An editor just stopped by my desk to talk about that column, and how he wanted to know more about the letter, so I'm going to re-print the entire letter here in the blog. (See, editors can be helpful.) It's a six-page, hand-written letter in cursive, so it might take me a while to type it out. Be patient. It's worth it.

The suggestion got me thinking about a couple more updates I haven't done yet. One is about Arlene Pieper, the woman who lives in Clovis and is believed by Pikes Peak Marathon officials to be the first woman to officially run a marathon in the United States. I cannot say that for certain. I know that the dates of her race finish make it quite possible, and that assertion has been out there for a year and no one is disputing it.

The fascinating part of the story -- besides Arlene herself -- was the effort the Pikes Peak Marathon people went to to find Arlene (now Arlene "Stine," which was part of the problem) and how they flew she and her daughter to Colorado for the 2009 marathon and treated them like royalty. I would post a link to my column from last year about Arlene, but I can't find it online anymore*. Instead, I'll post the entire column at the end, so you can read it if you want, but don't have to scroll through the entire thing to finish the current rambling blog.

*I also can't seem to find my photo of Arlene, probably because I had a complete computer meltdown and re-build recently, but I did find a picture of Arlene and her daughter on this woman's blog.

The update is that the Pikes Peak Marathon people flew Arlene out to Colorado AGAIN for this year's Pike's Peak Marathon (Aug. 22) as an honored guest. It's quite cool, and makes up a little for the fact that the local Two Cities Marathon didn't really make a big a deal about Arlene. She was invited to the finish and all that, but it was sort of an after-thought. I understand. They have paid celebrity runners and Arlene is sort of a local nobody who ran a race 50 years ago, halfway across the country. No one's heard of her. I'm probably the only journalist who's ever written about her. I get it. But it was still nice that she got to extend her 15 minutes of fame in Colorado. Who knows, maybe she's an honored guest for life.

Arlene messaged me -- we're Facebook friends, you know -- and told me she had an incredible time and saw two of my friends while in Colorado. One of those people was Mark Dorman, a fantastic local marathoner who finished. I would give you his finishing time, but it really doesn't matter. The race goes all the way up Pikes Peak and back down. Finishing is the goal. I could be wrong, but Dorman was the only local participant that I know of. That's an added blog bonus update.

Other updates ... Let's see. Oh yes, it was suggested by a different editor, that I post an altogether different column as a blog post. That column would be from Saturday night's Fresno State win against Cincinnati. As background for this, you should know that for most Fresno State football games that occur in the evening, I write two columns. One goes out with the first edition of the Bee that goes to the South Valley, Visalia and surrounding areas. The second goes to the greater Fresno metro area. Usually, the first edition stinks and the final edition stinks a little less, and often they are similar. Deadline is a crazy time. Games drag right up until deadline. Often, 700 words are written in the span of 45 minutes. Yes, it's a little nuts.

Sometimes there are a few tweaks of difference between the two columns. Sometimes the final simply has quotes added from postgame interviews. Sometimes, they are entirely different columns. That was the case in Sunday's paper. The first column was just observations from the game, as far as I can remember. The second was entirely about Logan Harrell, who went pretty unnoticed all of last season, except by association when it was pointed out that the defensive line was pretty awful. It, and Harrell, are apparently much better this season. At least that's what the first game would seem to imply. When I asked Fresno State coach Pat Hill what the difference was, he mentioned a weight gain and physical maturity. When I asked Harrell what the difference was, he said in sort of a half-question, half-statement: "I did a lot of surfing."

I will be posting the original column, since it was so different, and only "enjoyed" by those in the South Valley. Maybe that will be a running series here for the season, the 10 p.m. deadline column that no one sees. (Pray that I forget about this idea.)

I'm off to work on a column about TV and its affect on Fresno State attendance. Hey, they can't all be as exciting as finding hidden treasure in the bathroom wall.

(Here is the Arlene Stine column you were promised ...)

Valley woman made history

By Matt James
Fresno Bee

Three days a week, Arlene Stine goes to a gym at Ashlan and Fowler and gets on a treadmill. She is 79, but she makes sure to put the treadmill at an incline before she walks for 30 minutes.

Not even she realizes what a big deal that is.

For the past four years, people in Colorado were desperate to find Arlene Stine. They did Internet searches. They made calls. They dug through endless library records and newspaper stacks. And for four years, they got nowhere.

"I even hired a private detective, " says Ron Ilgen, "and he came up empty."

