again and back to racing. There was a period of time where it felt like I was dealing with injury after injury and couldn't stay healthy and knew that Brogan would understand that and help me get past it. Second, his love for the sport and dedication to giving back. I've always had this idea in my head to coach people one day after I get more experience and I can't think of a better person to be mentored by.

From what I heard; you had a pretty good Chicago Marathon a couple weeks back! Talk about how you prepared for that race and how that let you execute what you wanted to do on race day.

Chicago was a dream come true type of day! In 2021 I DNF'd at Chicago around mile 14 and this was a bit of a redemption tour for me. In tune up races and big workouts I've always tried to treat them as progression runs in a way and practice not burning matches too quickly and it paid off big at Chicago. I was able to steadily get faster each mile and negative split the second half and felt good the whole time. The other big thing I did was to visualize the race the week leading up and break it into chunks mentally to not feel overwhelmed by thinking about all 26.2 miles at once.

Any specific workouts during your Chicago build that had you really excited/proud?

I love big marathon specific workouts and feeling like I put in a lot of work at the end of them and the confidence boost after. The last two big workouts brogan had me do were 2 hours and 30 minute runs with one of the workouts have 8 x 1 mile repeats at threshold and the second one was 2 x 5 miles at marathon effort. Both of them felt so smooth and comfortable and my paces were great and that gave me a huge confidence boost going into Chicago.

How do you balance life (work and family, etc) and running? Do you have any pieces of advice to share with our audience?

Oh man, it's been difficult. I'm a full time graduate student going for a PhD in neuroscience, married to my best friend, and the proud father of a 9-week-old Australian Shepherd. The biggest piece of advise it to plan well, communicate well, and find a strong support system. Most mornings I was up at 5 am to run to ensure I was home after work to spend time with my wife (and now puppy), but if I couldn't run in the morning I made a plan with her to make sure we were on the same page. I am so grateful to have a supportive wife who knows it’s important to me and pushes me to better myself everyday.

What are your running goals for the upcoming year?

Again, I love setting big, and maybe a bit of a stretch goals, but I'd like to focus on building more speed and strength in the winter/spring and go for a big half marathon PR (around 1:15:00) and then focus on shooting for 2:40:00 marathon in the fall.

Anything else, Sam?

I just want to thank Tinman Elite and Hammer & Axe training. I've been a huge fan for years now and their dedication to giving back and interacting with fans has helped me fall more in love with the sport. It's also been a night and day difference since working with Brogan and how much I have improved so quickly. If anyone is on the fence, it is 100% worth it and I can't recommend being trained by someone from Tinman enough.

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