Betsy Kalmeyer

About

Betsy Kalmeyer is an American ultrarunner and one of the most enduring competitors in the history of high-altitude mountain running, based in Leadville, Colorado. Originally from near Pittsburgh, she attended the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs after seeing a brochure featuring the Rampart Range, and stumbled into her first Leadville Trail 100 finish in 1988 when the race had a fraction of its modern field. She went on to become the first woman to complete twenty Hardrock 100 races — the gruelling San Juan Mountain 100-miler with over 33,000 feet of cumulative elevation gain, run out of Silverton, Colorado — with five outright wins and five second-place finishes among those twenty completions across a career that began with her first Hardrock in 1996 and culminated in her landmark 20th finish in 2021. She also holds the fastest known women's time for the 485-mile Colorado Trail (nine days and ten hours, 2003), has completed over thirty 100-mile races spanning Leadville, the Gobi Desert Cup in Mongolia, and major events across the American West, and attempted Nolan's 14 — summiting twelve of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks unsupported in 58 hours and 50 minutes. One of trail and ultra running's most decorated veterans across more than four decades of competitive racing.

Notable Wins

• — Hardrock 100 5x winner
• — first woman to complete 20 Hardrock 100 races
• — Colorado Trail women's FKT 2003 (9 days 10 hours)
• — Leadville Trail 100 multiple finishes

Race History