Nancy Simmons

NANCY SIMMONS

by Barry Spitz

A common trajectory for those entering a new sport after age 50 is mediocre performance, a visit to an orthopedic surgeon, then a change of plan. Not so for Belvedere’s Nancy Simmons, 53. She ran her very first race in 2011 and, within months, began competing, successfully, in national championships. This June, she won the Runner section in her debut Dipsea Race.

            Nancy was born in Detroit; her father had survived the Holocaust. The family moved to Colorado when she was 12. Though a skier and outdoors person, Nancy did not participate in organized sports in high school or at the University of Denver, where she majored in business.

            It was at Denver that she met fellow student Warren “Scooter” Simmons, Jr. They married in 1982, relocated to San Francisco and bought a restaurant, Dante’s Sea Catch, on Pier 39 (developed by Warren’s father). In 1983, the couple moved to Sleepy Hollow. A year later, son Ryan was born, followed by Nicki (1986), Tyler (1990) and Jenny (1993). The family moved to Belvedere in 1990.

            Nancy and Warren added a second restaurant on Pier 39, Pier Market (which they still own), then others. In 1986, they opened a Mexican-themed restaurant in Alameda. They named it Chevy’s. The second Chevy’s was in Marin’s Bon Air Center. Chevy’s grew into a popular chain with more than 40 outlets before the Simmons’s sold it in 1993 to PepsiCo.

            As her children got older, Nancy found time to jog and bike in the Marin hills, work out at the Bay Club in Corte Madera and ski at the family home at Lake Tahoe. For her 50th birthday, she climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. When she joined a Mt. Tamalpais hiking group, the group leader noticed Nancy’s fitness and runner’s build—she’s five feet, four inches and barely 100 pounds—and suggested she try a race.

            Always eager for a challenge—Nancy loves adventure travel and eschews tourist hotels for authentic local lodging—she entered the January 2011 Tamalpa Runners club race at Tennessee Valley. She won her age group. She started coming to the weekly College of Marin track sessions led by Tamalpa founder Kees Tuinzing.

“Kees was calling out things like ‘intervals’ and ‘strides’ and ‘two times 880’ and I had no idea what he was talking about,” Nancy recalls. “I told him and he said to just follow what the others were doing. Someone asked me why I wasn’t wearing racing shoes in races. I replied ‘I didn’t know there were different shoes.’”

            Nancy was introduced to Mill Valley’s Mark McManus, a three-time winner of the Dipsea Race Best Time Trophy and astute student of the sport, and he became, and remains, her coach.

“Nancy is a very rare talent and it amazes me that her gift to run and race competitively wasn't discovered until her early 50's,” says McManus. “Applying that same drive, intelligence, and persistence that made her an extremely successful businesswoman definitely contributed to her fast rise as a distance runner. When you factor in her effortless and natural running gait, one that combines speed, strength, and endurance, you get a runner of national class, perhaps world class, potential.”  

            Concerned that racing would diminish her love of running, Nancy passed up the 2011 Dipsea, instead watching it with Kees from atop Cardiac, the race’s highest point. But just three weeks later, at the venerable Kenwood 10K, Nancy shattered the long-standing women’s age group record of two-time Dipsea winner Jamie Rivers. Racing the Dipsea was inevitable.

            As a first-time entrant in 2012, Nancy was assigned to the Runner section, in which 800 competitors set off, with handicapped starts, after the Invitational section.

“I was totally intimidated at the start. I’m strong on the uphills so went out hard on the steps and up to Cardiac, which I reached in 42 minutes,” Nancy says. “I passed the (Reilly) Johnson family and they said I was in first place. I got held up by the crowds going down Swoop and Steep Ravine but at Insult, when still no one had passed me, I really started to race hard. Since I had never seen the finish area, I took a wrong turn late and faced a fence ahead. But everyone shouted to me which way to go.” She won by a massive 99 seconds.

            Nancy’s joy of running Marin’s trails did not diminish. She’s happy to run solo, or with others, such as Patti Shore.

“Nancy has no idea how good she is,” says Shore. “She's one of my favorite training partners. A sly sense of humor and willingness to speak her mind makes her a very refreshing companion on a long run.”

            Nancy will be racing in the Dipsea’s Invitational section this June 9.

“Though I am competitive, I’m more interested in seeing how good I can be, just what my potential is,” Nancy says. “But I’d love to get a (top-35 finish) black shirt at the Dipsea this year.” Though Nancy is not the most fearless of downhillers, a Dipsea Race shortcoming, few doubt very low-numbered shirts aren’t in her future.