THIRTEEN YEARS AGO, before she had 10 sponsors, running records that appear as if they will stand for decades (or until she breaks them), hundreds of thousands if not millions of fans, and an article of clothing named after her, Courtney Dauwalter was a 25-year-old, junk-food-eating eighth-grade science teacher living in Denver. She had recently taken up trail running, had completed a 50-mile race, then had heard about an event called the Run Rabbit Run 100-miler. “It sounded insane,” she says. “I had to try.”
About 50 miles into the 2012 Run Rabbit Run 100 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, she realized just how insane the race was. It was raining, and she was cold, and sick, and tired. Everything hurt. She spent miles vomiting. The guy she was dating at…
