Mead coach not going on pleasure trip

What makes Dori run? “Stupidity,” quipped Mead’s girls track and cross country coach.

But leave it to Dori Robertson to make her first Ford Ironman World Championship triathlon in Hawaii an earth-shattering story.

Her first endeavor this weekend at Kona comes following the 6.7-magnitude earthquake that hit near the island last weekend.

The Ironman is a grueling test, beginning with a 2.4-mile ocean swim, followed by a 112-mile bike ride and concluding with a 26.2-mile marathon. Robertson is competing in the women’s age 45-49 category.

She qualified a couple of months ago in Penticton, British Columbia, timing a personal-record 11 hours, 43 minutes. Although she finished fourth, 3 seconds off a qualifying place, one of the top-three finishers withdrew, landing her a coveted spot on her first qualifying try.

“No one congratulated me on my personal record,” Robertson said. “They said, ‘This isn’t the Dori we know. Why didn’t you pass her?’ “

Robertson admitted she didn’t see the runner in front of her or else she’d have overhauled her. Marathons are her forte.

Robertson is a 23-year educator who has succeeded as a coach at stops in Springdale, West Valley and now at her alma mater. She’s also one of a fraternity of athletes, several in Spokane, with a compulsion to test the human endurance threshold.

For this group, a marathon isn’t enough. They push themselves in 50- and 100-mile ultramarathons over grueling terrain like that which makes up the Western States Endurance Run. That mountainous trail event begins in Squaw Valley, Calif., ascends 18,000 feet and descends 22,000 feet during the 100 miles to Auburn. The incline, Robertson insists, is a piece of cake. It’s the descent that’s a killer. “It just rips you to pieces.”

But Robertson said she has yet to reach her limits.

“I keep waiting to go to the depths of my soul to finish,” Robertson said.

So she’s planning to try the Badwater Ultramarathon, a 135-miler through Death Valley in deadly summer heat and ending halfway up the tallest peak in the 48 states.

Some consider it the true test of the committed runner. Others would argue simply that these runners should be committed.

But they thrive on such challenge and seem oblivious to pain. Not so, but Robertson said an endurance run lasting 20 hours or more can be relatively painless if paced right.

The ultramarathon bug bit when she and friends formed a relay team for Let’s Climb a Mountain: 36 miles from the Riverfront Park Clock Tower to the top of Mount Spokane.

They came across a prone ultrarunner suffering from heatstroke and shivering in 95-degree heat. After giving treatment, some teammates offered, “What an idiot!” Robertson was thinking, “That’s so cool to be able to take the body to that level.”

She ran her first 50-mile ultra at age 30, her first 100-miler at 40 and planned on doing the Hawaii Ironman at age 50 but got bored with the wait. She does fine swimming and overhauls an astonishing number of runners in the marathon. Bicycling, she said, is the pits.

This weekend could be the test of endurance she craves, Robertson said. Preparation took a back seat to myriad other obligations. “Maybe this Ironman will take me to the depths of my soul to finish.”

We more sedentary types can only imagine the feeling.