LEADVILLE, Colo. — In the crisp predawn hours final August, 71-year-old Marge Hickman slipped the brace off her sprained ankle and eased to the beginning line of the Leadville Trail 100-mile race. Part of her stated cross house. The race wasn’t what it was. She did not really feel sought after anyway. She liked this race. She hated this race. She revolved her whole existence round this race.
She would end this race, she instructed herself. She buttressed herself along with her sure words. LND (go away definitely). One path: ahead. Let cross; let God. When the shotgun in any case boomed, Hickman, a five-foot, 100-pound runner, plodded nervously into the skinny, chilled air of the Rocky Mountains. If she may just end, she will be the oldest girl to ever achieve this.
Hickman is a well known determine on the Leadville 100, a brutal, high-altitude race that weaves during the mountains with an elevation acquire of 15,744 ft. She is masochistically obsessive about the race, consistent with pals, who level to 2 surgical procedures on her shoulders; two procedures for Plantar fasciitis, which reasons heel ache; and a plate inserted into her wrist.
She has completed the race 14 instances, however no longer in over a decade. She sheepishly admits as a lot however is adamant that she continues to be kicking butt and, in her phrases, “taking names.” Her coaching log — a mean of 80 miles every week — and an array of ultramarathon effects again up her claims. “I learned to let go of ageism a long time ago,” she stated, including, “Without that race on my calendar, I don’t know what I’d do or who I’d be.”
Ultrarunning has lengthy supplied an impressive draw for true eccentrics. They come with Bob Wise, who suffered mind trauma in a automotive crash however came upon that longer races supplied a respite from the noise in his head. Despite his drooping posture and a penchant for operating into bushes, he competed in a large number of six- and seven-day races and race-walked 903 miles within the first qualified 1,000-mile race.
Then there is the Scottish runner Arthur John Howie, who as soon as held 3 global information: operating 360 miles nonstop, a 1,300-mile race in 16 days 19 hours and the velocity file throughout Canada in 72 days 10 hours. His most popular gasoline? Copious quantities of beer.
Jameelah Abdul-Rahim Mujaahid, a unmarried mom of 5, began operating ultras at the weekends, after an afternoon process as a district supervisor for 4 Burger Kings and evening shifts on the Waffle House. At 54 years outdated, she has finished over 200 ultramarathons.
For Hickman, workout had to be excessive to offset lifelong bouts of tension and despair. In her 20s, she stated, she fled Pittsburgh and a youth marred by means of lack of confidence and forget for the mountains of Colorado. The snow-capped peaks hunched in opposition to the horizon and the push of transparent mountain streams turned into symbols of her transformation from a timid kid, made to put on glasses by means of her folks in an try to make her smarter, right into a self-possessed athlete.
When the doorways of her health club opened at 6, she would run at the carpeted monitor. “Then an aerobics class,” she stated. “At lunch, I’d take an hour and a half and run five miles. I’d do a quick wipe up, put the jeans back on and some perfume and head back to work. After I got off, I was back for racquetball.”
But it was in a running shop in Denver in 1984 where destiny seemed to find her. She met Jim Butera, a bearded hippie who ran obscure races called “ultras,” offered trainers and professed excessive operating as a lifestyle. “I believed he was once the most efficient factor since canned corn,” Hickman said. When he showed her a flier for his latest idea, a 100-mile race in the mountains of Colorado — a race across the sky — it sounded impossible. She was hooked.
Her Leadville initiation in August of that year was a jarring portent of the relationship she would have with the race for the rest of her life. After face-planting on a root near Mile 13, she pushed on with blood oozing from her knees and face and a twisted ankle rapidly swelling. Eighty-seven miles later, tears began to flow as she limped over the last hill and saw the finish line.
The same year her love affair with Leadville began, her first marriage ended. “Because of my exercise addiction,” Hickman admitted.
The next year, she won the women’s division and placed 11th overall. She returned like a homing pigeon for the next 27 years — finishing 13 more times — making her the most prolific female runner in Leadville’s storied history.
In 1997, she wed again, this time to a runner on an iconic peak of the course during her beloved race. The couple moved to the city of Leadville in 2004, and she further enmeshed herself in the ever-expanding series of Leadville races.
But in 2010, the series was sold to Life Time Fitness. What had felt like a cozy affair among like-minded trail bums became a Disneyland of the mountains. Prices climbed, a gift shop was added and the field ballooned from 625 participants in 2011 to 943 by 2013.
Hickman turned contemptuous after Butera died in 2012 and the race came and went without mention of the former race director. By that time, the race had long been led by Ken Chlouber and Merilee Maupin. Chlouber has been widely credited with popularizing the race. In her book on the history of the Leadville 100, Hickman made her views crystal clear: The race was the brainchild of Butera alone. She and Chlouber have been at odds since, and in 2019, her brazenness got her banned.
Clouber did not respond to requests for comment.
Hickman was reinstated for the 2021 race, after pressure from runners, including Gary Corbitt, son of the ultrarunning legend Ted Corbitt. She had another shot to cross the line.
Hickman was exactly where she wanted to be when she reached the halfway point. She had completed 13 hours and still had over 16 hours to finish. She felt stronger than she had in years. In any other major 100-miler, barring injury, she would have been home free.
But not at Leadville. New rules enacted weeks before the race now gave her only four hours to get to the next aid station. According to race officials, the changes were made to ease congestion. In effect, Hickman, and slower runners like her, were eliminated even though they most likely would have been able to finish before the 30-hour cutoff time.
She sat limp in a chair at Mile 50 while a volunteer cut her wristband, effectively disqualifying her from the race. In a daze, Hickman didn’t seem to notice. She stared at the clock, befuddled over what went wrong, emotion rumbling in her gut.
Initially, Hickman took a conspiratorial stance and referred to the fact that she is the most decorated Leadville veteran not inducted into the Leadville Hall of Fame. “They say they are looking forward to me to retire,” she said. “I say they’re waiting for me to die.”
Public declarations of closure followed. She was done with Leadville. She had enough. She was spent; her heart was no longer in it.
She signed up for the 2022 race five weeks later. Those who know her said it was inevitable. “Leadville’s been half my life,” Hickman joked sarcastically, a jumble of glee and heaviness in her voice. “It’s in your face — the hand of the mountains just comes out and gets you by the heart and sucks you in.”
In the third week of August, she will line up at Leadville again, determined to write her own ending.
“Yeah, I like to read books and stuff, but I’m a doer,” Hickman, now 72, added as she applied makeup over a black eye from a recent fall. “My plan is to run on. If they cut my wrist band, I’m just going to keep going. I’m going to finish my race.”
