Anne Flower didn’t absolutely decide to working the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile till about two weeks earlier than the occasion. She had by no means run 100 miles earlier than and was nervous about getting injured or having to take a very long time off from working afterward to get well. However, she’d earned an automated entry into the race — twice — earlier in the summertime by profitable each the 2025 Silver Rush 50 Mile and the 2025 Leadville Path Marathonand working 100 miles was on what she calls her “Child Bucket Record,” issues to do earlier than beginning a household.
Flower signed up for the race with the straightforward purpose of ending. Her attain purpose was to complete earlier than it received too late into the evening, and he or she says the dream purpose was to complete within the prime 10, perhaps on the rostrum, if all the things went effectively.
Because the working world is aware of effectively by now, Flower broke Ann Trason’s 31-year-old course file by simply over eight minutes with a time of 17:58:19 and completed second total on the race.
Anne Flower on her solution to setting a brand new girls’s course file on the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile. All images courtesy of Anne Flower until in any other case famous.
In an ultrarunning world highlighted by elite athletes focusing a complete yr’s effort on a single race and dealing with a group of execs to extract each ounce of efficiency from their physique and thoughts on race day, Flower appears to be the Kind B character who exhibits as much as begin traces with a “let’s see what occurs” angle.
She works full-time as an emergency room physician in Colorado Springs, Colorado, doesn’t prepare with a coach, chooses her races based mostly on thrilling geographies and locations to go to, and has minimal motivation to pursue working in any type of full-time, skilled method. She ran Leadville in a pair of discontinued Hoka Tecton X 2 footwear that she purchased off eBay, and is at some extent in her life the place she has the attitude to grasp that there are issues way more vital to her than working.
No matter how Flower continues to pursue the game, her win at Leadville was historic, and her method to working and racing is fascinatingly far out of the norm for performances of that caliber.
Draw of the Outdoor
Flower grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, with soccer as her ardour. She performed on journey groups from age six and says that she was ok that enjoying in faculty would have been a viable path ahead. There was only one small challenge: All all through her childhood years, Flower’s dad and mom, who have been lecturers, would take the household for holidays out west. She says, “They’d pack us within the van and we’d go Silverton, Ouray, Telluride, Jackson Gap, that type of factor, tenting and doing all of that type of stuff.” She developed a love for the outside at an early age and admits, “I actually wished to be a ski bum.”
Sadly, faculty sports activities scholarships and actions akin to snowboarding don’t combine effectively, one thing Flower realized round her junior yr of highschool. She stopped enjoying membership soccer and began to search for “some profession the place I might ski, bike, do outdoorsy issues perhaps through the week and never a lot on the weekends.”
Flower together with her household throughout a summer time tenting journey.
That need landed her in faculty in Denver, Colorado, the place she admits, “I didn’t know the proximity between Denver and the true Entrance Vary mountains. I believed that I used to be going to get this very mountainous expertise, which I did. I simply needed to depart each weekend to get that.” Her profession selection was emergency drugs, largely as a result of shift scheduling, which might afford her loads of time to play within the mountains. Of the profession, she says, “It’s probably the most thrilling 5 minutes of each specialty. You get to do all of the cool stuff after which not a lot the follow-up.”
After ending faculty in Denver, Flower ended up at Ohio College for medical faculty. Whereas there, in 2016, she ran her first street marathon, saying, “I believed it was actually enjoyable. It was good to have a giant purpose.” Two years later, she certified for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon. She’s nonchalant about working the Trials, saying, “It was unbelievable. However I used to be simply watching and having fun with whereas I used to be technically working it as effectively. However I don’t suppose I completed within the prime 40 or 50, and that was wonderful.”
Turning to Ultras
In 2019, for her thirtieth birthday, Flower signed up for the Useless Horse Extremely 50 Mile in Moab, Utah. She says, “I like Moab. It’s certainly one of my happiest locations.” Wanting to place in a giant working effort in a spot near her coronary heart, and figuring out that she’d completed street marathons earlier than, she says, “I believed I’d have the ability to do not less than 30 or 40 miles.”
Flower gained the race by greater than 20 minutes. She was residing in Kentucky on the time, doing her medical residency, and he or she says, “The one individuals who cared have been the individuals who have been at that race.” She goes on to say, “I wished to maintain racing, however really for me it was getting to chill locations and having a extremely large, adventurous day. Successful and stuff was cool, but it surely’s not like I used to be doing it for the money prizes or the notoriety or something like that.”
Anne Flower atop the 2023 Useless Horse Extremely 50k girls’s podium (l-to-r): 2. Giselle Slotboom, 1. Anne Flower, and three. Genevieve Lillis. Picture: Mad Moose Occasions
Flower continued to race ultras, racking up a string of spectacular outcomes together with wins on the 2021 Crested Butte Extremely 55k2022 Pikes Peak Extremely 50k2024 Javelin 100kand most lately, the 2025 Leadville Path Marathon and 2025 Silver Rush 50 Mile. The races she selected, together with many extra in Moab over time, have been a superb excuse to go to locations she cherished.
Whereas many runners discovering success within the extremely world would contemplate placing the remainder of their lives on maintain to pursue athletics, Flower was dedicated to her personal path. She says, “I actually wished to do emergency drugs. I landed the residency I wished, and as soon as I used to be lastly allowed to be a part of the membership of emergency drugs, there was no means I used to be going to present that away for one thing like working.”
