Trapp Inducted into American Ultra Hall of Fame
By Dan Brannen, Executive Director, AUA
Posted Wednesday, 20 December, 2006
Sue Ellen Trapp of Fort Myers, Florida is the 2006 inductee into the American Ultrarunning Association's Hall of Fame. Trapp joins 2004 inaugural inductees Ted Corbitt and Sandra Kiddy and 2005 honoree Marcy Schwam in the pantheon of American ultrarunning legends so honored. Only one inductee per year is admitted, and an athlete must have reached the age of 60 or been retired for 10 years to qualify. Trapp, whose ultra career began in 1979, turned 60 this year. She is still competing.
In 1979, Trapp - a wife, mother and full-time dentist until her recent professional retirement - emerged on the ultra scene by breaking the American 100K record by almost a half hour with an 8 hours, 43 minutes 14 seconds. She spent the next two years trading U.S. and world records at 50 miles, 100K and 24 hours with fellow American Marcy Schwam.
By 1981, Trapp owned the world 100K (62 miles) mark of 8:05:16 and the world 24 hour standard of 123 miles, 593 yards. She then went into an 8-year semi-retirement, concentrating on racing distances from 5K through the marathon.
She returned spectacularly in 1989, now in her mid-40s, adding 14+ miles to her best 24 hour distance to finish runner-up to Ann Trason at the USA 24 Hour Championship in Queens, New York, as both women shattered the U.S. record.
For the next decade, Trapp owned American distaff 24 hour racing like few athletes have possessed their signature event. During that span, she won an unprecedented seven national 24 hour run titles (most of the time finishing among the top 5 overall in the race) and took two silvers. She also returned to the 100K event, qualifying for the national 100K team three times, highlighted by a clutch performance of 8:17 as third scorer on the U.S. team at the 1993 World 100K which put the American women on the team medals podium for the first time ever.
During her decade of 24 hour run dominance in the 90s, Trapp took ownership of both the track and road versions of the U.S. women's 24 hour Open record. The highlight was her 1993 recapturing (with 145 miles, 503 yards) of the national road and absolute 24 hour mark from Trason, who is universally regarded as the greatest American ultrarunner, male or female, in history. In the past two decades, no other American woman has been able to come close to a Trason-held U.S. record.
Approaching the end of the decade, Trapp extended her expertise into the multi-day realm, putting the women's national 48 hour road and track marks out of reach of all other American women, and capping her career with an absolute world record 234 miles, 1425 yards to win the Surgeres 48 Hour in France in 1997. She had set absolute world records 17 years apart, an accomplishment which makes her unique in all of athletics. Her 48 hour mark stood for almost a decade and resisted targeted attempts by virtually all the world's top female 24 hour runners until Japan's Sumie Inagaki finally broke it earlier this year by less than 3 miles.
For more information on the American Ultrarunning Association, visit: www.AmericanUltra.org
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