This April she will become the only runner to compete in each of the 30 American River 50-Mile Runs. At 63, she shows little sign of slowing down.
By Caroline Aoyagi-Stom, Executive Editor
Published March 6, 2009
Gloria Takagishi, 63, has a way of making others feel really lazy. Her idea of a weekend workout is to run 20 miles. As a challenge, she enters ultramarathons, events with intimidating distances of 50 and 100 miles.
This year Gloria will be celebrating a remarkable milestone. In April, she will become the only ultrarunner to have run in each of the 30 American River 50-Mile Runs (AR50), an event that has been held annually since 1980.
It's an accomplishment Gloria quietly but proudly acknowledges.
"Ultramarathoning, for people like me, you get a sense of accomplishment that you can do something that is long and hard," said Gloria who is set to return to the AR50, an ultramarathon that will start in her hometown of Sacramento and take her to Auburn, a distance most of us would consider long while driving in our cars.
"I'm competing against myself, not against everyone else. I'm at peace when I'm out on the trails."
In addition to her weekend workouts, Gloria works out a few times a week, sometimes waking up at 4 a.m. so she can get her run in before heading off to her full-time job as a state employee with the Department of Technology. Twice a week, her husband Ken rides his bike to join her in her early morning workouts.
"She's not very athletic but it's something she could accomplish that not many others can do," said Ken, 62, who has supported his wife's interest in ultrarunning from the beginning. "She's not fast but she has endurance."
Gloria, a Sansei, first started running in 1978 as a way to get in better shape. She started running around her neighborhood and soon joined a group of local women runners on regular runs.
She started off with slower distances and in 1979 she entered her first marathon (26.2 miles). But by 1980 a friend had convinced her to try her first ultramarathon, the AR50, and she was hooked.
Now 30 years later Gloria has run in close to 130 ultramarathons.
"When my mother started running, I think my dad and I thought it was just going to be a fad for her and that she would soon try something else," said son Curtis, 43, a clinical psychologist in Tampa, Florida who has attended some of his mom's 50 and 100-mile runs. "Thirty years later I am amazed that she is still running such long distances."
He adds, "I am always impressed because sometimes I do not even like driving 50 or 100 miles and she spends her time running that same distance."
For Gloria, ultramarathons have provided the perfect opportunity to see parts of the country she may never have had the chance to see. She's run a 50-miler in Chicago, three 50-milers in Vermont and she competed in the New York Marathon in 1998. Two years ago she ran a 15-K run at Disney World in Orlando where her two grandkids Alexandra, 8, and Sabrina, 6, joined her in their own 1-K kids run.
At 5 feet 2 inches and 119 pounds, Gloria is far from your intimidating muscle bound athlete. But it's her drive and determination that keeps her going on those seemingly endless trails mile after mile.
Although she has run a 3 hour, 36 minute marathon in the past, nowadays she goes at a slower pace with the goal of finishing, something she almost always manages to do.
"It's what you set your mind out to do before the race. Your goal is to get it done. You know how far you need to go," she said. "I see it as a challenge. I wouldn't go out there if I wasn't positive about it."
But as Gloria tries to explain the drive of an ultrarunner, she acknowledges that only her fellow ultramarathoners can truly understand where she is coming from.
So it's no surprise that many of her closest friends are also ultrarunners and training partners.
"I think Gloria is a very goal oriented person, as most ultrarunners are. I think she takes great pride in her ability to run the ultras and to finish them," said Nancy March, 62, an ultrarunner who has known Gloria for 30 years. "She is not one of the faster runners, but she certainly has a very dedicated personality which is necessary in order to complete them."
With all her running commitments, Gloria still finds time for volunteering. She's a treasurer for the Junior League of Sacramento and for the past several years she's volunteered for The Western States 100-Mile Run helping cook breakfast for 600 runners at 4 a.m. Scrapbooking, knitting and puzzles are some of her hobbies and each year she makes sure she visits her grandkids in Florida a few times.
"I'm a pretty regimented person. I'm a planner so I can usually plan my weeks and days out."
On April 4, Gloria will wake up before the crack of dawn and place her sneakers on the starting line at 6 a.m. with the goal of finishing the AR50. If successful, she will become the only person to have finished the race in each of the 30 years of the event.
As always, her husband Ken will be crewing her, meeting her at stops along the route to provide water, food and moral support. He'll also be waiting for her at the finish line to celebrate a notable milestone.
"She's pretty stubborn headed," chuckles Ken when asked about his wife's ability to compete in these tough races. But he quickly adds: "She's very dedicated. It's one of her assets."
At 63, Gloria has no immediate plans to slow down. In March she will also run in the Way Too Cool 50-K run, an event she has competed in every year for the past 19 years.
"I think Gloria will continue to run as long as her body allows," said Bridget Powers, a friend and ultrarunner. "I see that as a very long time from now. She will be 80 and still running. I hope to be running right along side her.
"She is my inspiration and a hero to me for all she has done."
"This is a really awesome accomplishment, that she can do this consistently year after year, avoiding sickness or injury enough to always finish," said Mark Tanaka, a fellow ultraunner who has competed in the AR50 four times. "I've been running ultramarathons for only six years. If I'm still able to finish these races 25 years from now, I'll be very happy."
And you may still see Gloria running along the trails 25 years from now. Not only are there a number of fellow ultrarunners in their 60s and 70s, one of her close friends is still doing ultramarathons at the age of 86.
"The key is to go out there and not give up," she said. "You can do almost anything if you set your mind to it."
For more information: www.run100s.com/AR50/.
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