Coming down the side of Mount Werner on Saturday, 30-year-old Margaret Schaff was showered with cheers from a large gallery of her friends as she completed the 16-mile Continental Divide Trail Run. 

Schaff’s goal was to break the three-hour mark in the race that’s part of the Steamboat Springs Running Series. She said the cheers helped propel her to the finish line. 

“I didn’t know I had jets like that left in me,” said Schaff, who finished in 2 hours, 59 minutes and 30 seconds.

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She was 24th overall and the 10th female runner to finish.

Schaff, a Steamboat resident, recently traveled with her sister to Europe and hiked from Chamonix to Zermatt along the Swiss Alps. The trip inspired her to get back into running form and chase her dream of qualifying for the Boston Marathon. 

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Schaff had previously beaten the qualifying time for Boston at the Chicago Marathon in 2023, but too many women had done the same, which brought the qualifying time lower and pushed her just out of the required pace. 

When all is said and done, Schaff hopes to have run each of the “Big Six” marathons — Chicago, New York, Berlin, Tokyo, London and Boston. 

Saturday’s race was the first step toward the remaining marathons on her list, and Schaff described the race as the perfect day. The light breeze and the cloud coverage made for a cool run, something she hadn’t experienced in previous Steamboat races.

It was not all glamorous for Schaff, however, who ran into the traditional pains of any long run in the mountains.

“Just keep running,” Schaff said. “(It takes a) my-feet-won’t-fail-me-now sort of mentality. I got some bad blisters when I was running around mile nine, but I just had to keep going.”

With plenty of experience under her belt and having trained for this race on Mount Werner, Schaff knew to start slow on the climb. 

“I knew I could successfully run Pioneer all the way to Rainbow Saddle,” she said. “I walked from the saddle all the way to the top and then ran the rest. My strategy was to take it easy on the pace, and if I am around a 15-minute-per-mile pace on the climb, then I could drop it to 8-9 minute miles on the downhill bit.”

Schaff is looking to stay in running form with a handful of big runs before the snow begins to fall. The Continental Divide Trail Run inspired her to keep pushing toward her marathon dreams. 

“Being out there in nature on the side of the mountain was a spiritual experience,” she said.

For Continental Divide Trail Run results, visit KanduTiming.com/results/24_cdtr/