Constantina Diţă

March 10, 2014February 22, 2015 / tramsdell

Constantina Diţă is one of the most successful Romanian athletes of all-time, currently holding the Romanian national road records for the 5K, 10K, 15K, Half Marathon and the Marathon.

Winning her gold in the 2008 Beijing Olympics

Winning gold in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Photo courtesy constantinadita.com

Diţă finished 20th in the marathon at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and went on to win the Chicago Marathon later that year, running a personal best of 2:21:30. After winning the marathon bronze at the 2005 World Championships, she became the World Half Marathon Champion. She won a silver medal at the 2006 IAAF World Road Running Championships and took third place at the 2007 London Marathon. In her career highlight, Diţă won the women’s marathon at the 2008 Summer Olympics in 2:26:44, becoming the oldest Olympic marathon champion in history (male or female) at age 38. She lives and trains at altitude in Boulder and continues her running career, competing the marathon at the 2012 Summer Olympics.

2014 Colorado Running Hall of Fame:

Anita Ortiz

March 10, 2014February 22, 2015 / tramsdell

Anita Ortiz started racing at age 36, building her career in Mountain Running, Ultra Running and

Photo via ultrachixunite.com

snowshoe racing, competing in over 200 races and breaking 55 records in just nine years. She has competed on the U.S. Mountain Running team five times, placing highest U.S. finisher four times. She was the Mountain Running National Champion in 2002 and 2003 as well as the Masters Mountain Running World Champion in 2004. She’s won the Pikes Peak Ascent three times, setting and holding the record time for five years in 2002 in 2:44:33. Ortiz was also the National Snowshoe Champion in 2002 and runner-up in 2004. She was named the USATF Female Mountain Runner of the Year in both 2002 and 2003 and the USATF Female Masters Mountain Runner of the Year in 2004. A kindergarten teacher and mother of four, Anita is still active in the racing community, serving as Board member for the All American Trail Running Association, the United States Snowshoe Association, and coaching elementary students on the Eagle Valley Elementary Running Team.

2014 Colorado Running Hall of Fame:

March 10, 2014February 22, 2015 / tramsdell

photo via: runningfreeonline.com

Priscilla Welch began her remarkable running career at the age of 35, when she quit smoking and took up running under the guidance of her husband and coach, Dave Welch, and ran the 1980 London Marathon. Four years later, she qualified for the British Olympic team at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, placing sixth in the inaugural women’s Olympic marathon. On her 40th birthday, Welsh qualified for the Masters division and began setting age group world records. In 1987, she won the New York Marathon in 2:30:17. This was coupled with her second place finish in London where she set an age group world record running a 2:26:51, earning the sixth fastest time in the world in 1987, and holding the women’s masters marathon world record for 21 years. Welch again set an age group world record in the 1988 Boston Marathon in 2:30:48, holding the record for 14 years. Welch continued to run until a 1992 bout with breast cancer curtailed her career and she moved from her longtime home of Boulder to Tabernash, in the high country of Colorado, later relocating to Bend, Oregon.

2014 Colorado Running Hall of Fame:

Jane Welzel

March 9, 2013February 21, 2015 / runningincolorado / 1 Comment

jane high res crop Jane Welzel is a five-time Olympic Trials Marathon participant (1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, and 2000). She has won several marathons including the 1979 Nittany Valley Marathon (2:48:47), the 1983 Philadelphia Marathon (2:36:18), and the 1988 Hokkaido Marathon (2:40:53). Following a terrible car accident in 1984 that broke her neck and left her in a body cast for three months, Welzel amazingly recovered, again qualifying for the Olympic Trials, and was named Runners World Comeback Runner of the Year in 1988. She went on to become the National Marathon Champion in 1990 (2:33:24) and then win the 1992 Grandma’s Marathon in 2:33:01, setting a personal best. She was the 1996 USATF National 25K Champion (open and master) (1:29:47), both the 1996 and 1997 USATF Master Runner of the year, as well as the 1997 Runners World Master Runner of the year.

janew running

2013 Colorado Running Hall of Fame:

Lidia Simon

March 9, 2013February 21, 2015 / runningincolorado / 1 Comment

Lidia Simon is an elite long-distance runner, earning a silver medal in the marathon at the 2000 Sydney Olympics where she represented Romania. She competed in five Olympic Marathons (1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012). She is a six-time participant at the World Championships in Athletics, winning gold in 2001 and taking bronze medals at the Marathon World Championships in 1997 and 1999. She holds three victories at the Osaka Ladies Marathon (1998, 1999, and 2000) and set her personal best during her win in 2000 at 2:22:54. She placed 1st in the 2007 Toray Cup Shanghai Marathon. She also won the first edition of the combined Osaka Marathon in 2011, and then again in 2012. Her half-marathon personal best time of 1:08:34 is the Romanian national record and she won the Bolder Boulder in 1999 and the Denver Rock ‘n’ Roll Half-Marathon in 2011. Lidia Running

