Q&A w/ Anita Ortiz

    What a year it was for Anita Ortiz. In her first season racing snowshoes, the 38-year-old kindergarten teacher from Eagle, Colorado, won nine of 11 snowshoe races, including the USSSA National Championships in Traverse City, Michigan, and the North American Snowshoe Championships in Avon, Colorado. She was nearly as dominant in trail and mountain races, winning two U.S. Mountain Team selection races (Alaska and Colorado) and several races in the competitive Vail Running Series. In September, she was the highest U.S. finisher in the World Mountain Running Trophy championship race in Austria (9.2k uphill), finishing a very impressive 11th in her first international competition. Surprisingly, she had taken about 17 years off from competitive running after helping her high school cross country team to a state title in the early 1980s. She and her husband, Mike Ortiz (director of the Vail Running Series), have two daughters, Amelia, 9, and Mandy, 7, and 5-year-old twin boys, David and Acacia. In December, Ortiz was named the women’s recipient of the 2002 Mountain Runner of the Year Award by USATF’s Mountain/Ultra/Trail Running Council.

How did it go in Austria?
    “I was shooting for top 25, but I really didn’t know what to expect. I knew it would be tough—a lot of those runners are pretty fast—and it was. It was pretty cutthroat at the starting line and at the beginning of the race. I’m not that aggressive, but it was definitely a pushing and shoving match for the first 2 kilometers. I just kept running as hard as I could. When I got to the top, I had no idea where I was—I figured I was in about 50th place.”

How do you train?
    “I don’t have a coach. I kind of do what I think is best. I do some speedwork and tempo runs. But I really like the uphill trail runs. The harder, steeper and nastier it is, the more I like it. That’s why I like snowshoe races through the deep, steep stuff. It’s a grind and I love that. And then I supplement my outside training with one thing a day, either the stair machine or the treadmill. I don’t keep track of my mileage. I just do whatever I have time for.”

How long have you been running?
    “I started running when I was in second grade. I would run around the house, I even wore a little trail around our house. I would run home from school and time myself to see how fast I could get home. But I really wanted to get home in time to see “The Brady Bunch” on TV. After high school, I just didn’t want to compete. I kept running during that time. In fact, I ran the day each child was born. But I didn’t start racing again until after our twins were born (in 1997).”

Why did you start racing again?
    “Mike was the one who really encouraged me to get back into it. And I was kind of like, ok, you’ve had the kids and they’re growing up, now what do you do? I ran the Vail Half Marathon in 2000 (and won) and thought, hey, that was fun, I want to do that again.” (Note: since that race, Ortiz has only finished second or lower four times in about 50 races.)
   
Has your success surprised you?
    “It totally surprises me. It’s kind of an outside of myself experience. People ask ‘what does it feel like?’ I don’t feel any different; it’s almost like I don’t believe it really.”

How did you get involved in snowshoe racing?
    “A couple of my really good friends said I would be good at snowshoe racing and that I should try it. I told them I ran one race and hated it. I did. I ended up in tears. They looked at my snowshoes and they said ‘oh, that’s the problem.’ So I got some better snowshoes and learned a thing or two, and my first two races I got second. Now I love it.”