After profitable the Leadville Path Marathon and Silver Rush 50 Mile earlier this summer time, each of which provided coveted automated entries to the Leadville 100 Mile, Flower nonetheless wasn’t sure she wished to tackle the 100-mile distance. She says, “I’d finished 100 kilometers on the finish of final yr, and I believed that might be so long as I wished to go. I like 50ks. I believe they’re a improbable distance. They’re a lot enjoyable, however you’re not damaged, and a few days later, you possibly can run once more.”
The 2025 Leadville 100 Mile girls’s podium (left to proper): 3. Lea Mulligan, 1. Anne Flower, 2. Imogen Ainsworth.
Flower had heard too many tales of individuals working 100 miles after which not desirous to run once more for a very long time afterward. She laughs when she says, “I didn’t wish to dislike the game as a result of I had tried too laborious.” Her largest concern? Getting harm and never with the ability to run for the remainder of the yr.
Nonetheless, the draw of the Leadville 100 Mile proved to be too sturdy, and after feeling match after a summer time of working, she signed up.
Nearly all of her coaching consisted of 1 or two longer runs every week in Cheyenne Canyon or on Pikes Peak, each close to her residence in Colorado Springs. Different occasions, she accompanied her associates, who had coaches and structured coaching, on their exercises. On days that she labored, it’s was a 40-minute street run earlier than her shift to assist her get centered for the day.
Operating Leadville
Flower says that she doesn’t get nervous earlier than races by maintaining the entire scenario in perspective, saying, “I can cease at any time. It’s not that dangerous.” She realizes the shortage of nerves is a little bit of an anomaly. “I do suppose that there’s some superpower in that.” She had an AirBnB in Leadville the evening earlier than the race that she left at 3:45 a.m. earlier than the 4 a.m. begin, walked to the beginning line, and didn’t enable herself any time to let nerves creep in.
She says she began conservatively, particularly over the rocks and roots round Turquoise Lake within the early miles of the race. Flower handed the race chief, Katie Asmuthround mile 23, however says, “I handed her when she needed to go use the restroom, so I believed for certain she’d be again any minute. I knew there have been different quick girls behind me, so I wasn’t anticipating to be there lengthy.”
Anne Flower on her solution to a brand new girls’s course file on the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile. Picture: Life Time
However Flower was having a day. She says, “Popping out of Outward Certain, there’s this actually flowy aspen tree part earlier than you get to Twin Lakes at mile 40 that was simply pleasant. It was probably the most snug working. The climate was nice. The aspens are turning. It was simply stunning.”
Her race plan was to run to Hope Go in “50k-style,” hike over the move, after which, “hopefully have the ability to run residence.”
If Flower’s crew, which consisted of her associate, in addition to Hannah Allgood and Gil Allgoodknew she was forward of file splits, they didn’t inform her. She says, “My crew is fairly good. They have been telling me, ‘You’re doing superior. Hold transferring. You’re trying sturdy. You’re transferring. Simply hold going.’”
Flower picked up Gil as a pacer at mile 87 and says having somebody to speak to was an enormous enhance. She says, “We have been transferring quick. He was pushing me to run quicker, and my physique felt fairly good.” About two miles from the end, Flower handed Justin Grunewald and his pacer, Kyle St. Petersburg. Flower says that it was Pietari who checked out his watch and defined that Trason’s course file was inside her attain, saying, “You need to go now. Quick.”
Anne Flower descending Powerline street headed outbound through the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile.
Flower says, “I like the final mile of most races. I don’t know if I’m simply so glad for it to be finished or I’m so excited to get to the end, however there have been only a few races, even after I’m having a horrible race, that the final mile, I can’t pull out some power from someplace.” Crossing the road in 17:58:19 was a consequence that few, not to mention Flower herself, would have predicted.
Of the end, she says, “It was so cool. It was so electrical. There have been lights in every single place. I might see my associates and all the things like that. It was phenomenal. I believe it’s nonetheless sinking in.”
When requested if something went unsuitable throughout her run, Flower pauses to ponder. “My shoe was rubbing a few occasions, and so I finished and retied my footwear.”
The Leadville Aftermath
Flower went straight again to work in her emergency room after the race earlier than taking a little bit of day without work to go to Scotland together with her associate, a visit that was on his “Child Bucket Record.” She doesn’t have any large plans for the remainder of the summer time, or for her racing subsequent yr, however is approaching it with the identical informal outlook as she at all times has.
When requested if she thinks her newfound prominence within the working world would change how she’s considered at races, she laughs, “I’m not anxious about that.”
She does know that she desires to start out a household, however doesn’t see having youngsters as one thing that can cease her from exhibiting as much as begin traces. She says, “Ideally, we get pregnant a couple of times, be good with that, then I might undoubtedly wish to do the Onerous rock 100. I’m very inquisitive about Hardrock. Give me the large Colorado mountain races.”
She goes on to say, “I might like to stack up in opposition to people who find themselves actually, actually quick simply to see what that’s like.”
Anne Flower celebrates her win on the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile with race administrators Ken Chlouber and Merilee Maupin.
However so far as chasing sponsorship offers within the short-term, Flower says, “I simply don’t know the place that matches in my life proper now.” She says, “I wish to run perpetually, however I’m not going to be by accident profitable races for a very long time. I see that there’s stuff that’s perhaps extra long-term that I ought to be specializing in.”
Unintended or not, Flower’s win at Leadville might be remembered for a very long time as one which confirmed that maybe one doesn’t want a hyper-regimented plan, long-term targets, and excellent preparation to search out success within the sport.
Anne Flower breaks Ann Trason’s 31-year-old course file on the 2025 Leadville 100 Mile. Picture: Life Time
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