Interview with Trina Painter
by Pat Goodwin

Trina Painter running in the Aramco Houston Half-Marathon where she won the USA Master's title.
Photo by: Victah Sailer
Photo Run

Trina [Leopold] Painter, 40, grew up in Phoenix and was the Arizona state high school champion in the mile, 3200, and also cross country in the early 1980s. She then ran at Phoenix College for Coach Fred Moore and set a junior college record of 9:13 in the 3000 meters. While she was there, Phoenix College also won the National Junior College Cross Country team title in 1985.

She next ran for the University of Texas at Austin where the team was the NCAA Cross Country Champion in Painter’s first year at Austin and then fifth as a team in cross country her senior year. The University of Texas at Austin was also the NCAA Indoor Track Champion in Painter’s junior year as well as the NCAA Outdoor Nationals runner-up. For indoor and outdoor track, she focused on the 3000 and the 5000 meters. After a fifth year at Texas for an indoor season in 1989-90, Painter started to run professionally in March 1990.

She had a dream of getting to the Olympics. In 1988, she ran in the finals of the 3000 meters at the U.S. Olympic track trials. In 1992, she was picked to be one of the favorites to make the team in the 10,000 meters at the USA Olympic Track Trials but missed getting a spot. By 1996 she took aim at making the Olympic team in the marathon but didn’t finish the race in Columbia. That year she once again ran the 10,000 meters at the U.S. Olympic track trials but ended up sixth and ended her quest to be a member of the U.S. Olympic team.

In her 20s, Painter posted times of 32:02 in the 10K, 1:07:06 in the 20K in 1995, 1:11:07 for the half-marathon in 1993, and 2:35:21 at the Chicago Marathon in 1994. After the 1996 Olympic Trials, Painter was 29 and had been married for six years. At that point, she and her husband, David, started their family which today includes daughters Hannah, 10, and Chole, who will soon be 6.

Now living in Flagstaff, Painter has been coaching both the boys’ and girls’ high school cross country and track teams for the past five years. Last summer, she turned 40 and has been mounting a comeback on the roads. In January she won the women’s master’s title at the Aramco Houston Half-Marathon in 1:19:29. On March 25, she will participate in the More Magazine Half-Marathon for two-woman teams in New York City’s Central Park with hopes of improving on her half-marathon time as a masters runner.

Fast-Women.com: Why did you decide to run the More Magazine event?
Trina Painter: David Monti was at the [Aramcp] Houston Half-Marathon and was recruiting for the More [Magazine] Marathon and Half-marathon. He thought that Michelle Lilienthal, who was also at Houston, and I would make a good team for the More Half-Marathon. Our goal is to break the More Magazine Marathon team record of 2:36:03. [Lilienthal withdrew from the event this week due to an injury and Painter’s new partner is Lyubov Denisova].

Editor's Update: Trina Painter and Lyubov Denisova won the More Magazine Half-Marathon team event; Painter's time of 1:19:10 and Denisova's time of 1:16:49 added up to a marathon time of 2:35:59, breaking the More Magazien half-marathon team record by four seconds.

FW: Are you looking forward to this race?
TP: I have never raced in Central Park so I am really jazzed about this event. I am also excited because it is an all-women race. I would love to run faster than I did at Houston but the course I think will be a little more difficult. If I could run 1:18 or 1:17, I would be very pleased with that.

FW: What is it about turning 40 that brings runners back out to compete?
TP: I know that I was looking forward to and very anxious to turn 40. I wanted to start competing again on a national level as a master’s runner. I turned 40 last summer and was going to run the [Atlanta Journal-Constitution] Peachtree 10K as my debut race but I did something to my calf so I had to postpone my coming out until Houston in January.

FW: Why did you step away from your professional running career in your 30s?
TP: I actually raced the year after I had Hannah 10 years ago and made the U.S. World Half-marathon team. But after that, I became more of a mom. If the kids were sick, I skipped a run. I was always running during the six or seven years I focused on my family, but not necessarily competing. In the last year-and-a-half before I turned 40, I started competing locally. I realized I missed being able to travel and compete on a higher level. I also missed seeing other people I knew who were competing on the circuit.

