If you were really observant, either enthralled or agitated by the active play of little kids in your Ukiah neighborhood; and you were in the vicinity of Luce/Cochrane St. intersection with the Western Hills between 1969-1975; there was a wild bunch of “heathen” (not to be confused with the Lord of the Flies bunch), playing hide and go seek into the night during the summer and after school.

They’d arise from bed and race outside to laugh and play again. With a screechy voice, waving her hands to exhort her playmates was a splinter of a red-faced bob-haired girl that was destined to become a bad-ass local athlete.  This was not the electronics’ age where kids’ eyes rolled back into their heads in the Alpha State “playing” war games and other inane challenges on handheld devices.  These were country kids with skinned knees and legitimate holes in their jeans.  They played roller skate hockey with mom’s broom stick until called for dinner: happy, sweaty, safe, chortling with satisfaction as they’d debrief with their parents around the family dinner table.  In that era, there were no organized sports, except for boys’ little league.  Meet the adult version: Holly Enzler-Lifetime Athlete.

Holly Huckfeldt’s (now-Holly Enzler) mom, Sharon Fenton (now 77) would dress Holly and her more refined sister (Wendy), as Jack and Jill or Minnie and Mickey or a Geisha and Water Boy.  Holly was always dressed as ‘the boy.’  She was finally exposed to sports, running cones in the physical fitness test in middle school.

She remembers:  “I was always ahead; they’d blow the whistle, and we’d go.  We didn’t have track then, but I rode my bike over to Pomolita (the old Ukiah High), and watch track practices and track meets.  I was made for this stuff!  Somehow, they’d let me run there during the summer; maybe a church or some organized group.  It was summertime; we’d run on the old gravel oval at Pomolita.  And I remember eating a box of jello because that was the ‘power food’ then.  I’d show up with green lips, ready to run.  Most was sprinting; but I ended up doing the mile.  LOOK AT ME; I was in front!  I realized that I might be good at this!”

Of course,  running more than a mile before the 1980’s wasn’t advised for young ladies.  In fact, until American Joan Benoit Samuelson won the very first ladies marathon of the modern era in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles with a respectable time of 2:24 (5:30 per mile for 26+ miles); distances for girls was frowned on.  It was feared that it would harm their organs with too much exertion.  “Truly, that was the stated reason,” says Holly.

“In the late 70’s, I tried out for softball at UHS, because all my friends were trying out.  And big time!! I got cut- early on!!  I threw a ball like this; (shows stereotypical all elbow throw). They said:  ‘you don’t need to come to practice anymore’.  A very humble beginning.”

Later on, Holly teamed up with Bill Kubram, who coached the cross country team at UHS.  There was Dana Flint, Dan Gerrado’s girls, Lisa;  and Holly was able to overcome the early bodily resistance she had to running long distances (no confidence, side aches, heavy legs, no wind).   But, one incident during track practice terminated her running career in high school abruptly.  Here’s Holly:  “So, my boyfriend gave me a ride home in his souped up (super tall) truck with mega exhaust pipes (I was in 9th grade) and my dad saw me and he said NO MORE running.  ‘You’re off the team’  “So, I had to quit and from then on, I partied and snuck out of the house and when I was 16, a few girls and I moved to an apartment.”  Sports took a backseat during this era for Holly.

“I spent my 20’s and 30’s trying to find myself,” Holly volunteers. “I  finished my x-ray technician program and was working at Stanford, and began hooking up with mountain biking.  A few friends bought the first mountain bikes. They were hard tails, like Gary Fisher ’s with no springs, and few amenities. Everyone was pushing their bike up hills; they all had fat tires, and at the top of the hill, we’d just bomb down the mountain (like Mt. Tam). I got a beater bike and put big heavy tires and my packs on it and rode to and from work through the Los Altos Mountains.   The 1987 earthquake came during that era.  I was 24-25 at that time; and I realized that I was faster than almost everyone at these various race venues: Mt. Tam, Tahoe, Santa Cruz, Scout Camp and China Camp, so one of my friends advised me to step up to some rigorous competition.”

“In one race, I was coming down that last hill into the finish line and suddenly my bike started falling apart; nuts and brakes failed and parts were flying.  After that, I realized that I was a bike racer and I better ride my bike today and tomorrow for race preparation.  Not very scientific like the present time, when there are “formulas” about what’s best for your body to work up to speed and durability. I entered the Coyote Mountain Race in San Jose, and ended up 3rd in the women and top 20 among all finishers. The top women were:  Susan Dematier, the first American woman in the Olympics’ mountain bike racing; and a lady named, Missy was in the race as well; I was way behind in third, in this elite bike race.   Missy started the Wombats, an active women’s bike racing organization back in the day; and she asked me if I was racing for points.  ‘You should be trying to go to worlds,’ she said.  ‘Getting third here; you’d qualify for worlds in Germany.’  “In those days, not a lot of women were into mountain biking.  I was at the right place at the right time.  Missy invited me to begin riding with her group; I did once or twice.  But, I was studying to work for a living; taking my California Boards and didn’t pursue big-time racing.  But, I got the California Radiologic License and the National License (ARRT) as an American Radiological Technologist. So, I am an  X-Ray technician, and  MRI tech with 4 licenses.  I accomplished that in 1991 at 27 years old, so I moved back to Ukiah, and got a job at the hospital.  And all this liberated me to get married and have 2 more kids…..boom, boom in 1995, 1996.  So, I was running to keep up my bike riding shape.  But, cycling isn’t a family friendly sport; you just can’t drag kids along with you, so running became the most doable for me.”

