Monroeville native Dinzeo competes at U.S. Olympic Marathon Team Trials

Aaron Dinzeo has competed in many distance races in his life, but not many were like the one he ran recently with a unique prize on the line.

The Monroeville native and former track and field and cross country standout at Cal (Pa.) joined a select group of 260 at the men’s U.S. Olympic Marathon Team Trials on Feb. 27 at Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Park.

“It was a special feeling for me to be a part of a race like that,” said Dinzeo, 28, a seven-time NCAA All-American with the Vulcans from 2010-15.

“The trajectory of my career since Cal has been a somewhat shaky one with a lot of injuries and time spent trying to get back to this type of level. To have finally been able to conquer some of those demons and qualify for the Olympic Trials, it made it such a humbling experience. It made me feel very strong and confident in my running again.”

Dinzeo paced out a 5-minute, 48-second average mile and finished 148th with a time of 2:31.55. He was one of five runners to complete the course within the 2:31 time frame.

“I had a good plan going in with my coach and my teammate,” he said. “We wanted to start a little further back, be conservative, and work our way up throughout the race. The goal was to be going past packs of people in the last 10 miles.”

But Dinzeo’s efforts on the challenging course started to take a turn as he progressed past the halfway point.

“I had a tough patch where I wasn’t sure if I had overdone it early or if I was going to have a rough five minutes and then it was going to calm down, and I needed to be patient. But I started to feel muscularly fatigued. My back was cramping up, and my legs were spasming. It was just a bad sign all around. I kind of knew that with the quality of performance I had set out to accomplish, I wasn’t going to reach the time I wanted to run or the place I felt I could finish.”

Thoughts of dropping out of the race nearing the 20-mile mark floated into Dinzeo’s head, but with family, friends and teammates from Cal in attendance, he pushed through to the end.

“I picked up one of my (fluids) bottles that had names written on it to keep me motivated, and it was kind of a wake up call for me,” he said.

“I knew then that I had to stay in this, even if I ran really slow to the finish line. My last 10 miles were somewhat of a death march, but it was a unique experience to stay in there, feel the love from the crowd and finish. It wasn’t the breakout day I was looking for, but it was fulfilling nonetheless.”

Galen Rupp, a bronze medalist in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, placed first overall with a time of 2:09.20 and was one of three to qualify for the 2020 Olympics scheduled for July 24 to Aug. 9 in Tokyo, Japan.

Dinzeo punched his ticket to Atlanta by surpassing the qualifying standard at the California International Marathon in Sacramento in December.

The time to reach was 2:19.00, and Dinzeo produced a time of 2:18.13.

Dinzeo said his running future includes the goal of qualifying for the Olympic Track and Field Trials in Eugene, Ore., June 19-28. A key meet in that endeavor, he said, is the Portland (Oregon) Track Fest in early June.

“That’s the big one on the calendar, but there might be one or two before that might make sense,” Dinzeo said. “We’re still deciding on that.”

Dinzeo lives in Providence, R.I., and is a member of New England Distance, a non-profit organization that provides support to post-collegiate athletes training for various competitions and promotes exercise and other healthful lifestyle programs to youth.