Jackie Doppelmayer has been running since childhood, but even though she’s logged thousands of miles and emanates mental toughness, the 53-year-old ultrarunner approaches each 50- or 100-mile run as if it’s her first, meticulously preparing for any hazard she may encounter.
While on long-distance trail runs, she’s encountered torrential rain storms and barely navigable mud, had her shoes disintegrate, and overcome nausea, blisters and falls. She has even run past angry bees and continued after being struck on the head by rocks.
“During a race lots of things can and do happen, and you have to decide how to manage them. Duct tape is helpful,” she said. “I always carry duct tape.”
Doppelmayer grew up playing softball and soccer and started running in middle school. She continued with track and field in high school and college.
She decided to try ultrarunning on a whim about eight years ago. Her son, 15 at the time, was trail running on the weekends with the Hawaii Ultra Running Team (HURT). He didn’t have a driver’s license yet so she drove him to the Saturday runs.
“After a while I got sick of sitting in the car waiting for him so I went out in the woods, too. My son ran his first trail ultra at 16, which was so thrilling and eye-opening that I wanted to try,” Doppelmayer said.
She signed up for one of the series trail races, trained and finished it.
“I was hooked by the trail’s beauty and the group’s camaraderie and have been listening, learning and experimenting ever since,” she said. “For me it takes a bit of discipline and willingness to accept the adventure of it all. You never know what you’ll encounter out there on the trails.”
Doppelmayer has never run in an official marathon. “I just skipped to the trail ultras. Marathons are usually on roads and crowded,” she said.
Most of the races that she’s done have been on a trail, with a few 50-mile road fun runs with friends that included aid stations with gourmet food that’s cooked by the organizer. “Ultra runners eat,” she said.
Last January, Doppelmayer completed the HURT 100, a local 100-mile race with primarily rocky and rooted terrain over streams that takes runners looping five times up and down Mount Tantalus. She finished in 35 hours, 27 minutes and 8 seconds.
“All of the races have time cutoffs and all have been in gorgeous places like Lake Tahoe, New Mexico, southern Utah and California and the Waianae and Koolau mountain ranges,” she said. “This December I plan to do my first official marathon on the Big Island.”
Good health, confidence and mental fortitude along with persistence, perspective and humility are among the things she’s gained from ultrarunning.
“You’ll have fun out there … then get smacked down a notch that you’ll need to learn and recover from. Most of what I’ve learned through endurance running, I use every day. As one of my mentors has said, ultra running is 99 percent mental and 1 percent physical. So is life,” she said.
And recovery is equally as important as training, she explained. “Recovery from a race means a huge loco moco, if available, rest and more eating for days.”
Her training includes lifting weights, a core-strengthening routine and yoga, plus about 10 to 15 miles of running during the week, a 20- to 30-mile run on Saturdays and an 8-mile recovery run on Sundays. Weekday mileage is mostly on hilly roads, and weekend runs are always on hilly trails, she explained. All told, her weekly mileage varies from 20 to 75 miles.
Training may change when she’s preparing for a specific race to factor in challenges such as elevation gains and losses and higher altitudes. “Rest is really important, especially at my age,” she said.
The ultrarunning community supports one another, regardless of skill level, Doppelmayer said.
Endurance running is a team sport, she said. “The most valuable info you’ll get is from the gals and guys who have been doing this stuff for 20, 30, even 40 years and are super accomplished,” she said. “Two of my pacers in the HURT 100 this year are pushing 70 years old.”
Community support and camaraderie help Doppelmayer get to the finish line. A pacer, a person who provides safety, companionship and assistance, joins her during the later part of longer races. The pacers cannot carry anything or physically assist a runner but they help on many levels, she explained.
“They have helped keep me awake, rubbed my back while puking, told me funny stories, alerted me to dangerous spots on the trail, kept an eye on time and encourage me to go faster if needed, keep my mind off the pain, remind me to drink and eat and take electrolytes.
“When you are into the later miles of a race you can be a bit delirious and forgetful and maybe even not want to do things you should be doing to take care of yourself,” she said.
Doppelmayer says that her running group has taught her everything that she needs to know about being out on the trail — what to wear in different climates, how to doctor a blister and how to ignore everything that hurts.
“They share stories about almost every scenario, which can get you through a tough spot,” she said.
“It’s a wash of relief and a bit of euphoria and joy when I cross that finish line,” she said, “especially when there’s a beer and double loco moco close by.”
