Hot Italian sunshine ricocheted off the white walls of the marble quarry, the unique and challenging race course above Casette di Massa where Allie McLaughlin chased the 2014 World Mountain Running Championship.

She had worked her way into third place and focused on catching Kenya’s Lucy Murigi Wambui who struggled a few strides ahead.

“The race was at noon, and it was so hot,” McLaughlin said. “I remember not being that nervous about it, I was just ready to go. But there were things I could have done better. Instead of sitting in the sun for two hours, I could have been staying cool."

The world championship race capped a breakout season for McLaughlin. She wasn’t known as a mountain runner when the year began. Back in 2009, the running world had embraced a new star when she finished fifth at the NCAA Cross Country Championships as a University of Colorado freshman. Her future as a mid-distance runner seemed to be set. But her days of running fast were cut short by injury, and her name disappeared from the results sheets.

Returning home to Colorado Springs, McLaughlin found work and became a regular on the Manitou Incline, an abandoned mile-long railway bed that rises 2,000 feet in the foothills below Pikes Peak She discovered a new community of runners and new energy there. She became friends with Nike-sponsored mountain-ultra-trail runner Zach Miller and others who encouraged her to try mountain running. She possessed the talent and motivation. She had recorded the fastest known Incline time for a woman, a staggering 20 minutes, 7 seconds, and she had always dreamed of competing in the Pikes Peak Ascent.

“In high school, I always wanted to do the ascent,” McLaughlin said. “Then in March of that year (2014) I remember I was not in great shape, but I was thinking, everyone is registering for Pikes Peak, but not me. Zach pushed me to race that season, which has been a blessing over and over.”

The training began and she soon finished a close second to Olympic cross country skier and proven mountain runner Morgan Arritola at the Vail Pass Half Marathon. With momentum building, she charged up the brutal Walking Boss section of the Loon Mountain course in New Hampshire to win the U.S. Mountain Running Championship. In August she realized her dreams at Pikes Peak, where she won the 13.32-mile ascent with a time of 2:33:43, the third-fastest time by a woman in race history.

At the world championships, she nearly caught Murigi Wambui who began to falter near the finish line. “Oh my gosh, at the finish, she told me if the race was any longer I would have caught her,” McLaughlin said.

Her splashy first season in MUT running ended with a third-place finish on a world stage.

And now McLaughlin, a 25-year-old video producer for iHeartRadio in Colorado Springs, wants it all back. But she’ll have to be patient. The highs she felt in 2014 were again dimmed by injury. She had surgery in Vail in February to repair a torn labrum. But there is good news. She is moving well, cycling and swimming, and has been cleared to begin easy running on May 15. She has permission to include an occasional Incline workout.

“I think it will be a while (before racing),” she says. “I don’t have any huge plans for this year. I don’t want to get real excited about something and get set back. But if it’s time, I’ll race anything.”

Her friends expect her to return to top form. They say McLaughlin has learned to take a punch.

“As a runner, there are few things more discouraging than knowing in your heart what you're truly capable of doing, but having it slip out of reach despite all of your best efforts,” says Shannon Payne, a friend who placed third at Pikes Peak in 2014. “Allie has endured those ups and downs more times than just this one, but always with unwavering perseverance, and that says a lot about who she is. There are two ways of responding to adversity: to get bitter or get better, and Allie always chooses the latter.”

McLaughlin has interests outside of running. She loves country music and often clomps around in cowboy boots with her dog, Kaci, by her side. She produces running promotional videos for friends, drawing her creativity from a lighthearted and humorous vein. She created the website MUTWild.com – a hip mix of original video productions, with links to timely trail blogs and news items - with fellow trail runner Mark Tatum in 2015. She’d consider leaving Colorado for the opportunity to make music videos in Nashville, but says it would be a tough decision.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m obsessed with music,” she says. “I really enjoy having diversity in my life.”

Still, the attraction of the trail is difficult to ignore. She admits that once you’re a competitive runner, you’ll always be a competitive runner. Surging above the clouds to win on the 14,115-foot summit of Pikes Peak, standing on the podium at the world championships, wearing a singlet with the letters “USA” printed on the front … these are memories and motivators that haven’t faded.

“It makes me nervous because I want to make sure I’m in race shape, but If I can just do it (race fast) after all this debacle this last year and a half, I’ll do it again,” she says. “Part of me wants to say ‘been there done that,’ but that’s not really true.”