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By Palmer Thombs

Veteran runner Dan Vassallo has run more than 74,000 miles during his competitive running career, but the 34-year-old believes that he only has 26.2 miles left.

Vassallo plans to retire after he completes the U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Marathon on Feb. 29 in Atlanta.

“I think that I’ve given the game all that I can give, and that if I were to continue to pursue the game the way that I have over the past 15, 20 years, it’s a fast track to falling out of love with it,” Vassallo said. “I just want to downshift.”

Vassallo was raised in a family of soccer players, led by his father John, who was an All-American at Westfield State. Dan Vassallo started running competitively at the suggestion of his former soccer coach. He began running cross country during his sophomore year at Wilmington High School in Massachusetts. Soon he found himself at a crossroads.

"I do remember one moment, where I was like, ‘You know what, if I’m going to do this, if I’m going to make myself a three-sport athlete,” Vassallo said. “I’m tired of losing. I’m tired of (being sorry).’"

Vassallo exceeded his wildest dreams, developing into a top runner on his high school team and continued his career at Division III Colby College. His work in college resembled marathon training more than it did traditional 5K or 10K preparation, and just five months after he graduated, Vassallo ran his first marathon. He set the course record of 2:26:54 at the Maine Marathon in Portland, Maine.

From there, Vassallo got even better. He won the 2014 Philadelphia Marathon with a personal record time of 2:17:28, qualified for the 2016 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials and placed 10th in the 2018 Boston Marathon, an event that he attended as a spectator growing up. Vassallo solidified his position in these Olympic Trials with a time of 2:17:30 at the California International Marathon in Sacramento, California on Dec. 2, 2018.

After qualifying for the 2020 Olympic Trials, Vassallo admitted that he was “close to falling out of love with (running)” after struggling through an accumulation of injuries during 2019 that caused his performance on the course to diminish. His wife Katrina, who is also a runner, was there to witness it all.

“It’s always tough to see someone I care about struggling and not be able to fix it,” she said. “Mostly I struck a balance between letting Dan vent and leaving him alone to pout.”

Recently, Vassalo did a quick Facebook search of the top finishers from a half marathon that he did at age 22, and the results showed that most are no longer running competitively. Vassallo, on the other hand, is looking forward to his final run.

“I think my primary goal is to finish it with a good taste in my mouth," Vassallo said. “I’ve got nothing to prove anymore.”

Leading up to the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Marathon, Atlanta Track Club partnered with the Grady Sports Media program at the University of Georgia to profile some of the competitors in the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials. The authors of these stories are undergraduate students enrolled in the program and have been lightly edited by the Club. See all of the stories at https://www.atlanta2020trials.com/news/uga-trials-project.