By Steve Ritchie
For much of her life, Mandy Meyer disdained running. In fact, she thought running was pointless, stupid, and, worst of all, painful.
“I was never a runner,” Meyer said. “I hated it and it felt awful. I could never understand why anyone would run for fun.”
When her sister, Cassie, considered signing up for cross country in high school, Meyer was aghast.
“I said, ‘Are you crazy? Why do you want to run?’ To me, it was the most painful thing I could think of. It was like a form of torture. The day we had to do a mile run around the track was one of my worst days and I always wanted to be sick that day,” Meyer said.
The irony of her reaction to running then versus her current reality as someone who regularly competes in 30- and 40-mile “ultramarathon” trail races is not lost on Meyer. She described her journey from being an athletic youngster who hated to run to a 29-year-old ultra-marathon runner in the throes of a passionate relationship with running as a long process, marked by several transformational experiences.
Meyer was involved in several youth sports growing up and said she enjoyed all of them, except for the running part. By the time she entered high school, her main interests were basketball and softball.
Following her 2001 graduation from Silverton High School, Meyer attended Oregon State, and assumed, like most people her age, that her athletic career was over, aside from some intramural or recreational activities.
After her freshman year she returned home for the summer, and pondered how to stay in shape. Maybe, just maybe, she would try running.
There was a three-mile loop near her house, so Meyer decided to run that. The first time she had to walk a fair amount of the course. In fact, it took her most of the summer to complete the loop without walking.
“I don’t know why, but I just kept running it,” Meyer said. “I’ve always had that type of personality where, if I said I’m going to do something, I would do it! I was just determined.”
Back at college, Meyer found she needed to run. Pre-nursing was very stressful and she needed an outlet. Running worked.
“Even now, if I go for a run, I feel like a million times better,” said Meyer, who works at Silverton Health as a nurse.
After completing her pre-nursing studies, Meyer moved to Portland to attend nursing school at OHSU. She found a path near the school to run on, and discovered her runs were gradually getting longer and easier. One day, she realized she had covered 12 miles.
“I never was worried about pace or time — that all seemed so complicated to me at that time. For me, running was primal and basic. I just ran (according) to how I was feeling. If I was out of breath, I would slow down, and if I felt good, I would speed up.”
She completed nursing school, and, after a time spent traveling and working, returned to Silverton. Eventually, Meyer was hired at Silverton Health as a medical surgery nurse. Since she worked 12-hour shifts twice a week, Meyer had plenty of time to run, and stretched out her workouts to as much as 15 miles.
When people asked her if she was training for a race, Meyer said no, but she began to run trail races. Although she had been running for nearly 10 years, she had never done any racing. Once she started competing, Meyer was surprised to find out she did well.
“I thought it was the greatest, most fun thing. I am mostly competitive with myself and not with other people. That is why I love running long distances . . . everyone is just cheering for everyone. The camaraderie with it is so wonderful, I’ve never found any other sport like that. Especially ultra-running.”
Her success in the trail races encouraged Meyer to enter the Eugene Marathon in the spring of 2011 with an ambitious goal of running the 26.2 mile in four hours.
“I started out very well and stayed right on pace,” she recalled. “Then at about mile 18 — which was the farthest I had ever run — I felt terrible pain in my shoulder. It was the worst pain I had ever felt.”
Meyer thought it was kind of a sick joke that the pain was in her shoulder rather than her legs, and she felt like a slug, going slower and slower as the pain intensified. But she wouldn’t quit and
she never walked. That would be devastating, she said, since her family and friends
were all rooting for her to do well.
“I was in pain, I couldn’t enjoy anything. The last mile I felt relief because I knew I could finish. I remember all the spectators at the finish and they seemed like angels cheering you on.”
She had written her name on the back of her shirt so people were shouting her name as she neared the finish.
“I just started crying at the finish. I was so happy that I had done it. I didn’t know what to expect. It was the best emotion I have ever felt. It was the hardest thing I have ever accomplished, even more than school.
“I’ve never had a child so I don’t know for sure, but for me it was like childbirth. Having a baby is probably the most painful experience — and that is how Eugene was for me — but then when you see your baby and it is like finishing the marathon. It was all worth it. You forget the pain that you went through, and you want to do it again.”
That fall, Meyer came back from working at a summer camp for at-risk youth in Maine, where she had done almost no running. Soon after returning, she went to visit her best friend, Katie Niemeyer, in Portland. Katie was training for the Portland Marathon and asked Mandy to do an 18-mile training run with her. Even after months of little running, Mandy was able to do the entire run with no problem.
“I just feel like, I can do it. I just have so much confidence that my body can do it. For me, running is more mental than physical.”
The same month she went to the McKenzie River 50K Trail Run, thinking she would volunteer at the race. Once she got there, however, she found a friend was injured and unable to run. He offered Meyer his race entry and she jumped at the chance, though she had never run that far
She started running the race alongside a friend from Silverton.
“I was delirious, I think, with the lack of sleep and excitement and endorphins. I just had so much energy. We’re out there on the trail and it was so beautiful I felt like I was just high on I don’t know what. The scenery … the runners … it was just unbelievable.”
After running with her more experienced friend for the first seven miles of the 31-mile race, Meyer decided to go for broke.
“I thought this might be stupid, but I am going to go faster. It was just so cool. I finished it and I did good. The whole time I was just happy. That’s the run that changed my life. Ever since then I just can’t stop. Running just took me by storm.”
Since that first ultra-marathon, Meyer has run several more, including a 40-mile trail run and two 30-mile trail runs in the space of just a month.
Meyer is now sharing her love of running with others, including Cassie, the younger sister she tried to talk out of cross country. Cassie Meyer said her sister’s influence and coaching is a gift.
“Mandy got me back into running,” said Cassie Meyer. “I had forgotten how much I loved it. She was so encouraging and kept telling me I could do it. . . I am so grateful to her for that, and I am so proud of her.”
