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I hope you’ve had a chance to listen to Cole Chlouber and Adrian Macdonald on the last two episodes discussing the Leadville Trail 100.  Like Adrian, Annie Hughes was a relatively unknown rookie winner of this year’s race.  At age 23, many might have dismissed her as one of those cute stories of a youngster taking on too steep a challenge.  When I began running ultras many moons ago, it was the realm of old goats who were getting slower, so we ran further.  In fact, I believe in the 90s when I first ran the Leadville 100, there had never been a finisher less than 23 years old.  It was considered too much discipline for so-called youngsters to be able to train for races that rigorous.  Then along came young studs like Kilian Jornet who broke that mold and became something of the Michael Jordan of ultrarunning and opened the door to many more younger ultra specialists.  But even when Clare Gallagher entered Leadville, who I had watched as a very strong high school cross country runner at Cherry Creek High School here in Denver, I thought it was cute that Clare would attempt it.  Then she not only won, but she ran the second-fastest time ever, behind only the legend herself, Ann Trason.  However, Annie Hughes has some serious cred.  She was third woman a year ago at her first 100 in Bryce Canyon, Utah, and set the FKT for the Collegiate Loop of 160 miles, which she completed in 61 hours.  In 2021, she won the Collegiate Peaks 50-miler outright, including beating all of the men in the race.  She followed that up by finishing second overall in Mace’s Hideout 100, a great tune-up for Leadville just two months later.  One cool part about watching her run Leadville was the amount of local support she got.  Yes, she is well-known there because she manages the Leadville Race Series store on Harrison Street, Leadville’s main drag.  She is also well-known for her ebullient personality, which does come through in our spirited conversation, and she has a deep love for getting up into the mountains.  By the way, her Instagram handle of outdoorableannie is among the best and appropriate ones I’ve ever seen.  Annie has her sights set on the Moab 240 in October, where she will likely take on the current queen of ultrarunning, recent UTMB winner Courtney Dauwalter.

Annie Hughes
Instagram @outdoorable_annie
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