USATF CLUB FEATURE SUNDAY SPOTLIGHT Railroad Athletics

Interview with Coaches: Hayden Cox, Mark Hadley, Merritt Vaughn

1. What is your club’s official name?

Railroad Athletics


2. Where is your club based (where do you practice)?

Our club has three coaches. Our Head Coach, Hayden Cox is based here in Austin with Assistant Coach Merritt Vaughn. Our content team is also based in Austin. Assistant Coach Mark Hadley coaches remotely from Youngstown, Ohio. 

We practice all over Austin, depending on the workout. Our three favorite meeting spots are (1) Austin High, for mixed workouts using hills, soft-surface, or (2) McCallum High School, for track-specific work, or (3) Great Northern, a (mostly) flat road loop in Northwest Austin that we use for road tempos, fartleks, or longer intervals.

3. When was your club established?

June 2019

4. What is your coaching background?

Our head coach, Hayden Cox, founded Railroad to offer every athlete an elite coaching experience, regardless of their pace. He has 10 years of coaching experience, including stints at the High School and NCAA D1 levels. Individually he has also coached several individuals to qualify and compete at the U.S. Championships, U.S. Olympic Trials, and foreign domestic championships. He specializes in working with highly competitive athletes and is especially enthusiastic about working with athletes who have been overlooked and written off by others.

Mark Hadley’s coaching journey began in 2013 when he collaborated with his high school cross country coach to write his team’s training plan. That year he went on to win the Ohio Cross Country State Championship and earned a full D1 athletic scholarship to Furman. He joined Railroad in 2022 and is an expert in helping athletes PR and BQ.

Merritt Vaughn began coaching up and coming kids in his hometown of Amarillo, TX. He quickly found himself obsessed with different training styles and spent the next several years studying everything he could find while slowly developing his own style. He is especially passionate about helping former D2 and D3 athletes forge a path in the sport after school.


5. What is your athletic background?

Hayden Cox and Mark Hadley were teammates and roommates at Furman University, where they competed as D1 XC/TF athletes on Furman’s nationally ranked team. Hayden primarily raced the 800m, where he ran 1:58, but mostly paced the women’s team. Mark eventually transferred to Walsh University, a D2 school near his hometown to compete alongside his brother and sister. Mark’s 5k best is 14:29. He has also run 2:35 in the marathon on a dare but looks forward to making a proper debut soon.

Merritt Vaughn was a mid-D specialist at West Texas A&M, competing in everything from the 4x400 to the 3000m steeplechase. 

Hayden, Mark, and Merritt all feel they make much better coaches than athletes!


6. How many coaches do you have on your staff?

Three coaches, Hayden, Mark, and Merritt. Rumor has it we have one more about to join!

7. What is your coaching philosophy?

“One Step at a Time” sums up all three of our coaching philosophies. Broadly, each of our coaches believes in a highly individualized approach, tailoring workouts, and scheduling to the athlete’s goals. 

8. On a scale of 1-10, how competitive is your program?

10! We are the fastest team in Texas and our women recently won the 2024 USA Cross Country Championships. Our “A” teams have been undefeated by Texas teams since 2020 in team competitions, including Zilker Relays, Austin Cross, and Sound Running’s Cross Champs. With a handful of US Championship and Olympic Trials qualifiers on the roster, we’re hard to beat!

That being said, a huge part of our team’s success is due to the flexibility and individual nature of our program. While we are highly competitive, we are also very low stress. No practice is required, and everything is built around the athlete’s own schedule.

9. What is the age range of the athletes you coach?

Currently, 13-54! We’d be hesitant to go much younger but are always excited to work with older athletes who are serious and dedicated in the pursuit of their goals.

10. How many athletes are part of your program?

41. Both Hayden & Mark coach 17 athletes. Merritt just joined and is already working with 5. Our coaches all have a “hard cap” of 20 athletes to ensure that every athlete gets the time and attention they deserve!

11. Who has been the most successful athlete from your program?

Too many! I’ll give you two stories, our marquee woman and man!

Women
Anna West has the best story on the women’s side. She joined Railroad in Fall of 2021 with one goal: qualify for the 2024 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. Only one problem, she had never even run a half marathon! Anna had some success racing for Baylor and Michigan in college but was constantly injured there and started to believe her body just wasn’t built for running. 

Then she met Hayden. Hayden started her on 5 runs a week, averaging ~30mpw to help her regain her confidence and build back up. Soon enough, Anna was feeling fit and fast in the 50’s and ran her first half: the Austin Half Marathon in Feb 2022 where she placed 3rd in 75:51. Hayden encouraged her to stay patient for the marathon. In the next year, she got married, raced several halves and dropped her PR to 73:10, all while building up her strength and her mileage.

