Quiet and humble, area ultra-runner is also legendary

• Buckingham’s Sue Ellen Trapp dominated the unique sport of ultra-running in two separate decades.
• She held multiple U.S. and world records in the sport.
• Injuries have slowed Trapp, but she remains active and hopes to get back to ultra-runnning soon.

Sit down for lunch with Sue Ellen Trapp and you could be well into your sandwich before she makes any mention of her ultra-running world records. If you’re lucky she may — emphasis on may — casually speak of her induction into the American Ultra and USA Track & Field Masters halls of fame as you contemplate dessert.

The Buckingham resident, who turned 68 this year, would rather talk about her llamas, or the two St. Bernards, Willy and Sadie, that wake her up each morning for walks. “This was all so long ago now,” Trapp said with a nervous laugh. “I don’t think I’m really worth reading about.”

Some would beg to differ.

Trapp set her last world record in 1997, covering more than 234 miles in 48 hours around a circular track in Surgeres, France. That is roughly the distance from Fort Myers to Gainesville. In 1994, Trapp graced the cover of UltraRunning magazine as its ultra-runner of the year.

Trapp admits her pace has slowed of late. She underwent a spinal-fusion procedure five years ago, and faces another surgery to remove a possible cyst in her left knee. But for Trapp, slow is relative.

“We were out this morning,” said her husband and longtime coach, Ron Trapp, “did a nice little three-mile run.”

“I’m at about six miles a day most days,” Sue Ellen said. “I have my routes.”

On the heels of last week’s Badwater Ultramarathon, which covered 135 miles and 10,000 feet of elevation in Lone Pine, Calif., a race even Trapp calls, “a little bit crazy,” we caught up with this local legend to learn more about her story.

Getting hooked

At 25 years old, Trapp had just given birth to her daughter Kristina. The new mom was finishing dental school in her native Chicago. Her husband was stationed just outside of San Francisco with the Navy.

Trapp’s life was a series of plane rides, doctors appointments and final exams.

“I thought the baby weight would, you know, just sort of melt off,” she smiled, “but it never did.”

So Trapp took up tennis, beating friends far more skilled than she by simply outlasting them. She ran her first road race, San Francisco’s 12-kilometer Bay to Breakers, in 1971.

“I thought I’d just try it,” Trapp said, “and it was awful.”

That same year the family moved to Fort Myers. She and Ron, also a runner, started a dental practice along the then-dirt roads of Lehigh Acres. They flew to larger cities to run 5k and 10k races. In 1976, the Trapps started the Lehigh 4 Miler, a spring race that endured for 37 years.

Trapp ran her first marathon in Gainesville that same year. She finished in 4 hours, 5 minutes. Her time qualified her for the Boston Marathon.

“I don’t even remember how I did at Boston,” Trapp said. “I don’t keep like a list or anything.”

But she did keep running.

In 1979, the sport went from awful to awe-inspiring for Trapp. She completed her first 100k race in Miami in a little more than nine hours. She thought she had shattered the American women’s record by 90 minutes, then learned she’d finished two minutes behind American Lydi Pallares.

“I remember, my shirt was soaking wet and everyone said to just keep running, but I stopped to change it,” Trapp said. “Was that two minutes? I don’t know. But that’s the race that hooked me.”

Three months later, Trapp grabbed that American record by nearly 30 minutes, finishing a 100k race at Lake Waramaug, Conn., in 8 hours, 43 minutes, 14 seconds. In 1981, she set the world record in the 100k with a time of 8:05:16. She set a world record for a 24-hour race that year, too, running 123 miles, 593 yards in a single day.

In the game

Despite her quiet humility, Trapp has a giddy side seen when she talks about her family and her many animals. In recent years she’s taken up CrossFit, “because I’m such a weakling,” she smiled, showing off her twiggy arms.

At the peak of her career, Trapp was a mom and full-time dentist. She logged miles by running home from work each evening.

“It was 10 miles from our office in Lehigh to our home in Buckingham,” Trapp said, “but I’d find my little loops and side streets, tack on a few extras.”

Asked if she meditates, Trapp thought for a second before replying, “No. I run.”

She described her longest races as out-of-body experiences, her thoughts and rhythms and footfalls and heartbeats aligning as one. She spoke of staring off, lost in her pace in the dark of night, then looking up to see the sun well above the horizon.

“I don’t even realize,” Trapp said. “I mean, it hurts. Everything hurts. And you have to sort of dwell on it, on the pain, to get out of it. You acknowledge it and that gets you past it.”

Trapp’s 1997 world record, for the 48-hour race in France, came 16 years after her first. It stood for nine years until Japan’s Sumie Inagaki bested it by just three miles in 2006.

Trapp ran her last ultra in 2011 during the Peanut Island 24, a 24-hour race in West Palm Beach. At the age of 64, she ran 91.3 miles. She finished third, behind runners 12 years and 31 years her junior.

With her back mended and her knee getting there, Trapp is not done.

“I’d love to do another ultra,” she said. “I don’t care what I do or how I do really, I just want to be in the game.”

Connect with this reporter: @ATometich (Twitter)

Sue Ellen Trapp

• Age: 68

• Job: Retired dentist

• Birthplace: Chicago

• Home: Trapp lives in Buckingham with her husband, Ron, their two llamas, two donkeys and two St. Bernards, among other animals.

• Personal bests – 48-hour race: 234 miles, 1425 yards; 24-hour race: 145 miles, 503 yards; 100-kilometer race: 8 hours, 5 minutes, 16 seconds

• Records: Trapp has held 25 U.S. records in ultra-running, and three world records

• Career highlights –1993: named ultra-runner of the year by UltraRunning magazine; 2005: inducted to the USA Track & Field Masters Hall of Fame; 2006: inducted to the American Ultrarunning Association’s Hall of Fame. Trapp won seven national open 24-hour championships, including one at the age of 55.