photograph by jenny thorsen
Crittenden competes in the 2025 Viper 200-miler, part of the Mamba Racing Series.
Editor's Note: The urge to win runs deep. But for most of modern history, athletic domination has been seen as a man’s pursuit. In recent decades, though, women’s sports have gained ground. The WNBA has been setting viewership records; revenues from women’s sports are climbing. Locally, women athletes are impressing crowds with their prowess and ingenuity — though true parity remains a distant goal. Women in Memphis are going the distance, taking flight, and smashing the competition (and no, those aren’t just metaphors). We highlight several women and teams here whose stories show that athletics aren’t just for the guys anymore. This is Part One in a three-part package we published in our magazine in October. Other stories look at the Memphis Roller Derby and U of M Spirit Squads.
Savannah Crittenden loves running. Almost as much as she loves the wonderful world of Walt Disney. When she discovered that Disney World hosts races, it was a collision of happy forces too powerful to resist. Each January, over the course of four days, the Magic Kingdom is home to a 5K, a 10K, a half-marathon, and a marathon. Crittenden ran her first marathon in Orlando in 2018 and now runs all four races, often dressed as Belle (from Beauty and the Beast). Crittenden is, you see, an ultra-runner.
“If you’re a [Disney] addict, you keep going back,” says Crittenden with a smile. “I have friends from all over the country who go every year. I’ve done at least two [Disney] events every year since 2018. I’m the first one there. They have music, the cast members. There are some people who race it, but it’s really for the experience. They have characters along the way; you can stop and take pictures. The characters really get into it, and I get hooked on the energy.”
photograph by jenny thorsen
Motivation matters: Crittenden with her team flag.
Growing up in Olive Branch, Crittenden played volleyball. Any running she did was merely conditioning for the sport she adopted as a child in part to improve her hand/eye coordination. She devoted herself to academics at Ole Miss — Crittenden teaches math at DeSoto Central High School — and didn’t run her first 5K until 2014 (an event benefiting the Memphis Humane Society), when she was 29 years old. But the joys of running, to say nothing of the mileage, stacked up quickly.
“I fell in love with it,” says Crittenden, “that very first 5K. I’d been able to run two miles, just part of the training I did. So I was able to handle three miles. I had a blast. All the people, the animals, knowing I was helping them. It was such an uplifting experience.”
Crittenden has run a dozen marathons and at least a half-marathon in 27 states, with her sights set on 50. But these don’t qualify her as an ultra-runner, not even the four-races-in-four days at Disney World. An ultra race must be, start-to-finish, longer than a marathon (26.2 miles). How much longer? A 50K (31 miles) is an ultra. So is — deep breath here — the Viper 200-mile race, part of the Mamba Racing Series. Runners are tasked with completing the race in three-and-a-half days and Crittenden did so last April in 67 hours, with a total of three naps (she dozed one hour twice, and once just 30 minutes). How does a human being reach such an extreme level of exertion without physical or mental collapse? As it turns out, ultra-runners enjoy it.
“I ran a 50K just before I turned 35,” says Crittenden. “It was a timed race in Jackson, Tennessee. It was a 5K loop, and my goal was to run the full marathon distance, then I ran/walked the last five miles.” With her interest established and goal of longer distances, Crittenden joined a local running group, Trail Trippers, which proved to be rocket fuel for her training. She has completed more than ten ultras, with another this month in Illinois.
“My favorite part is my crew, the people,” she emphasizes. “It’s what made me fall in love with it. And to have the Viper here [at Shelby Farms], I was able to run with pacers I knew.”
When it comes to testing her limits — to extending her limits — Crittenden likes the wisdom of Steve Magness, author of Do Hard Things: instead of raising your ceiling of performance, raise your floor. Beginners may feel discomfort in running a 5K (3.1 miles) if their baseline, or floor, is a mile. But if that “floor” can be lifted to, say, two miles … the 5K finish line grows a little more comfortable. Having established a marathon as something she could handle, the push into ultra territory came naturally for Crittenden.
