John Trent

Mark Richtman was perhaps the greatest age group runner ultrarunning has ever seen and certainly one of the greatest endurance athletes of his time.

The young woman was in last place at the Kokanee Trail Runs. She walked into our aid station that morning with her pink long-sleeve shirt tied tightly around her waist.

With each passing year, it’s a race we know we shouldn’t be running. But often, against our better judgment, knowing full well the runner we were last year, or 10 years ago, or 20 years ago could be far different from who we are today, we run it anyway.

I hadn’t trained much that spring in preparation for the 2010 Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run. I had spent more time sitting in a chair next to a hospice bed that had been set up in the living room of Mom’s condominium. She was dying from colon cancer.

When the physical blow finally fell, and a new sort of running reality had set in, both Chris Jones and Jean Pommier did not know what was happening, or what was next. So much of their existence was ruled by yearly racing calendars overflowing with races. They raced the way others breathe – with a frequency that was needed, and filled them with life.

The father had always been old school and a bit old-fashioned. He was a man who could easily handle both a stethoscope and a shotgun, his life shaped by time tending patients in emergency rooms in Roseville, California, and in caring for horse riders, and then for runners, on the Western States Trail.