Colleen Conners-Pace, 52 years old, born and raised on the West Shore of Lake Tahoe, has dreamed of participating in Hawaii’s Ironman for more than two decades. The Hawaii Ironman is the World Championship and the granddaddy of all Ironmans – it’s a major accomplishment just to be given the right to compete. Conners-Pace first applied to race in 1986, and wasn’t accepted. Last year, however, she attended the Ironman Sports Medicine Conference and won the single raffle prize of a coveted slot in this year’s race. By the time you read this, Conners-Pace’s Ironman dream has probably come true. (The Ironman was on October 10, past Moonshine Ink’s press deadline).
Now to those of you who don’t understand the desire to punish yourself in order to find out what you can accomplish, the Hawaii Ironman sounds more like a nightmare than a dream. The race begins with 2,000 competitors swimming 2.4 miles in the churning waves off the coast of Kona. Then, just for laughs, they emerge from the salty water and pedal 112 miles through the hot lava fields, under pounding sun and grueling humidity. Oh, and yeah, the winds are probably blowing pretty stiffly. But wait, there’s more, upon finish the ride, competitors must run a marathon, or 26.2 miles. And remember, this is a race, so go as fast as you can.
But Conners-Pace, an exercise physiologist for the Tahoe Forest Hospital’s Tahoe Center for Health and Sports Performance, lives for this stuff, and has for a long time. Conners-Pace grew up with five siblings under the shadow of Eagle Rock in Tahoe Pines. There were not a lot of other kids around in the 1960s so her childhood revolved around playing with her family, especially her older brother Eddie. In the winter they skied and shoveled snow. In the summer it was swimming in the lake or playing football (sometimes on the seventh fairway of the Tahoe City Golf Course).
Even though she was featured in the 1975 North Tahoe High School yearbook as ‘Most Athletic (for her downhill racing skills), it was only when she went to college that Conners-Pace’s athletic career really started to fall into place. After running for Sierra College and later Chico State she crewed for ‘Cowman,’ a locally well-known athlete, in the Western States 100.
Cowman is an original Tahoe character, best known as one of the original runners in the Western States – 100 miles of grueling climbing and descending on a trail between Squaw Valley and Auburn. To Colleen, it looked like fun.
In 1979 she ran around Lake Tahoe in the Pepsi 72 Mile Race, placing second for women. Perhaps that is when she discovered she not only liked this long-distance running thing, but was actually pretty good at it. In 1980, at just 23 years old, she did the Western States 100 herself, finishing in just over 23 hours to win the coveted silver belt buckle for completing the course in under 24 hours.
She raced in the first Donner Lake Triathlon, and a variety of other local events such as the ‘Where in the Hell is Truckee Run’. In the 1970s and ‘80s, softball was a big deal in Tahoe City. Conners-Pace played for the Perata Petunias (against such wonderfully named stalwarts as the Truckin’ Tomatoes and the Meadow Muffins).
In the early 1980s Conners-Pace converted from alpine to nordic skiing and found quick success in the first Great Ski Races. Conners-Pace placed second in one early Race, getting nipped barely by another longtime Tahoe local Holly Beatie.
After a few years of competing in the Race, Conners-Pace joined her friend Jo Jo Toeppner, current Tahoe Donner Cross-Country Ski Area manager, to start what has become a highlight of the race over the last 20 years: the cheerleading squad. This group of about a dozen ladies dress up in different costumes every year, ski to the top of Starrett Pass before the race, and cheer on racers for several hours before finishing the race themselves. They have dressed up as Charlie Chaplins, sun goddesses, prisoners, vikings and whatever other great idea struck their fancy.
The Great Ski Race is a fundraiser for the Tahoe Nordic Search and Rescue, an organization Conners-Pace joined as well, sometimes going out on searches. In the 1980s, her love for cross-country skiing led her to spending a few winters working for Skip Reedy at the Tahoe Nordic Center (where she taught me how to skate ski).
As the years went by and many of her friends began to love road biking, Conners-Pace took it up as well. Next thing she knew her focus shifted to triathlons, leading to the 2007 Vineman along the Russian River, an Ironman-length event.
A key to Conners-Pace’s success was marriage to Joe Pace, a man who can keep up with her athletic endeavors. Pace is always near the head of the pack in The Great Ski Race and once won the Echo to Kirkwood Cross-Country Ski race.
‘It’s helpful to have a husband who does the same things,’ Conners-Pace says. They not only do the same things, they enjoy competing with each other. Anybody who has ever rode or skied with Pace and Conners-Pace has experienced their competition in action, at least for a while until the couple disappears from view. Unfortunately, Pace crashed on a hairy downhill in a bike race this spring, breaking his collarbone and thumb, leaving Conners-Pace to do much of the training for the Hawaiian Ironman alone. But she was ready to go, looking forward to seeing friends and family at the finish line in Kona, as she once again tested the limits of human endurance.
~ Tim Hauserman wrote ‘Cross-Country Skiing in the Sierra Nevada’ and ‘Tahoe Rim Trail,’ and was a classmate of Conners-Pace’s at North Tahoe High School.
