By Gordon Wright

If any athlete is favored to win their division in the 2009 GORE-TEX® TransRockies Run, it would be local legend Anita Ortiz of Beaver Creek. The defending champion romped to a relatively easy victory at last year’s race, and also won a little race this year that you may have heard of: the Western States Endurance Run. Just this month, the lean and powerful 45-year-old also ticked off a win at the Pikes Peak Marathon in her first attempt. She’s teamed with another ultrarunning powerhouse, Prudence l’Heureux to make up what most could consider to be the top contending team in the Women’s Open division.

Except she’s not. Or at least, Ortiz has her work cut out for her in what is expected to be the most hotly-contested division in the 2009 GORE-TEX® TransRockies Run. Challenging Ortiz and l’Heureux are two other all-star teams. Among the most feared are The North Face Girls, Kami Semick and Nikki Kimball. All these two have done is won about every major trail race in existence.

Semick rolls into the TransRockies Run having completed one of the most dominating stretches of endurance racing in memory, winning, among other events, the 100K World Championship Road Race; the National 50 Mile Trail Championship; the Miwok 100K; the American River 50 and the 50K National Road Race Championship.

“We’re here to have fun,” said Semick, 43, shortly before the start, as she and Bozeman native Kimball stretched easily and prepped their gear. Kimball, 38, has an endurance palmares that rivals Semick’s: she is the three-time National Champion at the Trail 50 Mile; the 2004 Western States 100 champion; a past USATF Ultra Runner of the Year; member of multiple US Mountain Running teams and in her spare time has won three National titles in snowshoeing.

“It’ll be interesting to see how the race develops,” said Semick, “I don’t know what Anita is going to do, but you look around and you see we’re all a little dinged up. It’s the end of the summer and a lot depends on how healthy we all feel. Nikki and I have really complementary strengths – Nikki climbs great and I do pretty well on the flats, so we’ll see.”

Sizing up yet another top team, she notes, “The young girls should be tough – Devon is good on the flats but I don’t know how strong she is climbing.”

The “young girls” would be Caitlin Smith and Devon Crosby-Helms. Smith came out of relative ultra-obscurity to take the shorter-distance trail running world by storm in 2009. Selected at the start of the year to compete for the LaSportiva Mountain Running Team, the Oakland resident and University of Michigan yoga teacher/doula is an effervescent presence. In February, she entered her first 50K, and won, beating the course record by an astonishing half-hour. The following month, she lined up at the giant field at the Way Too Cool 50, and blew away the field, finishing in 4:12, just four minutes behind Karl Meltzer. Making the rounds of largely Northern California races, she has won no fewer than nine races in 2009 and placed third in her first 100K, the Miwok 100K. The only two women to finish ahead of her? Kami Semick and Anita Ortiz.

Crosby-Helms has undoubtedly the finest ultrarunning resume for a former Division 1 basketball player. Like Smith a 20-something with boundless energy, DCH has won the Vermont 100, the Leona Divide Trail and the Chuckanut.

The duo, not nearly as seasoned as the other top two teams, don’t quite know how the race will turn out, but it is evident that they’re expected to do well. Upon reaching the registration desk yesterday, the technician handing out race numbers heard their names, looked up and asked, “So are you guys going to win?”

That’s still a long way from being determined.

Nancy Hobbs, the head of the United States Mountain Running Team, said before the start that while the competition might be heated, all the women are friends, “Three teams are really strong, but the cool thing is, they’re all friendly. The team dynamics will play a part, so that’s unique about this race, but even though it’ll be competitive, they all really like each other.”

Friendly though they may all be, they’re not above a little gamesmanship. Minutes before the start, as a reporter was doing an interview of Smith and Crosby-Helms, Ortiz strolled by.

“Yeah, I heard you were trash-talking at the Leadville aid station,” Ortiz said pointedly as she passed. “We heard that.”

Nonplussed, the two youngsters stared at the reporter, who had accompanied them to the Leadville race the day prior. There was an awkward moment as they strove to recall any arrant moments of hubris, and came up empty.

“Oh man,” moaned the six-footer Crosby-Helms, “Whatever. We can only control what we can do, not anything they can do. It’s not like I can block their shot in the paint or anything.”

She and Smith walked into the starting chute, their nerves considerably heightened. Who knows if the 20-somethings had been caught out in a brash statement, or merely served as the victims of a canny racing veteran playing some mild head games.

But one thing is certain in the GORE-TEX® TransRockies Run Open Women’s Division: it is Game On.