This year, she’s starting the race, but not finishing

Not the beginning, when adrenaline practically carries her through the first few miles. Not the end, when she knows she has triumphed over the mountain and conquered the elements.

For Danelle Ballengee, a four-time Pikes Peak Marathon winner, the middle of that mountain is her favorite.

“You’ve been going uphill for a long time and you still have a long ways to go,” she said. “But there’s something exciting about when you hit the tree line. I like seeing the sky open and being able to look up at the summit.”

In many ways, that’s where Ballengee is now, nine months after an accident that nearly killed her.

Ballengee will start this Sunday’s Marathon, which follows Saturday’s Ascent, but it will be — for her — more ceremonial.

Ballengee, 35, is an accomplished adventure racer who once climbed all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks in 14 days, 14 hours and 49 minutes. Her race winnings paid the bills, allowing her to live in Dillon and Moab, Utah.

But one misstep on a trail run last December near Moab rendered her immobile, in grave danger and a long way from help.

The doubts loomed like the imposing Douglas fir trees that line the lower part of the Pikes Peak Marathon route.

Will I be able to walk again?

Will I be able to run again?

Will I be able to compete again?

Will I be able to survive?

TWO NIGHTS IN WILDERNESS

Ballengee was used to being alone in the wilderness. In her dozens of adventure races and high-altitude marathons, she often left from the pack and admired the distant peaks.

On that December day, she was out on a self-designed eight-mile loop, which should have taken her less than two hours to complete.

She wore long running pants, three thin upper layers and a fleece hat. She had a water bottle and a fanny pack. Her dog, Taz, a golden retriever-German shepherd mix, was by her side.

As Ballengee tackled an uncharted stretch, she skidded on a patch of black ice and tumbled violently down a 75-foot slope. She smashed against one rock ledge and then another before falling two stories into a chasm.

Ballengee’s feet didn’t fail her a second time.

Catlike, she stuck the landing like a gold-medal gymnast. But the sheer force of falling that far and landing on her feet was too much for her 5-foot-4, 115-pound frame and shattered Ballengee’s pelvis.

For the next five hours, Ballengee dragged herself through the canyon, a grueling crawl on one good leg, hauling the other with her hands, six inches at a time. She made it a quarter mile.

With night falling and the temperature dipping below freezing, Ballengee collapsed on her back in exhaustion near a puddle and a bit of snow. Taz was still by her side.

As she stared above, Ballengee saw shooting stars crisscross the sky.

It was the first of two nights in the wilderness.

Ballengee survived on one packet of raspberry-flavored energy gel per day, a half bottle of water and, when that was gone, capfuls of melted snow.

The water was just enough to soothe her throat, sore from yelling for rescuers. She struggled through sit-ups in attempts to keep her blood flowing. And, like a true backcountry racer, Ballengee pulled a plastic shower cap from her pack and wore it on her head to prevent the loss of body heat.

Never a quitter, Ballengee tried to move a few feet more, even a few inches, but failed each time.

“It was frustrating,” she said. “I just wanted to see what was around the corner. But I couldn’t because I was just stuck in one place.”

On the second night, the meteors flying above left thin orange stripes behind.

“They seemed to move every so often and become more blurry,” she said. “I was kind of starting to lose it.”

Taz had begun to leave his owner for 30-minute stints.

About 50 hours after Ballengee’s fall, Taz found a search party. Two hours later, Taz led rescuers to Ballengee. She was flown to St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction before being transferred to Denver Health Medical Center for surgery.

Doctors spent six hours reconstructing her pelvis and reinforcing it with a titanium plate, pins and screws. Ballengee’s feet were severely frostbitten, but suffered only nerve damage.

After surgery, Ballengee couldn’t sit up in bed. But believing that she had survived for a purpose, she corralled her strength and sat at a 45-degree angle for two minutes every three hours.

Little goals had always driven Ballengee to do things most people cannot. The small milestones marked her return to ordinary. Even then she was defying the odds.

LISTENING TO HER BODY

By March, after hundreds of laps around a shopping mall in her wheelchair, Ballengee was finally given the green light to stand. But her legs no longer resembled those that carried her five times through the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii, won her seven U.S. National Skyrunning Championships and gave her 112 first-place finishes in 141 career snowshoe races.

“I was so ready to start walking at that point that I stood up and tried to walk, but I couldn’t,” said Ballengee. “I was stumbling like a drunk.”

Reliant on a walker, Ballengee pushed the limits early.

“I walked quite a bit, maybe an hour total per day with rest in between,” she said. “But by the third day I was so crippled that I couldn’t even get out of bed. I had to get back into that wheelchair for a day to let my muscles recover. I took it a little slower after that.”

Ballengee learned to ask her body’s permission, a practice she had abandoned in 11 years of professional adventure racing.

“I lost so much muscle strength, suffered so much nerve damage and structural change that I’m trying to ease into it,” she said. “I don’t want to force myself to run when I don’t feel like it. I’m trying to find a balance between pushing myself and not overdoing it. I’m trying to listen to my body.”

Doctors haven’t set a timeline for Ballengee to resume running marathons as she did in the past. Most people with her type of injuries aren’t 35 years old and, as she put it, are “content with being immobile.”

Still, in May, just nine weeks after walking again, Ballengee entered a 60-mile adventure race as a solo competitor. She finished the course — biking, running, navigating and paddling — in less 12 hours under the team name “How’s This For Rehab?”

On Memorial Day, Ballengee kayaked 45 miles in a Wyoming race.

In June’s four-sport Ultimate Mountain Challenge at the Teva Mountain Games in Vail, Ballengee competed in kayaking, mountain biking, trail running and a hill climb time trial on a road bike. She placed fifth overall.

But Sunday, Ballengee will not be among the finishers. The stress of a mountain marathon is one factor. So, too, is her pride. When she competes again, she wants to be near the leaders.

“I’d love to compete again,” Ballengee said of the Pikes Peak Marathon. “It’d be a neat goal to come close to my previous times . . . that’d be awesome. But it would still be a pretty special accomplishment, after what I went through, to just run that race again someday.”

After she officially starts the marathon, Ballengee plans to leash Taz and hike up Barr Trail.

If her body feels up to it, Ballengee said she would love to make it to the A-Frame, a timberline shack where the summit comes into view.

To Ballengee, that sight is worth living for.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 476-4803 or kate.crandall@gazette.com.