With a few months left in the qualifying window, she took her shot at the McKirdy Micro Marathon in Oct 2023: Mission Success! A 2:35:08 debut and ticket punched to the Olympic Trials!

Men
Allen Sumrall has become the most recognized male Railroad athlete. When Allen joined in Spring of 2021, he was 27 years old. He had solid PR’s, earned D3 All-American at Bates College, then enjoyed a few victory laps competing for the University of Texas while earning his J.D. He was still racing a few Austin races for fun but thought he had reached his peak. Hayden thought differently. 

Hayden revolutionized Allen’s training. Within a year Allen’s PRs dropped from (5k) 14:29 to 13:57, (10k) 29:44 to 28:44, and (Half) 66:32 to 64:13 in only a year. Since then, he has qualified for the U.S. Championships in Indoor, Outdoor, and the Half Marathon, where he placed 12th, 17th, and 16th respectively, dropping a few more PRs along the way. Now at age 30, for the first time in his life, Allen is one of a select few American men with a bona fide belief they can make the start line of the 2024 U.S. Olympic Track Trials. 


12. What is your proudest coaching moment in your career?

Hayden: My proudest coaching moment was watching Anna West & Alyssa Bloomquist qualify for the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials. You’ve heard Anna’s story already, but Alyssa’s is special too. A 33yo mother-of-two with a full-time job, Alyssa came to Railroad in the summer of 2023 very skeptical of my belief that we could drop her 2:41 marathon PR below the 2:37 threshold necessary to qualify for the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials. After all, how could she train harder now with her incredibly busy life than she did pre-kids. I told her she wouldn’t. She’d train smarter. A few months later, I ugly cried watching her disbelief as she crossed the line in 2:36:41. She inspires me so much and is so fun to coach.

Mark: By default, I have to say it’s my wife’s BQ. But for number two, I love watching athletes prove themselves wrong. I’ve been coaching Melanie Hussey for a few years now. She started as a competitive rower and as such, is so good aerobically and mentally, but had to adjust to the impact-related demands of running. She didn’t think she’d ever finish a marathon due to being injury prone. Well, I ran every damn step of the Grandma’s Marathon with her in 2023 and it wasn’t easy, but she made it happen! I love the picture of us crossing that finish line together.

Merritt: My proudest moment was watching Isaac McGill compete at the Texas High School State Championships. He was entered in both the two mile and the mile his senior year with not a lot of time in between. To put it bluntly, the two mile did not go well. He performed significantly below his expectations and was understandably frustrated with the results. Mike Tyson says that “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth,” and what I was most proud of with Isaac was how he responded when that happened. Instead of wallowing, he reset and attacked the mile with a fresh attitude. It was one of the best races I’ve ever seen him run and he set a 5 second PR!


13. Do you coach all track and field or long distance running events? If not, which ones do you not coach?

Hayden: Mile to Marathon, a few folks will run 800’s on occasion too.
Mark: Mile to Marathon
Merritt: 800 to 10k

14. Why did you become a coach?

Hayden: Like Mark, I’ve always been interested in the “why” behind running. I give a lot of credit to my High School Coach, Mike Morris, for answering my many questions before, after, and often during workouts. He set the standard for me on what a great coach should look like: passionate, focused, and invested in each individual off the track as much as on. When I graduated HS, he changed jobs to another team and, well, let’s just say the new coach had no idea what he was doing. A few of my teammates asked me to help them out with their summer training and almost all of them set PR’s that next season and several committed to running D1 after graduation. I loved being able to help them achieve their goals and wanted to experience that more!

Mark: Coaching is one of those things I didn’t really decide to do. I’ve always had a passion for understanding the “why” behind different things and running was no different.  As an athlete, I spent a lot of time and energy (perhaps too much) breaking down training and understanding how each individual piece contributed to my development. I quickly found myself mentoring teammates on my high school team and beyond, and next thing I knew, I was coaching people. It's a special feeling watching someone achieve a goal they’ve worked hard to earn.

Merritt: I grew up in Amarillo and fell in love with coaching by working with the generation or two behind me. I think my own lackluster athletic experience has allowed me to see around corners for younger athletes and help them overcome the inevitable barriers we are all faced with on and off the track. It’s been really cool seeing a lot of those early athletes I worked with go on to great careers in the sport, especially my cousin Isaac competing for Portland—one of the best distance programs in the country.  


15. Which sports/disciplines do you coach?
Cross Country {x }
Indoors {x }
Outdoors {x }
Road Running {x }