How the First Women’s Champion of Western States Found Independence on the Trail – runnersworld.com

Just a few minutes away from the finish line at the Placer High School track in Auburn, California, Pat Smythe (now Smythe-Conill) needed a quiet moment. She told her fellow competitor Phil Lenihan and the pacers who had accompanied her for almost 30 hours to stop talking. She needed to focus, she needed to listen to her body, and she needed to appreciate the effort in that last mile.

It was June 24, 1978, and Smythe-Conill was about to become the first woman in history to complete the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run.

“And for the 100th time, I reached for Phil’s hand and we sprinted that last, flat 1/4-mile. I didn’t have to keep my eyes on the ground because I knew where I was going. And I was getting there first,” she wrote for The Marathoner in the fall 1978 issue.

She crossed the finish line in 29:34 as one of 28 official finishers and the first women’s champion of the grueling race that begins in Squaw Valley and ends in Auburn, California.

Beyond the news reports that were written around the time of her win, little was known about the first female champion, and her trailblazing story has seemed to have faded away as nothing more than a statistic. But thanks to an introduction from Western States race director Craig Thornley, Runner’s World was able to speak with Smythe-Conill 41 years after her victory and days before the 45th running of the event, which has become the oldest 100-mile race in the world.

At the time of her victory, Smythe-Conill was 35 years old and trying to prove that women were more than capable of running long distances. Not only did she prove that, she showed herself that she was capable of enduring more than she ever believed possible.

Now 77 and retired, Smythe-Conill’s accomplishment has served as a personal reminder of resilience throughout her life.

“It’s always just been a real personal thing, a real quiet thing that has stayed with me,” Smythe-Conill told Runner’s World. “I’m grateful that I was able to do it and love my body for its effort in pulling through for me.”

Setting the Bar

In the 41 years since Smythe-Conill’s historic run, women have continued to push the boundaries at Western States, which began in 1974 with one finisher—founder Gordy Ainsleigh—and continues this Saturday, June 29.

In 1979, Skip Swannack shattered the women’s course record by completing the 100-miler in 21:56. A year later, two women—Sally Edwards and Bjorg Austrheim-Smith—finished inside the top 10.

In 1989, ultra running legend Ann Trason won in her first attempt at the run, and went on to claim victory for a total of 14 times. Behind her, Austrheim-Smith became the first woman to finish ten consecutive years of the race.

Last year, 60 women completed the 100-miler in times faster than 20:27. The women’s course record stands at 16:47:19, set by Ellie Greenwood in 2012.]

With women continuing to build on the impressive performances that came before them, it’s important to remember the first champion: a woman who didn’t consider herself a competitor, but had a lot to prove.

“It was very impressive. She [Smythe-Conill] set the bar for more women to do this, for more women to do ridiculous things that they didn’t think they could do,” Lenihan, 85, told Runner’s World.

‘Let’s Go Show Them’

Smythe-Conill grew up in Vancouver, Washington, but moved to Napa, California when she got married in 1967. She started running casually in college to lose weight, but found a passion for it when she met more runners in Northern California.

“I wasn’t in it for competition,” Smythe-Conill said. “My running was something that was really personal.”

While working as a secretary for the school district, she met Mary Healy, a runner and a teacher in the area. Healy started “Women on the Run,” an organization that taught women in the Bay Area the basics of running. Soon after Healy started the organization, Smythe-Conill joined her as an assistant. Together, the duo held classes to teach women about running, pacing, nutrition, and weight training. The focus of the class was to guide the students to run one mile as a starting point, though they were encouraged to run as far as they wanted to on the days class wasn’t in session.

“For a lot of women, even running a mile at that point in time was like running a 100 [miles],” Smythe-Conill said. “It was a big deal, so that was always gratifying.”

While Smythe-Conill hadn’t competed in any races until 1978, Healy was experienced in the marathon distance. She was the one who told Smythe-Conill about the relatively new course at Western States.

Both Smythe-Conill and Healy believed that running the 100-mile race would make a statement to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) about the ability of women to run long distances. In 1978, the IOC was still six years away from adding the women’s marathon to the Olympic program.

“I really wasn’t a crusader, but I also felt that women really got short shrift in their physical abilities. People thought women were delicate and had to be treated a little bit condescendingly, perhaps,” Smythe-Conill said. “But I had a tough side, as a girl anyway, so when we started talking about doing this, and talking about the fact that women were still kind of considered pansies in the physical realm, that it wasn’t true! And we just felt like, let’s go show them! We can do this.”