At this juncture, you may have seen Holly in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s running in the fit young mommy’s group (teachers: Alexandra Condon, Sue Maurer, and Tuesday McAsey) at sunrise in Ukiah: ladies brimming with stories and ideas to share at the end of 2 or 3, or 5 miles. Of course, they all needed to get back home afterward to greet their little ones as they awakened.  Their conversation?  Feeding your preschooler righteous health food, ideas for discipline, ‘change the world topics.’ “The agenda was social and we accomplished that,” smiles Holly.  “My grandma (June Buckley-who died in February at 96) sipped tea and played cards with her cronies after playing 18 holes.  For us, running at that time was the vehicle, not the purpose.”

Holly’s children are Sima, who played volleyball at UHS,  Taylor (graduated- 2013) chose soccer and played club soccer in Santa Rosa through the years before captaining the Sonoma State University women’s soccer team on scholarship and Lane (2014 grad) who played football, basketball and ran (xc and track).

“In the late 1990’s into the early 2000’s, I met Dan Shafer, who was in the Empire Running Club of Santa Rosa.  This was a master’s league (over 40 years old) and the first training I ever had with the purpose of running competitively.  We joined up to run twice a month for a few seasons between 2003-2007 against Tamopolis (Marin), San Francisco, East Bay, Santa Cruz, and others in the Northern California section.”  Shafer recalls:  “Holly always earned points for our team (top 5 finishers).”

“In 2004-05, we moved to Redwood Valley and I met Beth Cabral.  She was training to qualify for the Boston Marathon (BQ’s). She didn’t have to work hard to talk me into her training regimen. We ran Avenue of the Giants marathon and we both qualified for Boston.  In fact, I surprisingly was 3rd overall in 3:30 hours, and after 5 attempts, Beth qualified also in that race.  In Boston, the weather was hot for the northeast (high 80’s) in 2004, which may have been a record.  I learned from The Giants race where I went out too fast; at Boston, I finished with sub-7 minute miles.  Then, with Ally Condon, who was an ultra runner; we entered and finished the 50 Km. Way Too Cool near Auburn, California a few years later.  If I had been around when Lar-Dog (Larry Goodman) was doing those ultras (even the Western States Ultra-100 miles); we would have teamed up for those long ones.”

The Livestrong, a Lance Armstrong sponsored race was the site of a considerable Ukiah contingent riding the century (100 mile) bike ride for Cancer Research.  It was 2006.  Armstrong is a rather controversial figure since that halcyon era when he was winning the Tour de France nearly every year.  A cancer survivor himself, the locals were all able to join Lance for a piece of the bicycle riding event; touted to be the largest organized riding event of its time.  The event started in Austin, went through the Texas Hill Country and back to Austin.  Ukiahans in the accompanying photo are:  Clockwise from Javier Rau:  Rick and Karen Rizzolo, Tim Petersen (green shirt)  Liz Black, Holly Enzler, Louise (blonde) Nielsen, Zack Schatt, Ann, Heath Dolan, George. 

Holly concludes:  “In the last 10 years, I got to run with Danny Shafer, Amber Trotter and Jerry Drew in the CIM (California International Marathon).  We won our division in a tag-team relay event (about 6.5 miles each).”  Here’s a description of that race, begun in 1983 in Sacramento.   It travels through rural countryside, through the towns of Orangevale, Citrus Heights, Fair Oaks and Carmichael, and into the city of Sacramento for the State Capitol finish.  It attracts 9000 international runners annually.

Liz Black says of her buddy, Holly:  “She’s always up for any and all adventures, being upbeat, enthusiastic, with a smile on her face.  She’s absolutely tireless and always positive.  Our most epic adventure was when we hiked the Rim to Rim 24 miler at the Grand Canyon in a day, (down 4500 feet; up 5500’ and I think 105 degrees at the bottom.  We’ve also  hiked all over Zion National Park, Point Reyes, and Sedona, Arizona.”  Liz has recently relocated to Bend, Oregon.

I caught Holly and her master’s swim group at UVAC the other morning.  It’s an informal group (Chris Rehm, Frank Merritt,  Justin Snyder, Erica and Randy Lundquis) that  swims two days  a week regularly.  She maintains her morning running regimen with Dan  Shafer still in the Lovers Lane Vineyard and hikes with a bunch of gals regularly.

Holly is working in the fury of the Covid virus, as it strikes anyone and everyone in Sonoma county day to day at Kaiser Hospital in Santa Rosa.  It’s tugging at her heart strings as she sees a number of young people (10-20 years of age) admitted to the ER due to self-harm events.  “My coworkers’ kids and so many others-it’s an epidemic itself.  We’ve got to divert their attention from all the horror out there; our youth are in crisis.  Nobody is caring for these kids.  They have zero social interactions.  Tracks, running programs, any recreational programs to help them survive physically and mentally.  It was that one positive comment from my junior high teacher ‘how I could run a lot of cones.’ And how I wish there were more mentors in my life so I could have pursued running competitively at a younger age instead at 40.  More than ever today, our youth really need more mentors and more access to physical activity.  I know Coach Chad Raugewitz has started the cross country program this season at Ukiah High, along with a new recreation program with City Recreation energy. That’s needed and more.”

Holly Enzler now is sports mentor!