EAGLE — In the world of women’s running, the inspirations are wide and varied. Role models can range from track phenoms Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Wilma Rudolph to distance marvels Mary Decker Slaney and Ann Trason.
Leave it to ultramarathoner Anita Ortiz of Eagle, though, to find the motivation of a champion in a television character named Jan Brady.
“I always liked her long hair,” Ortiz, 45, said shortly after winning the Pikes Peak Marathon and setting the women’s record for her age group in her first attempt Sunday. “My mom still laughs at me, but it’s a totally true story. My goal in life was to sprint home from school in time to watch ‘The Brady Bunch’ in fourth grade. Eventually it evolved into ‘Happy Days.’ That’s when television was still good.”
Ortiz, now a mother of four, no longer keeps a television in her home. But the foundation laid in that pre-“Nick at Night” era when she had less than 15 minutes in a race to catch the opening credits has allowed her to evolve into one of the strongest and fastest women in the ultradistance world. In addition to a convincing victory by more than 23 minutes at Pikes Peak, Ortiz won the lauded Western States 100 in her first 100-mile race this summer, placed second in the Miwok 100 and will attempt to defend the women’s title in the six-day, 113-mile Gore-Tex Trans-Rockies Run beginning Sunday. A five-year member of the U.S. Mountain Running Team and three-time national champion, she earned a bronze medal in world championship competition in 2004 and gold in 2007.
Not bad for a Wheat Ridge High School graduate who casually jogged and partied her way through college.
“I hated racing in high school,” said Ortiz, a member of the 1982 high school state champion cross country team. “I hated the pressure and still to this day say if the pressure gets too much then I’m done. But I’ve managed to harness it pretty well, so I don’t have those negative effects anymore.”
Ortiz says it wasn’t until her children were born that she decided to return to running competitively, largely because of encouragement from her husband, Mike, who runs the Vail Recreation District that hosts an annual trail running series. But clearly the drive to compete at an elite level had never left during a nearly 15-year absence from racing when she continued to run almost every day — even the days her children were born.
“I ran the day each of them was born, that morning,” she said, including the birth of her twins. “You gotta get your run in. You gotta have priorities. If I miss a day, I am nasty ugly.”
The Eagle Valley Elementary School teacher rises almost every morning at 3:45 for the first of two daily trail running sessions totaling up to 30 miles, typically capping them off with a stair-machine workout to help with hill climbing. In the winter months, she’ll trade sneakers for snowshoes and cut the distance in half, then hit the treadmill.
“It probably qualifies me as an addict,” Ortiz said. “I honestly think after that very first trail race, the Vail Half-Marathon up to Piney Lake — my first win of any race, really — from then on I became an adrenaline junkie for racing.”
In addition to the fictitious Brady clan, Ortiz credits her own family — mostly her dad — for planting the seed that has grown into a lifestyle and a modest career (just behind “mom” and “teacher”) with sponsorships from Beaver Creek Resort and shoe manufacturer La Sportiva, among others. During high school, her father would wake before sunrise to run with her almost daily, a tradition she maintains with her own 16-year-old now.
“I was at that rebellious age, and my dad found a way to connect with me. I don’t think he even realized what a gift it was,” she said. “He got me into what I do now, gave me something else to do besides going out and getting plastered with the gang. Times are tough in high school, you know, and it was awesome. A huge gift.”
Ortiz says it’s the peace of distance trail running that she enjoys the most. If she had the time, she’d do it seven hours a day. So it comes as no surprise that with the advent of the 3-year-old TransRockies Run spanning the backcountry from Buena Vista to her backyard at Beaver Creek Resort, Ortiz feels like she has won the lottery.
But mostly she’s in it for the love.
“It’s the most fun a person could ever have in the whole world. If anybody even remotely likes to run, they should do the TransRockies. It’s so much fun,” she said with infectious enthusiasm. “It’s fun to win it, but I don’t think that’s the best part of it. Just being out there with all these people, in the most beautiful place you can be. It’s like a running vacation. Like going to running camp for a week.”
Scott Willoughby: 303-954-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com
