John Trautmann was once a distance-running star. He held the U.S. high school 3,000-meter record for 18 years, won the 1990 NCAA 5,000-meter title at Georgetown University, and made the 1992 Olympic team. But a toe injury forced him to drop out of his 5,000-meter semifinal at the Barcelona Games and ultimately forced him out of the sport. He took a job on Wall Street, quit running, and started eating Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
A turning point came when Trautmann turned 40. “I had gained 65 pounds and was sick of being out of shape,” he says. Trautmann reconnected with his college coach, Frank Gagliano, and started running three days a week—all his knees could handle at that weight.
Once he was back under 150 pounds and training seriously, the world indoor mile record for the 45–49 age group became a legitimate possibility. “Originally when I started thinking about the record, it was 4:20, but then Brad Barton lowered it to 4:16,” Trautmann says. He missed the mark by half a second in a 2014 attempt. Then on February 14, 2015, at age 46, Trautmann shattered Barton’s record, running 4:12.33 at the Valentine Invitational in Boston.
Now a coach in New York, Trautmann says his “reunion” with running has improved his perspective on his professional running days. “If my career when I was younger had gone into my 30s, I probably wouldn’t be running now,” he said last February. “But now, since I started up, I’m seeing my times improve every year.”
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Races - Places runningtimes.com/comebacks.
