Final weekend, on the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile, 35-year-old Coloradan Anne Flower, in her debut 100 miler, gained in a time of 17 hours and 58 minutes to set a brand new girls’s course file. That point bested ultrarunning icon Ann Trason‘s 31-year-old course file of 18:06, by about eight minutes.
Over the intervening years since Trason’s efficiency, many ladies have tried however failed to achieve her practically untouchable file, with the race’s excessive altitude, persistent runability, daytime warmth, and infrequently terrible thunderstorms battering them again. It was, then, Flower who lastly, efficiently chased Trason’s splits all the way in which throughout the end line.
Anne Flower on her option to a brand new girls’s course file on the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile. Photograph: Life Time
Ann Trason on the 1994 Leadville 100 Mile
Again in August of 1994, when Trason set the prior course file, she was having the operating yr of her life. In Could, she gained the Silver State 50 Mile outright in a time of seven:29, which continues to be the ladies’s course file. And a month later, she gained her sixth consecutive Western States 100 with a then course-record time, ending second total.
Whereas Trason is maybe greatest identified for her exploits at Western States, previous to 1994, she had run Leadville twice, in 1988 and 1990, profitable the ladies’s race each instances. However the yr 1994 was completely different. She was on the very prime of her recreation and on the prime of her sport.
Ann Trason on the 1994 Western States 100. Photograph: Western States 100
Alongside Trason that chilly morning in Leadville have been seven Tarahumara from the Copper Canyons of Mexico, a bunch identified for being expert long-distance runners. The race had a major media presence, with a big movie crew engaged on a feature-length documentary in regards to the Tarahumara and Trason.
Leadville native Johnny Sandoval went to the lead early and constructed a half-hour hole on a chase group of 5 Tarahumara and Trason by round mile 30. The chase pack, which had splintered into teams, caught Sandoval on the base of Hope Go. Main after that have been two Tarahumara runners, Juan Herrera and Martimano Cervantez, and Trason.
By the highest of Hope Go, Trason had opened a niche and descended to Winfield within the lead. She reached that Winfield 50-mile turnaround in beneath 9 hours, quicker than any lady earlier than.
Although Herrera would find yourself passing Trason with solely 13 miles left to run to win the lads’s race, when Trason crossed the end line, it was with a brand new girls’s course file of 18:06. You possibly can learn extra about that history-making day in our Unforgettable Moments of Ultrarunning article.
Hope Go, on the very left of the picture, marks the excessive level of the Leadville 100 Mile course. Photograph: iRunFar/Eszter Horanyi
Anne Flower on the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile
Flower, an emergency room physician from Colorado Springs, got here into Leadville with 2024 wins on the Arches 50k, Behind the Rocks 50k, and the Javelina 100k. She tuned up for Leadville in 2025 — and acclimated to racing at its altitude — with summer season wins at each the Leadville Path Marathon and the Silver Rush 50 Mile. Primarily based on these outcomes, Flower seemed primed for a promising 100-mile debut.
As has grow to be the case in recent times, the 2025 race version began quick. Katie Asmuth arrived at Could Queen at mile 13 because the lead lady and two minutes forward after all file tempo. Flower was a couple of minutes behind her and was adopted by Imogen Ainsworth in third place.
By the point Flower reached the Outward Sure Support Station at mile 23.5, she had assumed the lead, which she would by no means relinquish. By the point I noticed her about midway up the Hope Go climb on her option to Winfield, she was forward after all file tempo. When she reached the 50-mile mark at Winfield, she was 10 minutes forward of Trason’s legendary file break up. Over the race’s second half, the place many individuals have struggled through the years, Flower solely gave away two minutes to Trason’s splits to complete eight minutes quicker than the outdated file. In doing so, she turned the primary lady to run beneath 18 hours.
Anne Flower breaks Ann Trason’s 31-year-old course file on the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile. Photograph: Life Time
It was, certainly, one for the file books!
Bottoms up!
AJW’s Beer of the Week
This week’s Beer of the Week comes from Two Mile Brewing Firm in Leadville, Colorado. Dubbed “America’s Highest Brewery,” Two Mile Brewing is residence to the Poverty Flats Porter, an old-school model porter that’s wealthy in chocolate, nuttiness, and molasses. A real breakfast porter, Poverty Flats is a good selection on a cold night in Leadville.
Name for Feedback
- Had been you in Leadville this previous weekend to observe this Anne Flower’s historic run?
- Did you suppose Ann Trason’s file would ever be damaged?
