Anita Ortiz steps away from the phone for a minute to cheer for her son, David, during his high school soccer game.
She apologizes for the brief intermission. "I'm a proud mom," she says.
It's one of many roles that contribute to a full--and sometimes hectic--schedule. Ortiz, 50, is an Eagle, Colorado, kindergarten teacher whose accomplished ultra-running career shows few signs of slowing. She made her Western States Endurance Run debut at age 45 and won--by more than an hour. Just this fall she took home top honors at the Ultra Race of Champions (UROC), beating women (and many men) 20 years her junior. And now her four athletic kids are giving her a run for her money.
David and Acacia, 17-year-old twins, are Ortiz's youngest. Her eldest two daughters, Amelia, 21, and Mandy, 19, attend Williams in Massachusetts and the University of Colorado in Boulder, respectively. Half-empty nester Ortiz's routine still includes 4:15 a.m. runs before work.
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Running around--literally and figuratively. With an active family of six, Ortiz says they've always tried to focus on whoever is the senior in high school when it came to sports. All her kids are competitive, following the example set by their mother and collegiate basketball-playing father, Mike. The two older daughters compete for their universities' cross country and track teams. The younger two siblings are on track to play NCAA soccer.
A world-class talent herself, Ortiz has remained competitive on the trails well into her masters years. She was a five-time member of the U.S. mountain running team and placed eighth individually at the 2003 world championships in Alaska. She won the 2009 Western States Endurance Run, earned a gold medal at the WMRA World Masters Running Championships that same year, and is a member of the Colorado Running Hall of Fame.
And while the elder Ortiz isn't shying away from racing, she believes she "passed the torch" years ago, remembering that fateful run when it became clear.
"I was running with Mandy and thought I'd just pick up the pace a little, just to drop her, you know," she says. Minutes later Ortiz looked over her shoulder and, with a mix of frustration and pride, found Mandy still immediately behind her.
"Oh, my God, I can't drop her anymore," she remembers thinking, recalling a similar experience with Amelia two years earlier. "I gave her a high-five when we made it back in the driveway."
And while her offspring may be crossing the finish lines first these days, they know that mom doesn't necessarily enjoy it.
"She loves us, but never wants to be beat," Amelia says.
Amelia's "defining moment" in her running career came when she stood atop the podium at a Vail, Colorado, trail race, which was directed by her father. The other two top positions went to her sister and mother--Anita taking third.
Amelia now stars at Williams College, a Division III school. A senior who will graduate this year with a double major in Chinese and political science, she's team captain of a squad that was second at last year's NCAA cross country championships.
Mandy is also taking the Ortiz name to the highest levels of the sport. While redshirting her freshman year on the 2013 University of Colorado Buffaloes team, she won individual and team gold medals at the WMRA World Mountain Running Championships in the junior division. She's since recovered from surgery to repair a torn labrum, finished fourth at the 2014 world championships held in September in Italy and rejoined the CU cross country team.
To celebrate Ortiz's milestone 50th birthday, her daughters came up with a plan perhaps only their mother could love: a Grand Canyon crossing. The distance was "great for me, good for Amelia and tough for Mandy," Ortiz says.
Amelia, who admits to lacking the competitiveness of her mom and sister, calls herself "more of a 'run slow through the woods'" kind of runner. "Our little journey was an amazing experience that I absolutely loved," she says. "It was 10 times more meaningful to be doing it with my mom and sister."
Most of Ortiz's adventures and races happen in the summer, when her work schedule eases. As in past years, she packed a full race itinerary into the vacation season.
Following the Grand Canyon adventure, she was second at the Bryce (Canyon) 50-miler, also in June. She laments dropping from July's Speedgoat 50K in Utah with stomach distress, but she won the Mt. Werner Classic 50K, an increasingly competitive event in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, the following weekend. She won her second Pikes Peak Marathon in August (adding to three Pikes Peak Ascent wins a decade earlier) and then finished first at the UROC 100K in Colorado's high-altitude Summit County.
And this is all following a serious knee surgery in 2010 and an ankle surgery in 2012, the latter operation fusing her ankle joint.
"I thought I was done," she says of the lengthy recovery. Almost as if to spite the doctor's orders--"Don't say, 'You can't' to me"--Ortiz slowly regained her fitness, adjusting her stride to compensate.
"There was a 75-year-old lady at the Pikes Peak Ascent this year. I thought, 'Holy cow, she looks awesome,' " Ortiz says. "I want to be one of those awesome old ladies still doing it."
She's keeping a firm grip on her role in the family as the most active and most spirited. When Mandy got into a crunch moving her couch into her dorm this year, her mom put the top down on their Volkswagen Bug and positioned the sofa vertically in the tiny back seat for the drive across campus. "I don't think of her as 50, not at all," Mandy says. "I definitely hope I grow into her."
The older Amelia gets, the more she appreciates her mother's strength. "People used to ask me if I wanted to be like her, and the last thing I wanted was to be exactly like her. But now," Amelia, says, pausing, "it would be great."
