When emergency physician Anne Flower, DO, set out to run a 100-mile race in Colorado, she didn’t expect it would turn her into something of a local celebrity.

But the result was so impressive that her story has been featured in numerous running publications, newspapers, and websites. Dr. Flower, an attending physician at UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central in Colorado Springs, didn’t just finish first in her age division at the Leadville Trail 100 Run. She set a new course record with a time of 17 hours, 58 minutes, and 19 seconds in the August 2025 event.

A few weeks later at the Tunnel Hill State Trail run in Vienna, Ill., Dr. Flower set a world record with a time of 5:18:57 in 50 miles.

Dr. Flower’s journey to long-distance running started well before the Colorado race, though not in the typical way of lifelong competitive runners. In fact, she explained that for most of her early life, running wasn’t her passion at all.

“I did high school cross country, maybe two years,” she said. “But it just wasn’t great for me. I wanted to play soccer with my friends.”

Dr. Flower keeps pace along the Leadville Trail 100 Run in Leadville, Colo. in August 2025. Photos Anne Flower. (Click to enlarge.)

In college, she gravitated toward hiking, biking, and climbing. She skied a lot. Running didn’t become an important part of her routine until medical school, where the limited free time made it an ideal and efficient escape.

“There wasn’t that much else to do with my free time,” she said.

That’s when Dr. Flower started to realize that she’s not just a runner. She’s an elite runner. By residency, she qualified for the Olympic marathon trials. Still, medicine was her priority. Running was second. Her emergency medicine schedule, however, provided exactly the right kind of flexibility for an endurance athlete.

“Nowhere in my sphere did it seem like running was going to be anything that I would either want to do or be good enough to do more than as a hobby,” she said. “But as you know, with emergency medicine, I have random time off. It’s better for me to have a weekend off where I can go run a race than try to go on a Fourth of July vacation.”

Those unstructured pockets of time became opportunities.

The Colorado 100-mile race that kicked off a fall filled with interviews and attention overlapped with her emergency medicine training, Dr. Flower said. The same mental focus needed for a successful shift in the emergency department is like the mindset required to excel at a long-distance run.

“It’s the mentality of just being okay with things not being perfect,” she said. “During a 100-miler, you are constantly encountering problems, you are problem solving, but you’re taking it as it goes. I think that’s exactly what you need to be able to be an ER doctor and be able to run 100 miles.”

Dr. Flower set a new speed record when she finished the Leadville Trail 100 Run in less than 18 hours last summer. (Click to enlarge.)

Just as in the emergency department, she focuses on what she can control.

“Me being upset or scared by it is not going to make it better,” she said.

Instead, she zeroes in on what she calls the essentials: assessing the situation and moving forward. What Dr. Flower did not expect was the volume of attention her Colorado performance received, especially from colleagues. She’s also proud to have inspired others around her to start training, or at the very least, start running. Since the 100-mile race that turned Dr. Flower into a local celebrity, several friends and coworkers have told her they’re planning to start training for a half marathon or a 10K. Some have just said they plan to start running.

“It has really become a vehicle for connection,” she said.

Despite her accomplishment, Dr. Flower is not someone who walks around broadcasting her athletic feats. “I try not to,” she laughed, adding that her non-running family trained her early to avoid becoming the person who monologues about their mileage. “People are not that interested to hear about what you did with your running life that day unless it’s a funny story or something cool.”

Dr. Flower, interviewed after the 100-mile run in Colorado and before the Tunnel Hill race, was asked what’s next for her.

“I’m actually running a 50-mile race called Tunnel Hill,” she said.

There, she set a new world record.