When Debbie Chaddock heads to Gay Games VII this year in Chicago to participate in the 5K and 10K races, it will be hard for her not to reminisce about the elation she felt when she won the marathon 20 years earlier in San Francisco at Gay Games II.

That 1986 marathon victory was impressive, but Chaddock said it wasn’t her most memorable.

Calling Chaddock an accomplished runner is an understatement. The greatness she has achieved during her running career, which spans from 1977 to the present, culminated with a gritty marathon gold medal performance at Gay Games III in August 1990. She said she’ll never forget that marathon in Vancouver, because if it weren’t for her good friend Bart Hopple, she wouldn’t have run it, let alone win.

Hopple, who passed away from complications stemming from AIDS in December 1991, co-founded San Diego’s Different Strokes Swim Team (DSST). He was also heaviy involved with Front Runners and Athletes In Motion (AIM), the umbrella organization for all gay athletes in San Diego County. In 1986, he won the triathlon gold medal at Gay Games II.

“I crossed the finish line with tears in my eyes, and there was Bart giving me a big hug. He gave me that,” Chaddock said. “That was Bart’s gift to me, that victory, and I was just blown away, totally blown away. It was one of the most emotional, happiest moments of my life.”

Chaddock didn’t think she was going to be able to compete in Vancouver due to a knee and groin injury she sustained a few weeks prior to the event. But she was gunning to win it. After all, she wanted to defend the Gay Games gold medal she had won four years earlier. Heart-broken, Chaddock said she was finally at peace about not competing and was looking forward to a relaxing time cheering on her friends. That is, until Hopple found out she wasn’t running and convinced her that he could “fix” her. Determined to see Chaddock compete, he stepped in and performed a special kind of deep tissue massage technique called rolfing.

“He, at this time, was very ill with the effects of HIV. We didn’t know how much longer he’d be around, but he was still participating as a swimmer,” she said. “I figured this was going to mean more to him than me. How could I say no to this guy? We had been through so much together. He was like a brother.”

After Hopple rolfed her injured areas three or four times during the week, Chaddock biked, swam and did a few short jogs. She stood on the starting line ready, but very cautious.

What followed is still clear in Chaddock’s mind today. At first, her goal was to just finish the marathon, but then halfway through the race someone yelled out that she was the third woman in line to the finish. She moved into second place a few miles later.

“Then I pass a woman,” she recalled. “I’m thinking: ‘I can do the math. I’m in first place now.’”

Chaddock had a former girlfriend stand at the 20-mile marker with a de-fizzed Pepsi to give her a little boost during the last six miles.

“I got to mile 20 and I was struggling a little bit, and I chug-a-lugged a couple swallows of that Pepsi and I just blazed through the next six miles,” she said.

The rest was history as Chaddock crossed the finish line at 3 hours, 5 minutes and 9 seconds. Although it wasn’t her fastest marathon time ever, she was satisfied with getting through the race, considering the adversity she endured beforehand.

That Gay Games victory turned out to be Chaddock’s last marathon win during a stellar career most runners only dream about.

Her running roots go back to high school, when she was a 10th grade student at Los Alamitos High School in Orange County in 1977. After her P.E. teacher required her to read Dr. Kenneth Cooper’s book Aerobics for Women, Chaddock became intrigued with running and its health benefits. That same year she was asked to join the first-ever girls track team.

“They said they need somebody to run the mile and I thought: ‘Jesus, a whole mile. You’ve got to be kidding me,’” she said. “I remember the first race. I ran it in 7:06 and I got second out of three women.”

Pretty soon, Chaddock competed in the two-mile event and her times kept improving. She received the Most Improved Runner award at the end of her sophomore year, and by the end of her high school career she received the Most Valuable Runner award and qualified for the state championships.

She moved down to San Diego after receiving a partial scholarship to San Diego State University, where she further honed her running talent. Still, Chaddock couldn’t be herself with her friends and teammates at SDSU.

“It was still a good cover – all this distance running and my being really involved in school and stuff,” she said. “At this time I was really out to myself and nobody else.”

It wasn’t until a few years after college that Chaddock got involved in the gay community and began to develop a network of friends through groups like Front Runners. She said the Front Runners group was like a second family.

Frustrated she couldn’t share who she really was with her family, she wrote them a letter revealing that she was gay. A couple days later, she received a bouquet of flowers with a card from her parents telling her they loved her very much.

“Since I had a new family, I felt like even if I lose my old one at least I have a new one,” Chaddock said. “As it turned out, I got my old family back and we had a more open relationship after that.”

During Chaddock’s collegiate career at SDSU, she excelled at the 10K distance, posting a PR (personal record) with a 34:55 win at the USC Invitational in March 1982. She followed that victory with another win at the WCAA conference championships in May 1983.

Overall, Chaddock has won more than 30 races, including 5Ks, 10Ks, half marathons and marathons. She has won four out of the five marathons she has competed in. Not a bad ratio for someone who never thought she would compete at the marathon distance level.

Chaddock’s transition from running in college to marathons happened abruptly. After qualifying for and competing in the 10K atthe NCAA Championships in June 1983, she thought her running career was over.

Fred LePlante, her SDSU coach, called and asked her to run the U.S. Olympic Sports Festival Marathon in Colorado Springs, Colo., that July. LePlante said they needed one more woman from the Western region to compete in the marathon. It would be a free trip loaded with other goodies like new clothes and shoes. Chaddock said she couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

At the time, Chaddock had been taking a summer course and neglected running for a week. She didn’t think she was ready for a marathon but worked with LePlante to get a training regimen in. Already having a good base, she added one 16-mile training run a week before the race and hoped for the best.

