Queen of the Mountains

SHE’S A 31-YEAR-OLD ACCOUNTANT SHE GREW UP IN THE MIDDLE OF NO WHERE SHE LIVES IN EDMONTON WITH HER DOG AND HER CAT IN 2013, SHE RAN HER FIRST ULTRAMARATHON ALISSA ST LAURENT IS… SHE STARTED RUNNING JUST SIX YEARS AGO IN 2015 SHE DID SOMETHING NO ONE HA

She’s a 31-year-old accountant. She grew up in the middle of nowhere. She lives in Edmonton, Alta. with her dog and her cat. She started running just six years ago. In 2013, she ran her first ultramarathon. In 2015, Alissa St Laurent did something no one has ever done before and became the Queen of the Mountains.

Ryne Melcher didn’t want to curse things, but by leg two of the fiveleg, 125-kilometre 2015 Canadian Death Race, he suspected that Alissa St Laurent, the come-from-nowhere ultrarunner that he had been coaching for mere months – and who had only started running at all six years earlier – was going to be the first woman ever to win the ultramarathon.

One other woman had come close – in 2011, Scottish phenom Ellie Greenwood crossed the finish line only 45 minutes behind the first-place male. In fact, the splits that Melcher was giving St Laurent were based on Greenwood’s performance. He had crewed for Greenwood in the past, and saw a remarkable similarity between the two runners. Neither had much of a running background, but had started running ultras in their 20s. Immediately both met considerable success. After picking up the sport in 2008, Greenwood won the 2010 and 2014 100k World Championships.

And St Laurent, a 31-year-old accountant for a consortium of local businesses in Edmonton, cut her teeth with ultras on a leg of the 2012 Death Race. She returned the next year to win first female and had inadvertently turned one of the toughest courses in the world into her proving ground as an elite ultramarathoner.