‘They’re waiting for me to die’: A 72-year-old runner won’t let go of this race


LEADVILLE, Colorado – In the clear morning hours of last August, 71-year-old Marge Hickman slipped the brace off her sprained ankle and walked to the start line of the Leadville Trail 100-mile race. Part of her said go home. The race wasn’t what it used to be. She didn’t feel wanted anyway. She loved this race. She hated this race. She revolved her whole life around this race.

She would finish this race, she told herself. She supported herself with her positive sentences. LND (leave no doubt). One direction: forward. Let go; leave god. When the shotgun finally rang, Hickman, a five-foot-tall, 100-pound runner, trotted nervously into the thin, cool air of the Rocky Mountains. If she could finish, she would be the oldest woman ever to do so.

Hickman is a well-known figure at the Leadville 100, a brutal high-altitude race that weaves through the mountains with an elevation gain of 15,744 feet. She has a masochistic obsession with race, according to friends who point to two surgeries on her shoulders; two procedures for plantar fasciitis that causes heel pain; and a plate inserted into her wrist.

She has finished the race 14 times, but not in over a decade. She admits it sheepishly, but insists she’s still kicking ass and, in her words, “taking names.” Her training log — averaging 80 miles per week — and a string of ultramarathon results back up her claims. “I learned to let go of ageism a long time ago,” she said, adding, “Without this race on my calendar, I don’t know what I would do or who I would be.”

Ultrarunning has long been a strong draw for true eccentrics. That includes Bob Wise, who suffered brain trauma in a car accident but discovered that longer races offered respite from the noise in his head. Despite his slouching posture and a penchant for running into trees, he competed in numerous six- and seven-day races, covering 903 miles in the first certified 1,000-mile race.

Then there’s Scottish runner Arthur John Howie, who once held three world records: running 360 miles non-stop, a 1,300-mile race in 16 days 19 hours, and the speed record across Canada in 72 days 10 hours. His preferred fuel? Plenty of beer.

Jameelah Abdul-Rahim Mujaahid, a single mother of five, started running ultras on the weekends after working days as a district manager for four Burger Kings and night shifts at Waffle House. At 54, she has completed over 200 ultramarathons.

For Hickman, exercise had to be extreme to offset lifelong bouts of anxiety and depression. In her 20s, she said, she fled Pittsburgh and a childhood marked by insecurity and neglect for the mountains of Colorado. The snow-capped peaks on the horizon and the rushing of clear mountain streams became symbols of her transformation from a shy child, who her parents made her wear glasses to make her smarter, into a self-possessed athlete.

When the doors to her gym opened at 6, she ran on the carpeted running track. “Then an aerobics class,” she said. “I took an hour and a half for lunch and ran five miles. I would quickly wipe off, put the jeans back on and some perfume and get back to work. After I got out, I was back to racquetball.”

But it was in 1984 at a Denver running store that fate seemed to find her. She met Jim Butera, a bearded hippie who competed in obscure races called “Ultras,” sold running shoes, and embraced extreme running as a way of life. “I thought he was the best thing since canned corn,” Hickman said. When he showed her a flyer for his latest idea, a 100-mile race in the Colorado mountains — a race across the sky — it sounded impossible. She was hooked.

Her inauguration in Leadville in August of that year was a shattering portent of the relationship she would have with racing for the rest of her life. After planting a root in her face near mile 13, she pushed on while her blood oozed from her knees and face, and a twisted ankle quickly swelled. Eighty-seven miles later, tears began to flow as she hobbled over the final hill and saw the finish line.

In the same year her love affair with Leadville began, her first marriage ended. “Because of my exercise addiction,” Hickman admitted.

The next year, she won the women’s division and finished 11th overall. She returned like a carrier pigeon for the next 27 years – and finished 13 more times – making her the most successful runner in Leadville’s turbulent history.

In 1997 she remarried, this time to a runner at a legendary summit of the course during her beloved race. The couple moved to the town of Leadville in 2004 and she continued to become enmeshed in the ever-growing streak of Leadville racing.

But in 2010 the series was sold to Life Time Fitness. What had felt like a cozy affair among like-minded trail bangers turned into a Disneyland of the mountains. Prices went up, a gift shop was added and the field of participants grew from 625 participants in 2011 to 943 in 2013.

Hickman became scornful after Butera died in 2012 and the race came and went with no mention of the former race director. By this point, the race had long been led by Ken Chlouber and Merilee Maupin. Chlouber has been widely credited with popularizing the race. In her book on the history of the Leadville 100, Hickman made her views crystal clear: The race was Butera’s brainchild alone. She and Chlouber have since fallen out, and in 2019 she was banned for being outrageous.

Chlouber did not respond to requests for comment.

Hickman was reinstated for the 2021 race after pressure from runners including Gary Corbitt, son of ultra-running legend Ted Corbitt. She had another shot to cross the line.

Hickman was exactly where she wanted to be when she got to halftime. She had completed 13 hours and still had over 16 hours to go. She felt stronger than she had in years. At any other major 100-mile race, barring injuries, she would have been home free.

But not in Leadville. New rules enacted weeks before the race now gave her just four hours to get to the nearest aid station. According to race officials, the changes were made to reduce congestion. In fact, Hickman and slower runners like her were eliminated even though they most likely would have finished before the 30-hour cutoff time.

She sat limp in a chair at mile 50 while a volunteer cut her bracelet, effectively disqualifying her from the race. Dazed, Hickman didn’t seem to notice. She stared at the clock, confused at what had gone wrong, and emotions rumbled in her stomach.

At first, Hickman took a conspiratorial stance, citing the fact that she is the most decorated Leadville veteran not to be inducted into the Leadville Hall of Fame. “They say they’re waiting for me to retire,” she said. “I say they are waiting for me to die.”

Public closures followed. She was done with Leadville. She’s had enough. She was used up; her heart was gone.

Five weeks later, she signed up for the 2022 race. Those who know her said it was inevitable. “Leadville was half my life,” Hickman joked sarcastically, a jumble of joy and heaviness in her voice. “It’s in your face — the hand of the mountains just comes out and grabs you by the heart and sucks you in.”

She’ll be back in Leadville for the third week of August, determined to write her own ending.

“Yeah, I like reading books and stuff, but I’m a doer,” added Hickman, now 72, as she applied makeup over a black eye from a recent fall. “My plan is to keep running. If they cut my bracelet, I’ll just keep going. I will finish my race.”