Running in Boulder, Colo., is something so intrinsically different from anywhere else that it can be felt in the air — quite literally.
At Boulder's elevation of 5,328 feet, there's only 83 percent of the oxygen available at sea level; something not ideal for many things, but perfect for long-distance running training. It's the main draw for thousands of elite runners who go there yearly to amplify their training, and one that inspired an audacious group of Gonzaga women's cross country runners to do the same for a month this summer.
In the wake of a spring of uncertainty, with a spring season cancelled and a fall still in jeopardy, seniors Claire Manley, of Seattle, and Ally Legard, from Oregon, made late decisions to stay with their teammates and Boulder natives Liz Hogan and Claire Gillett for the month of July to train together, along with Natasha Bernal, who came from New Mexico to train for two weeks.
Legard was already planning on spending time in Boulder before the pandemic prematurely ended the spring track season and thrust practically every athletic-based plan into chaos. She and Gillett had made plans to stay in each other's cities for a month each. But for Manley and Bernal, the choice to head to Colorado fell into place much more quickly.
Manley had previously planned on working for Bowerman Track Club in Portland over the summer, helping with camps and getting professional experience within a competitive running environment. But when her workflow was forced to be completely online, she knew she still wanted something that would challenge her and shake up her training.
Hence, the decision to make training in Colorado a reality. She quickly found a place to stay for a month in a house of collegiate runners — after all, with hundreds of athletes staying there to train, there had to be a room somewhere — and committed as soon as she could.
 "Randomly, my phone said Claire Manley was calling me and I was like, 'Huh, I wonder what she's up to?'" Gillett said. As it turned out, what she was planning on heading down to Colorado soon.
"It was something that came together quickly," said GU women's cross country coach Jake Stewart. "Once the decision in the spring was made, I think she took it upon herself to find something that was exciting … something to look forward to. And they did that."
 
A RUNNER'S DREAM
 
Boulder, in many ways, feels built for runners, and it's not just the elevation. Any kind of trail that long-distance training requires is within a 15-minute drive — flat trails, steep trails, intervals, and every other combination imaginable.
"You can just get into tons of different runs," Hogan said. "You don't have to run the same thing twice all summer if you don't want to."
As a result, the city has drawn in plenty of athletes in the summer, and a sort of cultural hub has developed to accommodate them.
The city's most famous run is the Magnolia Road, 15 miles of high-elevation trail that carries runners out of the city in a challenging sort of pseudo-interval training — one Hogan described as a "classic long run". On Sunday's during the summer, residents of Boulder can see at least a few elite running teams take on "Mags" together, a reminder of the overflow of talent that overtakes the cities during those three months seeking improvement.
That culture of elite programs flocking to the city has not gone unnoticed by Stewart, who stresses culture as a crucial part of elevating his team's ceiling.
"It's not an uncommon thing for major programs to do," he said. "For us starting my third year here, we're really trying to change the culture of what our expectations are and how we want to work.
"I thought it was just one of the best things we could have done heading into this year."
 
ENJOYING THE MILES
 
Before she left, Manley said Stewart encouraged her to find stability in pursuing the purest approach to her running. He told her to go off time, instead focusing on simply "enjoying the miles" and embracing the demands of the process.
"After all, you could literally jog through July and you'd be good," Manley said. "The elevation really does the work for you."
It's not necessarily that simple, but the effects of the elevation are strong. The slight deprivation is hard on the cardiovascular system at first, but after a certain adjustment period, the effects ease away as the body adapts. The benefits of extended training are felt most strongly by runners when they leave — they typically have much less trouble with longer distances if they run at a lower altitude.
The runners ramped up their elevation training quickly — within their first week, the GU runners were already running up Longs Peak, a 14,259-foot summit near Gillett's house. It was a tough preview of what would be by any standard a grueling training regimen.
Typically, the women would run 8-12 miles on training days, with longer runs on the weekends. Days off consisted of even longer hikes through the mountains and scenery of the surrounding area — sometimes upwards of 15 miles. There were very few days they didn't go to bed exhausted, especially early as the altitude was still kicking in.
Manley said there's not any real way to fully counteract the difficulties adjusting to elevation. As she was told by the other runners in her house, you just have to keep running — and drinking water helps a little bit.
Even knowing that, Gillett still couldn't help but get a kick out of seeing her teammates struggle at first with the elevation she had been accustomed to since returning home in March.
"It was honestly in kind of a twisted way, kind of satisfying," she laughed. "Because whenever I go home, I always complain.
"I'm like, 'God, you don't get it, this is so hard for me.' And then when they came out, they were like, 'Oh yeah, we definitely feel it.'"
 
SORORITY OF SPEED
 
Time together in the physical sense is more valuable than it's ever been, and it was a luxury few athletes were afforded this summer. The proximity the GU runners had in living and training together was partially a stabilizing force and partially built-in accountability.
"Them coming to Colorado was the perfect motivation that we were all in desperate need of," Hogan said. "COVID made us all lose a little bit of hope but training next to your teammates made us appreciate each other's company that much more and made heading into the fall that much easier."
Their meetings with teammates via Zoom and the benefits they saw in training so closely together also inspired them to bring back one of their previous teambuilding ideas — the "speedy sisters".
"It sounds kind of funny, but it's a culture building thing for us," Manley said. She and Legard decided to renew their commitment to the chemistry-building structure when meeting in the offseason, identifying a need to redistribute leadership amongst a team with a talented returning core of young runners all seeking a bigger role.
The team is split into smaller groups who keep in touch frequently about their progress (and everything else), each with an experienced leader who initiates communication and helps make sure everything is going smoothly and that everyone is hanging in there.
"We had done it last year, but it just didn't resonate the same way and we weren't as good as following up and all of those things," Manley said. "But I'm really excited about the way it's going this year. Especially with this being my last year, I just really want to have something that can live on after me … I want to leave a framework that's really easy to inherit."
 
SUMMER OF UNCERTAINTY
 
By the time the WCC did announce that fall sports would be postponed until 2021 in August, it wasn't a surprise. Stewart and his runners now know they may have to choose between track and cross country at some point next year due to a jilted spring schedule, an awkward proposition at best. At the very least, they have something to look forward to.
But back in Boulder, the path forward was less clear. The runners didn't learn of the decision until after Manley and Legard had already departed, so they spent the entire month together watching other programs drop off, wondering if they were next.
Manley and Hogan remembered encountering runners from other schools after a run one day, all from Ivy League programs who said they had already had their fall seasons cancelled just recently.
"We were just like, 'Oh my gosh, that's so wild,'" Manley said. "But at that point we were only a month away from that happening to us."
In the meantime, their focuses remained on the present — on why they were there in the first place, rather than any of the things that were out of their hands.
"It's running, so no matter what, you've got to be in shape," Legard said. "It's not like because of not having a season, we would take time off, because then we would get out of shape and then we wouldn't be ready for our next opportunity."
Cross country runners highly value the individual's ability to seek improvement and accomplish goals as a competitor. The race feels like ultimate validation of the process. But what if you don't know when your next race is? How do you wrap your head around training for a season that may not happen and still push yourself?
The same way you deal with 5,430 feet of elevation: Just keep running.