Ann Hettinger had two goals at the 2018 XTerra 21K Trail Run World Championship: finish, and don’t break any bones.
She accomplished both.
But something that she didn’t expect was “the icing on the cake.”
She won the women’s 60-64 age division.
“Wow, what a day,” she said. “Always fantastic when we do things we love.”
The Princeville woman stayed steady and made her way up and down the hilly, muddy course at Kualoa Ranch on Oahu.
She held her own with some of the world’s top athletes, crossing the finish line in 3:01:37 while taking 309th place overall out of 556 finishers
“When I got to the end, my legs were on fire, but it felt so amazing,” Hettinger said.
It’s a feeling she used to know so very well.
She recounts with great delight how she became a diehard runner in her mid-30s when her daughter came home from school and said, “Mom, if you don’t quit smoking, you’re doing to die.’
That took Hettinger’s breath away — and it put her on a new path to better health.
“It turned my life around,” she said. “My lifestyle totally did a 180.”
Hettinger took her daughter’s advice to heart. She joined a gym, began working out and remembers running a mile on a track for the first time.
Soon, she covered two miles. Then three. Four. Five. She kept at it.
“Somebody told me, ‘you’re pretty good.’” she said.
Competitive, too.
She won her share of ribbons, medals and trophies in races ranging from a few miles to 26.2. She had speed, posting some excellent times, including clocking under 20 minutes for a 5K and nearly breaking three hours for the marathon.
She loved how running made her feel alive, strong and full of spirit and energy. It gave her confidence she could conquer anything. She loved being part of a community of runners who pushed and encouraged each other.
For years, she trained and raced, including finishing ninth among women in the 2001 Maui Marathon.
“That’s your circle, that’s your world,” she said.
Until she moved to Kauai some 15 years ago. A new world took her in.
Then, her focus turned to the ocean and paddling. As she put it, she switched gears.
Oh, she didn’t completely leave running. She helped coach high schoolers and volunteered at elementary school fun runs. She still ran a few times a week, raced occasionally, but more for the exercise and to supplement her commitment to being the best paddler she could.
“I fell in love with paddling and being in the ocean,” she said.
With a solid publishing career, the 61-year-old was right where she wanted to be and planned to stay right there — until earlier this year. A health issue put a bit of a scare into her. It jolted her out of a comfortable world and made her question what she really wanted to do.
The answer rushed in.
Run.
“It was like life-altering for me. You know what? You don’t know what’s around the corner,” she said. “I just went, ‘I’m going to run again.’ I just realized how much it’s part of me, how much I love it.”
Her last road race was a decade ago.
In September, she contacted her old coaches in Boulder, Colo., Darren and Colleen DeReuck (Darren was an Olympics coach and Colleen, a four-time Olympian) and asked for their help.
“I told them I wanted to race again,” she said.
Darren quickly penned out a new training program, slowly building mileage, adding in speed, tempo and hill workouts as the weeks passed. Hettinger ran five days weeks, paddled two, and watched her diet.
“I trained my butt off,” she said.
“I just kind of jumped back in,” she said. “It’s like visiting an old friend.”
She set her sights on the XTerra championship on Dec. 2, which attracted a world-class field. Its reputation for a punishing course that makes the best runners stumble proved to be accurate.
“It was the most brutal, challenging and muddy course that I’ve ever raced on, but the scenery was amazing,” Hettinger said.
The atmosphere was wonderful and supportive, she said, which she needed.
“I wanted to take care of myself out there, I wanted to be smart,” she said.
She was.
On the homestretch, it was utopia. She knew she had just had the race of her life.
“When I hit that final trail, it was awesome,” she said.
When they called her name as the top finisher in her age group, Hettinger was surprised, pleased and elated.
“I haven’t felt that way in a long time because running is its own thing,” she said. “You can train for the other sports, but running, there’s something about it. It just felt like, ‘Wow, I’m doing this again.’”
At 61, she believes she is in excellent shape. She’s 5 feet, 8 inches tall and about 125 pounds. She plans to keep running, racing and pushing her limits. More trail runs are in her future.
But her success at XTerra was about more than placing well and posting a faster time.
It was really about the simple act of running, bounding along, and feeling good — charging past fears, stepping right over worries, leaving anxiety behind.
“For me, it was all about a celebration of life,” she said.
Life, Hettinger added, is here to live. So you might as well live with passion and go after what you love.
“Never, ever limit yourself,” she said.
