Trent Briney has very much been a part of the Colorado, and national, running scene for the last several years. He's been in a Hanson's singlet, a McMillan Elite jersey, now wears the Marathonguide.com label, and before all of those, sported the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs colors as one of the first team members of the program in 1996. Briney's face has been a familiar one in lead pack of dozens of national races--always very near the leaders, and usually finishing right on the heels of them. Briney's road to the top has been a steady climb, with the "Elite Briney" a far cry from the "Fledgling Runner Briney" of Manitou Springs High School. Despite a bottomless work capacity and a solid running resume', Briney also sometimes seems plagued by a case of “almosts." Almost an NCAA champion, almost a sub-29 minute 10k runner, almost a 10k competitor at the US Championships, almost a World Championship marathon contender, and almost an Olympian. Almost.
While some might find so many near misses to be discouraging, Briney finds them anything but. Rather, they’ve always served as fuel for the fire. From Colorado Springs to Rochester Hills to Flagstaff to Boulder, he started at the bottom and worked his way up mile after mile for the last couple of decades. If anyone knows a thing or two about the rewards of endless toil, Briney does. Made humble and appreciative by the fact that he hasn’t always been at the top, Briney has earned everything that he’s ever gotten.
In 1996, Briney, now 32, finished up his high school running career at Manitou Springs High School, barely outside of his hometown of Colorado Springs. He had picked up running in junior high following the suggestion of a middle school counselor, and pursued it for the reasons a lot of runners do early on, only “Because I was a little guy who couldn’t play all of the other, more ‘important‘ sports,” he said. Briney ended up carving out solid-but-far-from-stellar times in high school, with modest PR’s of 10:20 in the 2 mile and 4:48 in the mile, and graduated with no intention of pursuing collegiate running. However, that same counselor happened to be close friends with local University of Colorado at Colorado Springs coach Graeme Badger, and proceeded to put him in touch with Briney.
CU-Colorado Springs was, at the time, a tiny commuter school that was devoid of dorms, sororities, fraternities, and campus life in general. Much less a lively, competitive college athletics scene. Nonetheless, Badger was in the process of assembling a small club team and hoped that Briney could bring up the rear on his five-man squad. Badger offered Briney a $500 scholarship, and Briney was star struck.
“It was like, oh my gosh, now you’re a real college athlete!” Briney said, “I thought it was SO cool! We weren’t even in the NCAA yet.”
Badger made a good catch, as it turned out. While he came on to the team as a scrawny underclassman, Briney, determined to make the most of his opportunities, spent countless hours in the weight room, running two-a-days, and spent the majority of his first season running as the 3rd to 2nd guy on the team. His times got progressively faster each year and he ultimately dropped his 5k PR to 14:22 and finished up with a handful of All-American titles to his name. Owing to the fact that CU-Springs didn’t enter the NCAA until Briney’s sophomore year, he was even granted a 5th track season. It was that season that ended up setting the stage for everything to come, as Briney narrowly missed capturing an NCAA title in the 10k as he took 2nd to Western State’s Mike Aish. During that race, Briney lowered his 10k PR to 29:14.
Graduating that May and following such a successful season, Briney was loath to give up competing at that point.
“I was only 16 seconds away from the U.S. Championships standard,” Briney explained. “I could almost go to USA’s.”
Another almost. Briney couldn’t let that one go, and it was the launch pad for everything ahead.
Still living in Springs and working for Pepsi, Briney’s friend and Adams State alum Jason Hubbard--then a member of the Hansons Distance Project in Rocheter Hills, Michigan--put Briney in contact with Keith and Kevin Hanson, head coaches of the newly launched sub-elite team that was aimed toward developing distance runners not maxed-out in college.
“When I first talked to Kevin, he was pretty non-committal,” Briney remembered. “But he told me to come on out for a visit and we would talk.”
After an initial visit, the Hanson brothers suggested that Briney give it a try, and offered him a spot on their team. Briney snatched it up, and six months after graduation, left Colorado Springs for the first time.
“I wasn’t really ready to settle down in Springs for the rest of my life,” said Briney. “I grew up there, went to school there, and I wanted to see what else was out there. And I thought, ‘let’s see what I can do with this running.”
Intending to earn a place at the U.S. Championships in the 10k, and the long-term goal of seeing how fast he could go, Briney got on board with the Hansons and jumped into a new lifestyle and entirely different training.
“It was so cool. Everyday you’re pushing and being pushed in runs. You're always wondering, 'how hard do you have to work to keep up today?' Every run you’re competing with your teammates. It’s like a balancing act of training as hard as you can everyday, and still leaving enough in the tank for hard workouts.”
However, despite substantially higher mileage and harder workouts, after two years in Michigan Briney had only lowered his 10k PR to 29:11. Still no U.S. Champs. The Hansons suggested that he turn his attention to the marathon and that if he really wanted to pursue the 10k, he‘d need to do it elsewhere and not on their watch. So Briney, although grudgingly, relented.
“I was kind of mad, I thought, ‘don’t tell me I can’t get my goal!” Briney recalled.
Nonetheless, with the Chicago Marathon on the docket, Briney jumped into marathon training. Still, he was a little bitter at having lost the chance to keep after the 10k, but that little bit of anger worked to his advantage.
“I started training 3 times a day. It wasn’t even really because I thought it would help me, I was just mad. I’d be sitting on the couch at 9 p.m. and figured I’d just go run again.”
But doing more things he hadn’t done before changed Briney’s initial perception that he had on training.