2013 Colorado Running Hall of Fame:

Nancy Hobbs

March 9, 2013February 21, 2015 / runningincolorado

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Nancy Hobbs has been running trails and directing running events since the mid-80’s and her articles and photographs about the sport have been published in magazines including Runner’s World, Running Times, Trail Runner, and Ultrarunner. She is the founder and executive director of the American Trail Running Association, a council member of the World Mountain Running Association, manager of the US Mountain Running Team (starting the women’s team in 1995), and chairperson of the USATF Mountain Ultra Trailrunning Council. Hobbs lives in Colorado Springs, traveling extensively both nationally and worldwide to support and promote trail and mountain running. europe world open

2013 Colorado Running Hall of Fame:

Lorraine Moller

January 31, 2013March 9, 2013 / runningincolorado

Photo: IAIN McGREGOR/Waikato Times

Lorraine Moller is a former athlete from New Zealand who competed in track athletics and later specialized in the marathon. Lorraine’s international career lasted over 20 years and included three Commonwealth and four Olympic Games. She won the bronze medal in the marathon at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona at the age of 37. In 1985, Lorraine broke the New Zealand 1,500m record, running 4:10.35 at Brussels. Lorraine ran her first marathon on in 1979, winning Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota in 2:37:37. The time was the fastest ever by a New Zealander and the sixth fastest ever run by a woman. She then won her next seven marathons. She was a triple winner of the Osaka Ladies Marathon, and in 1984 won the Boston Marathon. Lorraine ran the marathon in four Olympic Games: 1984, placing 5th (2:28:34); 1988, placing 33rd (2:37:52);1992 placing 3rd (2:33:59); and 1996 placing 46th (2:42:21). She also won the silver medal at the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, running 2:28:17, her lifetime best.

Photo: garymoller.com

Colleen De Reuck

January 31, 2013February 16, 2013 / runningincolorado

photo: flatironathleticclub.com

Colleen De Reuck is a long-distance runner from South Africa, who became an American citizen in 2000. She has had a long-lasting career, running in her forties, and made a total of four appearances at the Summer Olympics. She was a late bloomer and her first major success came in 1995 and 1996, when she won the Honolulu Marathon and the Berlin Marathon. Despite numerous appearances in the Summer Olympics and the IAAF World Championships in Athletics, medals never came on the track. After her transfer to compete for the United States in 2000, she won her first major world medals, taking the individual bronze and team silver at the 2002 IAAF World Cross Country Championships. Another team bronze came at the following year’s championships and she won at the 2004 and 2005 USA Cross Country Championships. She continues to run and finished third at the Houston Half Marathon in 2009, finishing in 1:12:14.

2009 Boston Marathon, photo: runwashington.com

Melody Fairchild

January 31, 2013February 1, 2013 / runningincolorado

photo: MelodyFairchild.com

Melody Fairchild was called the greatest high school distance runner in U.S. history. She was the first high school girl in history to break 10 minutes in the 2-mile (9:55.9) and although she struggled initially at the University of Oregon in the mid-1990s, she came away a 3,000m indoor NCAA champion and an Olympic trials qualifier in the 10K. Melody Fairchild was considered a star constantly on the rise from her earliest years, until 2000, when after a disappointing showing at the U.S. Olympic marathon trials, her name disappeared from race results for a decade. Fairchild, now 39 and living in Boulder, is rising once again and back at the top of the race results, this time on the trails. In 2012 she made the U.S. Mountain Running Team and went on to the World Mountain Running Championships in Italy, where she placed eighth, helping Team USA earn a gold medal for the first time since 2007. She then helped Team USA win another gold medal at the World Long Distance Mountain Running Challenge at the Jungfrau Marathon in Switzerland. In 2007 she founded the Melody Fairchild Running Camp for High School Girls in an effort to help other athletes overcome the struggles she experienced first-hand in her own running career. Fairchild-500_edit

Ellen Hart

January 31, 2013February 1, 2013 / runningincolorado

photo: Kit Williams

Ellen Hart is a former world-class runner and lawyer. She competed in the 1980 U.S. Olympic Trials 10,000m, finishing third, the 1984 U.S. Olympic Trials marathon, and held the U.S. record for the 30K and the world’s best time for the 20K. She has since obtained a law degree and practiced law, co-founded the Eating Disorders Foundation, served on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, served as a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee, and was married to former Denver Mayor Federico Peña. She was the subject of a made-for-television movie about her life, Dying to Be Perfect: the Ellen Hart Pena Story, which chronicled her battle with anorexia and bulimia. She has made an unprecedented comeback in the highly competitive world of marathons and triathlons. At 50, she finished first in her age division in the Clearwater Half Ironman Tournament. Since moving from runner to triathlete, Hart has easily won or ranked in nearly all the events she has entered, setting new course records in some of the more prestigious events.

photo: Kit Williams

Colorado Running Hall of Fame

Celebrating the sport of distance running

Women

Constantina Diţă

Anita Ortiz

Priscilla Welch

Jane Welzel

Lidia Simon

Nancy Hobbs

Lorraine Moller

Colleen De Reuck

Melody Fairchild

Ellen Hart