Ilgen is the director of the Pikes Peak Marathon, an event so grueling and dastardly that many consider it the most difficult marathon in the world. Pre-race warnings include freezing temperatures, snowstorms, lightning, sunburns, rattlesnakes and a narrow trail with sharp rocks and equally sharp turns. The climb alone is almost 8,000 feet, right past the line where it becomes too insufferable for even trees to grow.

Arlene Stine did it. She ran up the mountain and back down, finished the toughest marathon in the world and then, two days later, all her toenails fell off. That was 50 years ago.

"The Forest Service restricts us to 800 runners, " says Joyce McKelvey, a member of the Pikes Peak Marathon committee and a race historian. "The last mile going up is so rocky, really steep and basically granite. I've heard that people at the finish look like they've been through war."

In 2005, for the 50th running of the race, they organized a book: "America's Ultimate Challenge." During the research, they made a discovery. Arlene Stine, who was then Arlene Pieper, was the first woman to run the Pikes Peak Marathon. But that wasn't the only discovery. Pikes Peak officials claim that Arlene Stine was the first woman to officially run any marathon in the United States.

If that doesn't seem possible, that it must have been earlier than that, keep in mind that there were few marathons in those days and even fewer that allowed women. That famous scene where Kathrine Switzer entered the Boston Marathon and the race director tried to tear her number off mid-race didn't happen until 1967, and women weren't officially allowed to enter for another five years.

Switzer went on to write books and give speeches. She makes appearances all across the country, including last year at the inaugural Eye-Q Two Cities Marathon in Fresno. Here's what those race directors who paid for Switzer's appearance didn't know. The pioneer of women's marathoning in this country lives only eight miles from their starting line, in Tarpey Village, in the same house she's owned for the past 50 years.

Turns out even Arlene Stine didn't know what she'd accomplished all those years ago.

"I didn't know I was the first until they called me this last Sunday, " Stine said this week.

Finally, it seems, the Pikes Peak people announced a $250 reward for anyone who could find Arlene Pieper. A woman in Colorado Springs who works for the genealogical society tracked her down, two divorces and two name changes later, living in Central California.

Arlene only moved to Colorado for a couple of years to open a women's health studio with her husband in the late '50s and only ran the race to promote it. Then they moved back to California to run World Health Studio in Fresno.

"Back then, " she says, "women were supposed to stay home, bake cookies and take care of the kids.

"My life has been full of fitness."

It has not been filled with marathons, though. After the 1959 Pikes Peak race, Arlene wanted to enter the Boston Marathon, was rejected and never ran another one. Never really thought about it. She's been pretty much disconnected from the sport ever since, had no idea until this week that every city in America has a marathon now, that in many races the women outnumber the men.

Today, Arlene Stine is in Colorado for the 54th running of the Pikes Peak Marathon, on the 50th anniversary of her historic finish.

"I'm so excited I can't see straight, " she said. "I'm the honorary starter."

How crazy that it would be that race where history was made. Breaking ground at Pikes Peak is like making Bill Clinton your first boyfriend, there's a whole lot of unnecessary risk involved.

Arlene still has the race medal. It should be in the Smithsonian, but instead it's a clothing accessory. Years ago, she turned it into a belt buckle, used to wear it to the Clovis Rodeo.

Back then, marathons just weren't a big deal yet. Only 12 men and Arlene finished Pikes Peak in 1959. It took her 9 hours, 16 minutes. Her 10-year-old daughter, Kathy, actually got more attention that year because she ran the entire first half, all the way to the top of Pikes Peak, just 20 minutes behind her mom. She'd trained alongside her mom all those laps around a local track, all those training climbs up the mountain on weekends.

Kathy is 59 now and lives in Santa Cruz. The Pikes Peak Marathon flew her to Colorado, all expenses paid, along with her mom.

"I'm so happy for her, " Kathy said. "I still can't believe she was the first. It's so crazy. I don't think she realized what a remarkable woman she was back then."

She's still pretty remarkable. At almost 80, she works out three times a week, lifts weights, walks uphill on the treadmill, doesn't take a single pill that isn't a vitamin, cruises the Internet though some of her girlfriends are scared to use the ATM. She hangs out with her grandson who she raised, and his son.

"If you're around young people, " she says. "You stay young. You can't help it."

Oh, and she found out this week that Fresno has a marathon. It's in November. The course goes near her house.

"I'm going to come out and watch, " she said.

Arlene, something tells me they're going to want you at the starting line.

The columnist can be reached at mjames@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6217. Read his blog at www.fresnobeehive.com/sportsbuzz/.