“I thought, ’why not?’ Why not be weird and crazy? Why not just try things?’”
With a more open mind, not to mention more miles under his belt, a more fit Briney ran his debut marathon in 2:21.10, with the sole goal of not running out of his mind, but just getting into the Trials. Just a few months later, Briney toed the line at the 2004 Trials in Birmingham, Alabama.
“I did everything leading up to the race that I could to place as high as I could,” he said.
But despite feeling fit and optimistic going into the race, nagging worries sat in the back of his mind.
“I hadn’t made any big breakthroughs, I really hadn’t proven much success, I’m wasnt' making any money," Briney explained. "I thought 'I may have to quit after this and this will be what I‘m remembered for, this could easily be my last race.'”
But it wasn‘t meant to be Briney‘s last. Not only did he clock an enormous PR of 2:12.34, but he narrowly missed an Olympic berth, taking fourth place. While some may think that fourth place is the worst place to get at an Olympic Trials, Briney was elated.
“I left everything I had out there that day. I was so happy to have that day for what it was. Now, of course I wish I would’ve been third. But you don’t always get second chances and I’m happy I had a first chance.”
Nonetheless, Briney was selected to represent the U.S. at the Marathon World Championships, fulfilling a dream he had--and still has--of racing in the USA singlet. However, he’d been hampered by a nagging Achilles injury that flared up shortly before World’s, thus snuffing out that dream.
Still competing throughout 2006 on the same injured Achilles, Briney still managed to earn his second marathon Trials qualifier at the 2006 Boston Marathon. Shortly after that race, he received surgery on his Achilles, and a few months later went straight from the boot to hastily attempting to get back into shape, and headed into the 2007 Trials. After clocking 2:26, despite his best efforts, Briney ran his last race in a Hanson’s singlet.
“They supported me for six years, and I was really grateful for that,” said Briney.
After leaving the Hansons, Briney stayed in Michigan for a couple more months, working some jobs including assisting with the Detroit Marathon. Briney, unsure at that time of whether or not to continue competing at high level, jogged around a couple of times a week and slowly regained strength and fitness while doing a little soul-searching.
It was during that couple of months that the Detroit Marathon race director took some of her employees to see the newly released Spirit of the Marathon film that Briney found his answer.
“I walked out after the movie and I thought ‘I have to pursue this thing,’” Briney recalled. “I have the talent and ability to be in the front pack, I’ve got to give this another go.”
After some of the McMillan Elite runners with whom Briney had spoken to at a cross country meet the previous fall put Briney into contact with head coach Greg McMillan, Briney opted to pack his bags and head to Flagstaff in the hopes of resurrecting his running.
With new scenery surrounding him, and a similar lifestyle to what he had grown accustomed to with the Hansons, Briney began training with McMillan the following January. Under the direction of McMillan, Briney took a new approach to his running.
“At the Hansons, it’s lots of miles and we ran our guts out. You've got to be tough. Everything there is strict and sturdy and strong. McMillan focuses on more than just miles and we did a lot of core, drills, and stretching in addition to the miles. So sort of a more holistic approach,” Briney said of the training differences. “Plus, there’s all these west-coast guys there. It was like, ‘let’s do this workout, let’s do this core, then let’s chill,” Briney laughed.
While he did run his second fastest marathon of 2:16.30 at the Cal International Marathon in 2009, Briney was, as he put it, the “old guy” on the team.
“When you’re in your 30’s, you don’t have as much promise for development as the younger guys,” he explained.
So in 2011, after training with McMillan for two years and following that with a stint of training primarily on his own in Flagstaff, Briney and his girlfriend decided to move to Boulder to change things up a little. In Boulder, Briney hoped to find more job opportunities, and also more training partners.
It was a good move, as Briney gained employment with the Boulder Running Company, where he now is a familiar face working the floor, sharing his knowledge about biomechanics, footwear, injuries, and training, as well as helping to lead their Wednesday night group runs.
“I’ve met tons of great people in this industry,” he said. “BRC’s been awesome, you get to see all the cool new shoes and technology that maybe not every other running store sees.”
Overall, Briney has proven himself to be an invaluable asset to the local running community in Boulder, never shying away from contributing anything that he can.
“Things that you can do for this sport are just really fun. I love the camaraderie of all of these people. You’re encouraging fitness and you’re encouraging health. It doesn’t have to be like, ‘Oh no! We’re running four miles in gym today.’ It can be whatever you want it to be.”
Briney also found another niche training under the guidance of coach Brad Hudson as part of the Hudson Training Systems, launched last summer, along with the likes of Pat Rizzo, Tyler McCandless, Benita Willis, Tera Moody and many others both elite and sub-elite. Additionally, Briney earned sponsorship through Marathonguide.com, a website resource for races throughout the country.
While Briney did have an unfortunate DNF at this year’s Trials, he’s already got his sights set on the 2016 Trials, with the Birmingham Marathon on his race schedule two weeks from now to get him there.
“It’s encouraging to see older guys like Abdi and Meb still laying down those kind of times, they’re older than I am now, and they’re still at it.”
But on top of that goal, Briney, still in pursuit of a USA singlet, might try some other routes along the way.
“I’ll probably give ultra running a try this year. Maybe even triathlon, I want to see if I can have any success there. It’s a scary kind of challenge and you wonder if you can make it that far. In the back of my head, I still want to see what else I can go after.”
He's almost earned that U.S. singlet in enough distances as it is. Almost. With new avenues to explore on the horizon and an unwillingness to give up the old ones, it might not be long before we see him in one.
DetermiNation
