LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lower Lake resident Rachel Ahlmann says she came late to the marathon game.

Even so, at age 37 and after roughly three years of training, she found herself at one of the most renowned foot races in the world, the Boston Marathon.

Though it was her first time running the historic race in Boston, she wasn’t a stranger to marathons, having done four of them locally before her trip to Boston in October of last year — one each in the Napa Valley and Sacramento, and two in Santa Rosa.

“Marathon racing is intense,” said Ahlmann, who is part of the Six Sigma Ranch and Winery family. “All the stars need to line up for success. So many little things can cause poor performance, even the caffeine in my morning cup of coffee.”

Thankfully, the stars lined up for her at the Boston Marathon, one of the world’s great running events. Some might say it’s the holy grail of marathon races.

The Boston Marathon is not only the nation’s oldest marathon race, it’s the longest running annual marathon in the world. Established in 1897, it was inspired by the success of the first marathon competition in the 1896 Summer Olympics held in Athens, Greece.

Now an American institution, the Boston Marathon historically takes place every third Monday in April. This is also Patriots’ Day, when the first battles of the Revolutionary War are commemorated.

Ahlmann, who was born to American missionary parents in New Zealand, became involved with competitive running at the young age of 8 after the family returned to the United States.

It was Ahlmann’s mother who served as her running coach during childhood races in the summers between school years.

A runner herself, Ahlmann’s mother held the record for the fastest time in the women’s 800-meter dash at Kansas State University, a record that stood, impressively, for 25 years.

In high school Ahlmann ran competitively as a member of the track and cross-country teams, as well as playing basketball.

Raised in a family that cherishes athletics (her father still coaches youth basketball in his 60s), the entire clan enjoyed a variety of sports together. Ahlmann’s two older sisters were also runners but instead focused more on other pursuits — one was an accomplished musician, the other a talented gymnast. It was youngest sister Rachel who became an able and proficient competitive runner.

Like her mother, Ahlmann attended Kansas State but, unlike her, decided against competitive running while in college.

“Looking back, I have some regrets about not running, but by college I was ready for something else,” said Ahlmann. “Though my mother was a wonderful coach and I never felt pushed, I was just a little burned out by then. I had opportunities to run but turned them down.”

This break continued until after the birth of her oldest child, a son, in 2010, when she entered the running world again through a half marathon.

Ahlmann credits the Lake County Milers, a local running club, for reviving her interest in running in the years after that. Specifically, it was during one of their annual “Spring Has Sprung” races in Hidden Valley Lake that she was reminded of how much she loves running.

By this time, she was the mother of three children — two daughters in addition to her son — and she jokingly calls that 5K race her “first hurrah” after her last child was born.

Though her love of running was rekindled, it wasn’t until a few years later, in 2018, that she began marathon training in earnest.

“I’m a late comer to the marathon game,” said Ahlmann. “Many with the Lake County Milers have been running marathons for years. There’s a very strong running community in this county.”

Ahlmann ran her first marathon in Napa County in the spring of 2019 with a time that easily qualified her for the Boston Marathon, roughly 3 hours and 15 minutes.

In the fall of that year, her time in a Santa Rosa marathon was even better — a few seconds over two hours, 59 minutes.

Feeling ready for Boston, which requires a qualifying time of 3 hours, 30 minutes, she planned to run it in the spring of 2020.

By then, however, the worldwide coronavirus pandemic had reared its ugly head, which put a stop to those plans.

For the first time, the Boston Marathon was pushed back — to September of 2020 — but with the virus still a factor, the race that year ended up being virtual.

Ahlmann ran the virtual marathon on the paved roads throughout Hidden Valley Lake and, along with everyone else, got a medal for her participation.

Race officials had hoped to bring the race back in April 2021, its normal month, but because of COVID, it was pushed back again, this time to Oct. of that year.

In addition to the unusual two-year plus lapse between races, the field size was reduced from 30,000 to 20,000, making the qualifying window smaller. Even so, Ahlmann made it in, and she, along with her family, headed to Boston for the race, their first time in that city.

The morning of the race dawned with perfect conditions for running, an overcast 50 degrees with no wind. With a rolling start time of 9 a.m., Ahlmann was loaded onto a bus at 7:30 a.m. that morning for her trip to the starting line.

During a typical Boston Marathon, runners are bunched up behind the starting line and the race begins with a gun. Depending on where you are, it can take a full 10 minutes to cross the starting line.