“One way of looking at it,” notes Crittenden, “is to compare an ultra with a car ride. If your drive to work is 30 minutes, it can feel like forever. But if you’re going on a six-hour drive, you don’t even notice those first 30 minutes. The mindset for an ultra is similar. You don’t think about the early miles. The first day is fun. We take pictures, do silly things. As I get further into a race, the miles definitely become more forefront in my mind.”
While your feet, knees, and lungs feel every mile of an ultra, it’s the mind, according to Crittenden, that plays the largest role in getting you across the finish line. Even at “only” 100 miles, runners have been known to hallucinate, to struggle with orientation. And consider these problems while running a course through woods, sometimes at night. “I’m very regimented,” says Crittenden. “I like my plans. I’ll have everything lined up. But I also like the problem-solving. It has to be flexible as you go. Your planning can help negate those problems, but on race day, you don’t know if a tornado is coming through.”
Distance running can be lonely, isolating even. Some are drawn to that, but not Savannah Crittenden. The social component — her community of supporters — has become the primary motivation when she trains and competes in ultras. Lengthy runs (30-40 miles) on consecutive days are essential training and having partners for even a fraction of such workouts is invaluable.
Last spring’s Viper run was actually halted after 33 miles due to a tornado system entering the Mid-South. Crittenden had to go home (where she spent several hours sheltering in her bathroom), then resume her 200-mile jaunt after the system passed. And the course was dramatically altered, with much of it now on paved road, with shorter loops. “It actually worked in my favor,” reflects Crittenden, “because I was able to see my crew and it was easy to time nutrition. Plus I got a new pacer on each loop.” A pacer cannot carry equipment or nutrition for an ultra-runner, but they’re valuable late in a race for safety reasons, monitoring the runner’s physical and mental state.
Crittenden chooses not to run with music. Instead, as she describes it, she listens to her body. “I need to know what my body is telling me,” she says, “about my lungs, my legs. Is it time for nutrition? How badly do I need water? [Dark urine is a bad sign. No urine is worse.] Is my pace steady, or am I slowing down?” Crittenden’s mood drops and her legs get heavy when she needs a nutrition infusion, which can come in the form of a gel, a turkey sub, or many things in between. She loves peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches during an ultra. “Pain is a signal your body is giving you,” she says. “It’s your job to interpret the signal. Is it an injury or just sore?”
Ever heard of a “pain cave”? It’s an area ultra-runners know well, and something they ironically embrace as part of their process. “If you’re tired and pushing through, there are different levels,” explains Crittenden, “when your body wants to quit. You’re done, your body is screaming at you, and you go anyway. I was well-prepared, except for the foot pain at the end.”
As much as Crittenden may plan for every mile, there are challenges that stack up during an ultra race. A runner’s mind must manage boredom: mile 157, mile 158 … . Crittenden has sat on a stationary bike and stared at a blank wall for an hour, a method to condition her mind for tedium. Soggy ground can lead to trench foot, the kind of discomfort that can become debilitating. Crittenden rubs Vaseline on her feet if water is a race factor. And above all, she protects her feet with proper-fitting socks and shoes. A mildly aggravating rub at the beginning of an ultra can become an open blister by mile 100 and threaten a runner’s ability to finish.
Distance running can be lonely, isolating even. Some are drawn to that, but not Savannah Crittenden. The social component — her community of supporters — has become the primary motivation when she trains and competes in ultras. Lengthy runs (30-40 miles) on consecutive days are essential training and having partners for even a fraction of such workouts is invaluable.
Crittenden’s team designed a flag for the car that would accompany her for a 100-mile road race. And the sight of “Savvy Striders” waving proudly as she put the miles behind her reminded a tired runner that joy is the reason. “I could see the flag before I saw my crew,” she remembers. “I would get so excited. And they got creative with that flag: put it in trees, shined lights on it. Here are my people.” Never lonely, never isolated. The kind of warmth worthy of a Disney heroine.