“So I didn’t tell a soul that I was going to run this. I just figured I would sneak over there quietly,” she said. “‘I’ll just try not finish last and just hope to finish at all and sneak back silently.’ No one would ever have to know.”

The race was at an elevation of 7,000-plus feet, and Chaddock had a slight edge with the competition since she trained at altitude in Mammoth Lakes the previous three summers.

“What I knew was that unless you can go early enough to really get acclimated, you’re better off just showing up the night before,” she said. “So instead of going up a week early like they offered and trying to get acclimated, I flew in the night before.”

Under virtually perfect running conditions, Chaddock started off conservatively in last place, but by the halfway point was in second place. Soon the crowd was yelling to her that she was closing in on the lead woman.

“I thought, ‘Not only am I going to come in second, I’m going to catch her before the end of the race.’ I was really getting excited because I was feeling good. There was no wall.”

Chaddock blew past her with a mile left and crossed the finish line with an impressive 2:54:02 finish in her first-ever marathon.

After that marathon, Chaddock learned the qualifying time for the 1984 Olympic Trials, which took place in May that year, was 2:51:16. With the right training regimen, she thought she could qualify and participate in the first-ever women’s Olympic Trials marathon in Olympia, Wash. For the first time in history, women were to compete in the marathon at the 1984 Olympics, held in Los Angeles.

After Chaddock’s marathon victory, Adidas became her sponsor and she was well on her way to finding another marathon to train for. She selected Fresno’s Central California Marathon in November 1983 as the race where she would attempt to qualify for the Olympic Trials.

Chaddock ran what was perhaps the race of her life. Not only did she win the marathon but she finished at 2:48:20, which easily qualified her for trials.

“It was faster than I needed to qualify and it wasn’t a fluke…. I was very happy about that,” she said. “You don’t know how many you’re going to do until you’re done.”

Unfortunately Chaddock wasn’t able to compete at the Olympic Trials because she sustained a serious case of plantar fasciitis in her foot. Although she did not compete, she still was invited to attend and saw running legend Joan Benoit Samuelson win the marathon. Benoit went on to win the gold medal at the Olympics later that summer.

It was then that Chaddock began to re-evaluate her running career and take a step back. Since she couldn’t run, she got more involved in swimming and cycling; cross-training became very important in order to keep her fitness level up.

“I felt like I had really reached my potential as a runner and that I needed to move on with my life,” she said. “Plantar fasciitis was just an indicator of what really serious running can do to your body and what happens when you’re injured. I needed to move on.”

Chaddock became more involved in the gay community at that point. Years and years of competitive running had taxed her mind and spirit, she said. She became a co-chair of Front Runners and also co-chaired AIM.

“Now that I had discovered the gay community, I wanted to balance my life and meet people and have other things become important to me, and transition away from Debbie as runner to Debbie as person, as lesbian, as business woman,” she said. “I needed to start making a real living.”

At that time, people in San Diego were beginning to think about the 1986 Gay Games in San Francisco, and Chaddock – along with other local activists at the time such as Gary Rees, Albert Bell, Herb King and Hopple – helped coordinate a contingent of athletes to travel to the event.

“The gay community was just exploding at that time,” Chaddock said. “Front Runners was still new…. The non-bar scene was just exploding and blossoming. It was fun to be part of that.”

After Chaddock’s plantar fasciitis subsided, she eventually built back up to the marathon distance in training. She remained a threat within the local running community, winning various races and posting a win at the Bonita Half Marathon in 1985. Her competitive juices still churned, and she wanted to win another marathon.

“I wanted to win the Gay Games marathon,” she said. “This was a big thing. This was making a statement. I’m gay. I’m out. I’m a runner. This was what I stood for at that time.”

Despite enduring a freak groin muscle pull while jogging in Golden Gate Park a few days before the marathon, Chaddock was determined to compete. Fortunately, her injury felt better going uphill and most of the race was on an incline. She won the race with a 3:09:15 finish – not her best time but good enough considering the circumstances.

Years later, in the only marathon she didn’t win, Chaddock ran an impressive 2:57:47 to place in the top 10 at the San Diego International Marathon in December 1989.

Chaddock won numerous other races throughout the early ’90s, and her last win was in the Mammoth Lakes Lions Club 10K in 2000. She ran her last long distance race in 2004 at the San Dieguito Half Marathon, where she finished at 1:37:11 – good for first in the 40-44 age division.

After suffering another knee injury a few years ago, which she has since recovered from, Chaddock values being able to run without pain and recurring injuries.

“I just hold that so dear and precious to me,” she said. “I’m not willing to risk it again. I’m so happy to be healthy. I’m so happy to feel good. I’m so happy to be uninjured.”

Chaddock works as an instructional designer downtown and continues to bike and swim in addition to running. She remains involved with Front Runners & Walkers San Diego and Rainbow Cyclists.

After all the highs and all the lows of her running career, Chaddock has no regrets.

“I am totally satisfied with my career. I think I reached my potential,” she said. “I’m not left wondering: ‘What if I really tried? What if I had done everything right? What if I had eaten better?’ I’ve done all of that. I know what my best was. It was what I ran. I’ll never have to wonder what my best would have been.”