This time, precautions were taken to prevent runners from being too close to one another. There was no gun to start the race en masse. Instead, runners had rolling start times and crossed the starting line in staggered numbers. This was made possible by a timing chip on the runners’ bibs.

Ahlmann enjoyed this more relaxed approach, as she could cross the starting line when warmed up and ready. At one point she almost crossed by mistake, but quickly retreated to remove her sweatshirt before beginning.

Ahlmann, who runs every day along the steep trails of Six Sigma Ranch and Winery that reach up to 1,600 feet in elevation, found the hilly sections of the sea level Boston Marathon less challenging than she anticipated.

She was surprised to find that she wasn’t struggling as some of the other runners were. Her training in the mountainous terrain outside her front door paid off.

Ahlmann had decided to run a smart race, rather than push herself with possible negative results. She wanted to finish well, and she did, with a time of just over two hours, 59 minutes, not unlike her time in the Santa Rosa marathon. That race, however, didn’t have the hills that the Boston Marathon does.

She jokes that marathon running is “voluntary torture.” Even so, it felt wonderful to run in Boston, to challenge her body and test its limitations.

Ahlmann was especially impressed by the encouragement of the spectators along the way. A particularly favorite memory was running through Wellesley College, where all the students were outside to cheer them on.

As Ahlmann says, “the organizers really know how to put on a marathon. Every inch was planned.” It was the most fun she’s ever had while running a marathon.

Her husband, Christian Ahlmann, posted his wife’s progress on Facebook in real time via a marathon app that used the runners’ timing chips to track them. He and their three children were at the finish line, craning their necks to see their wife and mother come through.

Though the experience was beyond her expectations, at this point Ahlmann doesn’t have plans to run the Boston Marathon again. Instead, she’s looking toward a March marathon in the Napa Valley, where she’ll run the familiar and spectacularly beautiful Silverado Trail.

She’ll continue to run at least a mile a day, fitting it in around parenting her three children and working in sales and hospitality at Six Sigma alongside husband Christian, who’s general manager of the ranch and winery.

When asked what she likes best about running, she referred to a quote from the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire, where the great Scottish Olympic runner, Eric Liddell, tells his sister that God made him fast. “And when I run, I feel his pleasure.”

Ahlmann relates to that. She also enjoys seeing what the human body can do, how far it can be pushed.

And the worst thing for her about running?

“Endurance exercise is terribly painful — it shows how crazy you are,” said Ahlmann. “I get black and blue toes and it takes a lot of time.”

Two years ago, Ahlmann found something much worse than a sore body and finding scarce time to do marathon training — coming face-to-face with a mountain lion, which happened on a near dark morning during a sunrise run.

On that morning, Ahlmann was running along a paved rural road with her usual audiobook playing. For safety, she never puts the headphones on. Instead, she allows the book to play so that nearby critters can hear her coming.

Somehow, her senses alerted her to padded footsteps following behind her along the road. She turned around, and there it was — a full-grown mountain lion, with a look on its face like a house cat playing with its food. She realized then that she was its prey.

Once she registered what was happening, she threw her water bottle at it, then a series of rocks. She said it stopped advancing, but stood firm, looking at her.

At that moment a car happened by, and the cat retreated into the woods, still lurking. By a providential stroke of luck, the next car was a co-worker, who was able to drive her to safety.

Since then, Ahlmann has been determined not to run in the dark. When time pressures prevent a daylight run, she does a tiny loop around her home or uses her treadmill.

Ahlmann’s advice for aspiring runners is to run with others, rather than by yourself. Having a running buddy (or buddies) makes it more fun and provides accountability.

If marathons are your goal, she suggests doing a lot of long, slow miles. This makes it easier to do the first 20 miles of a marathon, which, as Ahlmann says, is “the warm-up for the 10K at the end.”

Ahlmann’s mother jokes that one gets 10 good years of running before the body gives up, and Ahlmann wants to make the most of the yet unused part of those 10 years. In addition to doing again the three local marathons she’s tackled in the past, Ahlmann has her eye on the possibility of a “destination marathon” in another part of the world.

As a final note, Ahlmann lost a toenail at the Boston Marathon, just 200 yards short of the finish line. Those last yards were excruciating for her, but she made it, limping across the finish line.

Despite that moment (and like the true runner she is), Ahlmann said, “But I felt so awesome afterward.”

Esther Oertel is a freelance writer in Middletown who's contributed to Lake County News since 2010. She especially enjoys writing about the people and places that make Lake County unique. For comments, questions and story suggestions, she may be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..