This month on a mountain in Thailand, Allie McLaughlin pulled away from a pack of the planet’s best runners as a trail climbed higher and higher, meeting rocks and roots, terrain not so unlike her home stomping grounds of Colorado Springs.

During the uphill test of the World Mountain Running Championships, McLaughlin felt, indeed, at home. She felt the adrenaline rush that only a race like this could provide, that only comes with a major victory at hand.

“I could hear cheering behind me in the last mile,” she recalled.

It was louder at the finish line. McLaughlin, 32, secured her first world title and a crown for Team USA.

She crossed with a smile on her face. She wiped a damp eye. She put a hand to her heart, as if it were about to leap out. It was an emotional moment mixed with surprise; she wasn’t expecting the celebratory blasts of smoke.

It was, yes, a “stunning victory,” according to one of the sport’s top publications. It might be called that, considering the recent years McLaughlin spent out of the running spotlight. Before returning to Colorado in 2020, she had left to live rather anonymously in the South.

But the world title wasn’t exactly stunning to people who’ve closely watched this curious career of starts and stops. More than a decade ago, McLaughlin set a still-standing record on one of the most infamous vertical challenges out there: the Manitou Incline.

“If you know her, you know she’s one of the best uphill runners in the world, if not the best,” said Peter Maksimow, a longtime friend and fellow runner back in Colorado Springs, who travels on the international circuit. “It’s just been a matter of staying healthy.”

It’s a matter that has defined her running life. It’s been a life of “highs and lows,” said her father, Tom.

“And so to see the success she’s had recently, it’s certainly an inspiration,” he said.

The world championship followed what some saw as another stunner in Alaska: In her first visit to the state, McLaughlin ran faster than any woman ever at the iconic, 100-year-old Mount Marathon race. Leading up to that in the summer, she topped fields at the Golden Trail World Series in Portugal and the Broken Arrow SkyRace in California.

In September, she finished fourth at the Pikes Peak Ascent. In a packed, international field, the finish might’ve been seen as an upset for the hometown champion. It might’ve deeply upset McLaughlin once.

But “I’ve been more positive in races lately,” she said. “I’m more like, It’s fine, this is awesome, I’m just so glad to be here.”

It’s a lesson she’s had to learn the hard way.

“I know it can be taken away at any moment,” she said.

She knows from her time at the University of Colorado at Boulder. After a cross-country state championship her senior year at Air Academy High School, she went on to have “quite possibly the best freshman season in CU history,” by the school’s account. Her fifth-place finish at the NCAA Championships was the best for a freshman since Olympian Shalane Flanagen’s debut at North Carolina in 2000.

“It wasn’t long after that I got some tendinitis in my foot,” McLaughlin said.

That gave way to a vicious cycle. She’d work hard at physical therapy, get back to practice and come closer to competing, only for some other injury to flare up. One pain was a suspected stress fracture, which turned out to be a cracked fibula.

For the next three years, McLaughlin never came close to matching her freshman success.

“I still don’t like spending too much time in Boulder, because I just have this underlying, bad feeling there,” she said.

She came home to Colorado Springs, unsure of what to do next. Her parents did not think it would be running. “With all of the injuries, I don’t think we had any illusions,” her father said.

But McLaughlin got the Pikes Peak Ascent on her mind.

At that point in 2014, she had never scaled the peak when Maksimow came by her on Ruxton Avenue. Judging from her light pack and gym wear, she looked as if she was returning from the Incline, not the 14,115-foot mountain.

“She seemed very green,” Maksimow said. “And then of course she went out and won (the Ascent), and won it with the third fastest time ever.”

That year, her burst onto the mountain running scene also included a national championship and a bronze medal on the world stage.

All the while, pain mounted in her hip. She ran until she no longer could. Surgery in 2016 repaired a torn labrum.

“I think that was God’s way of saying, ‘Do not let running take over your life,’” McLaughlin said.

By moving to Nashville, she’d leave running behind. She’d pursue other dreams as a video producer. It would be a whole new identity.

“It was eating at her. She was known as this runner, and if she wasn’t doing it, she didn’t feel like she belonged,” Maksimow said. “So yeah, she proceeded to move to Tennessee and jump out of planes.”

Almost every weekend she was skydiving. It was totally different, thrilling — “wild and freeing,” McLaughlin said. It was a way to meet new, fun people. “A whole different community of people who didn’t see me as a runner,” she said.

Nor did anyone at the pizza joint she worked at. That was until they heard she crushed a local half-marathon. Her anonymity was up.

“Everyone was just in awe,” she said. “And I was like, Well, I guess I’m a runner again.”

She’s a runner again in her hometown. But she sees herself as a different runner now.

“Coming back to running this time was a way different mindset. It was more fun,” she said. “I have the mindset now where, each time it’s taken away, I’m just more thankful it’s coming back.”

She’s thankful for moments like the one in Thailand this month.

The blasts of smoke, the applause.

“It was just so loud and it was so quick,” she said. “But at the same time, I feel like time slowed down a little bit. And I just remember thinking, like, I don’t want this to end.”