Anita Ortiz

About

Anita Ortiz is an American mountain and ultra runner from Eagle, Colorado, who built one of the most decorated late-blooming careers in U.S. mountain running after taking up competitive racing at age 36. Over the following nine years she competed in more than 200 races and broke 55 course and age-group records, while working full-time as a kindergarten teacher and raising four children. She won the U.S. Mountain Running Championship in 2002, 2003, and 2004, was crowned Mountain Running World Champion Masters in 2004, and was named USATF Female Mountain Runner of the Year in 2002 and 2003 and USATF Female Masters Mountain Runner of the Year in 2004. She is a three-time winner of the Pikes Peak Ascent, where her 2:44:33 set in 2002 stood as a course record for five years, and represented the U.S. Mountain Running Team five times, finishing as the top American woman on four occasions. A La Sportiva Mountain Running Team athlete and inductee into the Colorado Running Hall of Fame (2014), she remains active coaching the Eagle Valley Elementary running team and serving on the boards of the All American Trail Running Association and United States Snowshoe Association.

Notable Wins

• — U.S. Mountain Running Champion 2002
• — 2003
• — 2004; Mountain Running World Champion Masters 2004; Pikes Peak Ascent winner ×3 (CR 2:44:33
• — 2002); Colorado Running Hall of Fame 2014

Race History