FW: How did you end up in Flagstaff after being in Austin?
TP: I moved to Flagstaff to train at altitude for a year before the 1996 trials. When we first came to Flagstaff, we didn’t even sell our house in Texas because we had all the intention of returning to Austin. Both my husband and I are from Arizona so we decided to stay on in Flagstaff. I do miss Austin and all the people I used to run with. But we really like Flagstaff and then with a family, we are close to the grandparents.

FW: Tell us a little more about your collegiate running career.
TP: I had a phenomenal coach when I was at the junior college in Phoenix. His name is Fred Moore and he still coaches me actually. When we won the National Junior College Cross Country team title, we did it with a group of women all from Arizona. We had no foreign athletes which a lot of the junior college teams started to have. We were all local girls and we put a strong team together. Then going to the University of Texas at Austin was a great experience as well. The Texas team was very dominant in the distance events and they were also very well rounded in the other events. My first year at Austin as a junior, we were the NCAA Champions in cross country and indoor track as well.

FW: You went to the U.S. Olympic Trials three times to try and make the team. Were you disappointed that you didn’t make it?
TP: My coach said we needed to take it a step at a time to get to the Olympics. He said the first thing to do is to get to the Trials and get the experience and then the next time around, try to make the team. In 1988, the goal was to just make it to the finals of the 3000 meters which I did. Then in 1992, I ran the 10,000 in New Orleans and was picked to be one of the favorites to make the team because I had one of the top times coming into the Trials. There were three of us who led for about 4 miles and then three girls went around us. We weren’t race savvy and we didn’t run that great of a race strategically in 1992. Then in 1996, I ran in the U.S. Women’s Marathon Trials in Columbia, South Carolina. I had run two marathons and was third at the Houston Marathon and had a time of 2:35. I trained at altitude for a year before the 1996 trials to get a handle on the marathon. But compared to what women do now, I don’t think I ran enough miles. I was doing 70 to 80 miles a week and maybe I hit the 90s a couple of times. At the marathon trials, I missed a water bottle once on purpose and then I missed another one. I got really dehydrated so I dropped out at mile 24. I was able to recover and run the track trials in the 10,000 but I just didn’t have it. It wasn’t my turn and I was sixth at the track trials. There is that moment in time when you cross the finish line, you don’t get the prize, and everything is over. It was very very disappointing.

FW: When did you start coaching at the high school in Flagstaff?
TP: The woman who was coaching previously heard I had moved to town and invited me to help out. Then she went on to become athletic director. She recruited me into doing it. When you are racing and training so much you don’t always have time to coach. I have loved it. The kids get me excited about my own running and I get the bug. It has been fun to see kids improve. I have met a lot of wonderful individuals and their families. I had an incredible high school coach and I still talk with her. I want that for these kids so that when they get married they’ll want to share their families with me. I already have several kids who are running collegiately. We have a pretty large cross country team with about 50 kids. I have coached both boys and girls for about five years but I’ve just stepped away from the track program so it is the first spring I’m not doing track. It just takes so much time and the meets are much longer than cross country meets. We have to drive two-and-a-half hours to Phoenix for most of the events because we don’t have a lot of meets up north.

FW: How are the winters in Flagstaff for running?
TP: The trails are incredible here but the weather does make it a little more interesting to train here. I don’t mind the snow but it’s when you get the ice that it is difficult. I don’t have a treadmill. I am a tough old bird so I go outside and run carefully. On occasion, however, I do go to the high altitude training facility.

FW: Do your family members also run or support your running?
TP: David ran in high school and in college but now he prefers mountain biking and cycling. My daughters like my running and support it but they think I should run races where I win a weekend at a hotel or something rather than just winning a medal.

FW: Do you feel ready to run well at the More Magazine Half-Marathon?
TP: It took me about two weeks to recover from the Houston Half-marathon but then the training has been great. I feel that I am in better shape than I was for Houston. However, I do have to be very cautious now because I get hurt more.

FW: Do you think you’ll run another marathon now that you’re a master’s runner?
TP: I haven’t finished a marathon in over 10 years. Some people are pushing me to run in the master’s national marathon championship which will be at the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon in October. I really need to think through that. I don’t want to just go and jog it. If I really prepared for it and there was good competition it would be something to consider. I definitely have a lot going on in my head about this. But first I want to try out some of these other national races and see how I do.

Interview conducted on March 14, 2007, and posted on March 22, 2007.

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