Gloria Siekmeier was in her 50s and studying for her master’s degree in special education when she ran in the Cherry Creek Sneak for the first time. On Sunday, the 84-year-old substitute teacher was back at the starting line for the 30th time.
“I love being with the young people,” she said. “I love the exercise, the fresh air. It’s exhilarating.”
Joining Siekmeier in the run was a granddaughter, Jessica Siekmeier Feijoo, 33, who came to the run with her husband Ben, and their 3-month-old daughter and son, Eliana and Gabriel.
“She is an inspiration to me,” said Feijoo, who ran her first Cherry Creek Sneak in 2010 with her grandmother. “It is really fun to do this kind of thing with my grandmother.”
Siekmeier moved to Denver from Minnesota in 1954 to take a job teaching second grade with Denver Public Schools after graduating from the University of South Dakota.
She worked for a few years until her first child was born and she became a stay-at-home mom.
Twenty or so years later, after raising her four boys — Luke, Stewart, John and Tom — she went back to work, substitute teaching at DPS elementary schools.
She had always been active she said, and got interested in running when her oldest son, Tom, now 60, ran in the 4-mile, Mile High United Way Turkey Trot.
“His wife and I watched and everybody was in such high spirits, and that looked appealing,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of running before that. ”
Tom Siekmeier said he and his brothers “were part of the running phenomenon in the 70s. She said it looked like fun.”
Running was a departure from the type of activities she took part in growing up on a farm in Minnesota. “When I was a girl, girls didn’t have any competitive sports,” she said.
Siekmeier ran her first distance event in 1987, and in 1988 did her first 5-mile Cherry Creek Sneak.
The first year she ran, she was working on her master’s at the University of Northern Colorado and felt guilty about training instead of studying, she said. “I thought I shouldn’t be doing this. But I still passed. ”
She still subs for DPS and stays in shape by running and bicycling, though she no longer gets in the saddle for the Ride the Rockies Colorado Bicycle Tour. She rode the grueling week-long bike trek across the state for a number of years, .
On Sunday, she participated in the 5-mile run/walk, which is one of three events at the Cherry Creek Sneak. She completed the course in about an hour and 20 minutes.
Siekmeier, who typically runs an 11- or 12-minute mile pace, didn’t do any heavy training for Sunday’s event.
“I’m not really dogmatic about training,” she said. “I just go out on the weekend.”