Smythe-Conill and Healy started training for the feat five weeks before the race. In a short period of time, Smythe-Conill’s mileage jumped from 25 to 30 miles per week to 100. Long runs in the redwood groves around Mount Tamalpais helped prepare her for one 50-miler in the training block. When they could make the three-hour drive to Squaw Valley, they would work out along the course.

Even with the relatively short training block in her legs, Smythe-Conill was confident that she would finish her first race.

“There was no doubt in my mind that I was going to finish. I did wonder what inner strengths I would have to find within myself to do it,” Smythe-Conill wrote in The Marathoner. “Mentally, I knew I was tough, and prior to the race, I believed that it was ultimately going to be this toughness, more than physical conditioning, that was going to make or break it for me.”

‘Changing and Changed’

Before Smythe-Conill and Healy took off on the starting line together, Lenihan, a marketing manager at Runner’s World at the time, asked if he could run with them because he believed their pace would allow him to finish his 100-mile debut. At the time, the runners needed to complete the race under the cut-off of 30 hours to be considered an official finisher.

“I think I made a very good choice because it worked!” Lenihan said while reflecting on his decision to run with them.

In the darkness at 5 a.m., the runners took off from the starting line and descended on Squaw Pass and Red Star Ridge, which had 15 miles of deep snow that year. Unfortunately, Healy suffered from extreme altitude sickness and was forced to drop out at Robinson Flat, just over 30 miles into the race.

The remaining miles were left to Smythe-Conill and Lenihan who continued to run together. But after they left the checkpoint at Robinson Flat, the runners found themselves at a pace that would bring them into the finish line past the 30-hour limit and ultimately disqualify them. As Smythe-Conill detailed in her essay, aid station workers reminded them of this, but Lenihan quickly dismissed them and told the checkers, “they should radio ahead and have our plaques ready for us.”

By the last medical checkpoint around Highway 49, about six miles from the finish line of the course at the time, the runners had finally made up the time they needed to finish under the 30-hour limit. At this point, Smythe-Conill realized the significance of what she was about to accomplish as the first woman to complete Western States.

“I can’t deny that the possibility of being the first woman to finish this 100-mile race (especially in less than 30 hours) proved to be tremendous impetus. I toughened here, my concentration increased, and we picked up the pace,” she wrote.

Despite extreme fatigue, soreness in her ankles, and a few sections where Smythe-Conill had to walk due to the pain in her legs, she and Lenihan made it to the finish line together, where they made history with a time of 29 hours and 34 minutes.

“I am grateful. I am also changed and changing. I feel in myself the things I tell the women in my running classes: I feel the confidence, self-esteem and independence that comes from accomplishing something for myself, by myself. The race, and all that it took from inside me to finish, brought pride and humility,” she wrote afterward.

Keep pushing

In the years that followed, Smythe-Conill only attempted to complete Western States once more in 1979, but dropped out around the 30-mile mark. She continued to run for her own enjoyment, but stopped in 1982—she said she grew tired of the “push”—so the 1978 Western States race remains her first and last competition.

Still, it served as an important reminder of her body’s capability.

The 1978 Western States race remains her first and last competition.

“I wasn’t concerned with beating anybody, just myself. To me, that is what it’s all about anyway,” Smythe-Conill said. “It was about self-awareness and staying in touch with myself and honoring my body through it all.”

While she experienced several challenging years after the race–her mother passed away in 1980, she went through a devastating break-up, struggled financially, and eventually moved back to the Pacific Northwest–Smythe-Conill eventually found her happiness when she met her current husband, Ferndando, in 1981. They have been married for 30 years and now live a quieter life together in Port Townsend, Washington.

While the recognition faded slightly over time, being the first woman to complete Western States remains a monumental accomplishment to Smythe-Conill. And in the current digital age of people constantly sharing and talking about the highlights of their life, it’s refreshing to know that some accomplishments can be quietly celebrated, that we can take a moment of silence to appreciate the effort and the lessons we are left with.

“It [Western States] was kind of an extension of pushing. You know, my older brother always says, ‘life is a struggle,’ and it is,” Smythe-Conill said. “But you have to keep pushing. You have to keep enduring, you have to keep enjoying as well, but that’s all an internal process for everybody in their own way.”