Allie Ostrander
In her first race since a four-month competition ban for using a prohibited medication, Alaska’s Allie Ostrander last weekend set a women’s course record to win the low-key Three Corner Rock 50K along the Pacific Crest Trail in Washington state that marked the longest race of her career.
Ostrander, 26, covered the 31-mile race – she ran 32 miles because she took a wrong turn late in the event – in 4 hours, 43 minutes, 51 seconds to earn second overall among 40 finishers on the scenic single-track course. She trailed only her friend, and sort of coach, the triathlete Ari Klau (4:29:57). Her video blog about the race is available on her YouTube channel, which has 36,000 followers.
Ostander, who is from Soldotna and lives in Seattle, was a three-time NCAA champion steeplechaser at Boise State and has raced that event over barriers and a water pit in the World Championships. She won three state cross country titles at Kenai Central and remains the girls state track record-holder at 1,600 meters and 3,200 meters. She’s dynamite on trails too. She won six consecutive junior Mount Marathon titles, won the junior race outright one year, owns the junior girls record, and owns one senior women’s title in the iconic Fourth of July race up and down the 3,022-foot beast in Seward.
Three Corner Rock 50K course
Ostrander on her YouTube channel said she took two falls in the race and laughed, mostly, about the extra mile she ran at Three Corner Rock – she took a loop that took her right back where she went off-course.
“It was one of the most heart-breaking moments of my life when I realized I had made no progress toward the finish,’’ she said on her vlog.
Ostrander in an earlier YouTube post said she accepted a four-month ban after a drug test by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency came up positive for canrenone, a prohibited substance that contains a metabolite of spironolactone, which has diuretic properties and can be used as a masking agent. She said she has never taken a performance-enhancing drug and should have researched the anti-acne medication she said she received via a prescription from a dermatologist.
“For that, I take full responsibility,’’ she said. “I should have searched it, and I know that now. My confidence in myself that I wasn’t trying to cheat is not enough. I need to also be meticulous in my research, and in that moment I was negligent.’’
Ostrander said she has been drug-tested 16 times in the last four years.
“I believe adamantly in clean sport. I would never, ever try to gain an unfair advantage over my competitors,’’ she said.
Ostrander is sponsored by Nnormal, the outdoor brand co-founded by former Mount Marathon champion Kilian Jornet, widely considered history’s best men’s mountain and trail runner.
According to ultrasignup.com, Ostrander’s is entered in the Mammoth Lakes 26K in California on Sept. 22.