PUBLISHED 08/07/2008
He was a bad dog. That was an awful thing for the runner to think as she lay dying. He had curled next to her that first night in the hidden canyon, after the accident. He had put his snout on her belly, and licked her face as she stared up at more shooting stars than she had ever dreamed. And that first morning-could it have been just the day before?-when it was so cold she had to crack the ice on top of the miraculous puddle, he had played with a stick, run in little circles, and barked with what she thought was happiness, and he was such a good dog then. He made her think that maybe things weren't so bad. She saw an eagle glide overhead that morning. It was beautiful. It was a beautiful morning. She was in a beautiful spot. Red rock and sandy soil and a juniper tree and the soft sighing of the high desert wind, and to lope through it would have been a wonder for a runner whose body wasn't broken and bleeding inside.
All she had was the puddle, and her dog. And then she didn't have the dog, because when she was screaming, when it took her two hours to reach behind her head to fill a water bottle from the puddle, the dog ran away. She couldn't stop screaming. She screamed because she hurt, and because she needed help, and because she was afraid that help might not come in time. The dog came back, but he wouldn't lie down next to her that second night. It was just last night, but it seemed so long ago. There were no shooting stars the second night. The second night, she saw things in the sky that made no sense, and heard a strange voice from the dark, and it made no sense, either.
Today, the third day, the dog was gone. Then he was back. Then he was gone again. Maybe she was hallucinating. Even though she was well known for enduring things others could not, for persevering through heat and cold and all manner of punishing climate and topography-even though she was one of the most accomplished endurance runners in the world-she still had her limits. On the third day, in the hidden canyon, her body broken, she discovered them.
And then the dog was back, and now he was coming closer, and now he was lapping at the puddle, her only water source, and she couldn't help it, she yelled at him. It was the only water she could reach. Couldn't he find another puddle? Bad dog!
No one knew where she was. It would be dark again, and cold. No one could hear her scream. No one was coming. Today, her third day on the rock by the puddle, she allowed herself to see the truth.
She had won the Pikes Peak Marathon four times. She had raced up all 54 of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks in less than 15 days, faster than any woman in history. She had competed in 441 endurance events (races that took from an hour to 10 days to finish) since 1995 and finished in the top three in 390 of them. Three times she was part of a four-person team that won one of the most punishing endurance events in the world, Primal Quest, a 400-mile trek over land and water, mountain and desert terrain. She had earned six "U.S. Athlete of the Year" titles in four different endurance sports. She had kept going when others had told her she had to stop. Now, she couldn't move.
It was midafternoon on a Friday. She had degrees in biology and kinesiology, and as much as she had invested, personally and professionally, in the awesome power of the human spirit, she also possessed grim knowledge regarding the limits of flesh and bone. It was 10 days before Christmas. That's when Danelle Ballengee, just 35 years old, prepared to die. That's when the runner who never gave up, gave up. It really was a beautiful spot. She felt peace. And then she heard another sound. And it didn't make sense, either.
Two days earlier, on Wednesday, December 13, Ballengee had spent the early part of the morning e-mailing with sponsors, writing articles, answering questions from clients who had hired her as a personal trainer. She left her house on Cliffview Drive in Moab, Utah, at 10 a.m. She had landlord duties to attend, too. She owned three rental properties in Colorado, and she rented out space in her Moab house, and one of her tenant's friends had stolen some money, so she had to go to the bank to file a fraud report. Only then could she begin the highlight of her morning--the run.
With her dog, Taz, a 3-year-old reddish-brown mutt with a long jaw and a broad chest, she climbed in her white Ford Ranger truck, her kayak on top of the roof. She stopped at a Burger King for a chicken sandwich and French fries and a large coffee, because she had forgotten to eat breakfast. The dog got a bite, because the dog always got a bite. She had spoiled him since the day she got him from the pound, when he was just a few weeks old.
