Audrey Ross doesn’t train specifically on hills. She’s running hills as soon as she steps out her door. Sara Millhouse photo.

Audrey Ross runs. Ross runs fast.

On Saturday, she took fourth place in the Wasatch Woman Love Your Body 10K race in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Last year, her first in Kemmerer, she took second place, but she’s more pumped about her finish this year. This year, she faced 375 other athletes in Utah’s only all-female race.

The race, which also includes a 5K, was created by Wasatch Woman magazine and encourages women to “care about their health, fitness, community, friends, families and especially about themselves.” There are even free massages and a “diva night” before the race.

That’s not Ross’s thing, though. She’s there to run, and she’s more motivated by the all-girl competition than all-girl bonding. “I’m way more competitive with all girls,” she said.

She finished the race in 43 minutes, 51 seconds, which averages to almost exactly seven-minute miles.

“I’ve always liked running,” she said. Growing up with a twin brother, she wanted to be better than the boys, especially in sports. “I’m pretty competitive,” she said.

In school in Rock Springs, she focused on soccer and won a scholarship to play in college. The next year, though, she transferred to Barclay College in Haviland, Kan. The college didn’t have a soccer team, so she started running.

It took a while to get her husband Jadon into running. “He hated running,” she said. “He hated it with a vengeance.” But she got him to register for a race while he was a youth pastor in Carlisle, Iowa, and they started training.

“Running is fun for me,” she said. “If you don’t think you can do it, sign up for a race, and you’ll see that there are tons of people at your level.”

To get him to register, she tricked him on the distance. “I told him it was four miles, and it was actually five and a half,” she said. “They announced, ‘Are you ready to run 5.2 miles?’ and everybody said, “Yeah!’ and he was the only one going ‘What?’”

Now Jadon and Audrey run half marathons, and they completed their first marathon in Salt Lake City in April.

Running the marathon was even more grueling because Audrey had injured her knees and hadn’t been able to run for a couple months. She trained by biking and using the elliptical machines at the rec center, but it wasn’t the same thing.

“Five miles in, I didn’t know if I could keep going,” she said. “But I didn’t quit. It was probably the most insane pain I’ve ever had.”

She had Ibuprofen, but her hands were too cold to open the fanny pack she kept it in, and she was afraid that if she stopped to ask someone to open it for her, she wouldn’t keep going.

“I thought, I’ll make it to a half, and when I got to that, I thought, I’ll do one more mile,” she said. She just kept going.

Finishing the Pinedale half-marathon in one hour, 48 minutes was another high point for Audrey. “Halfway through, I started going faster,” she said. “I had good music.”

She needs something with a strong beat, often hip-hop, or sometimes something “a little angry.”

“The Black-Eyed Peas are number one for running,” she said.

She’s learned some other tricks to running along the way. She reads books and magazines, and before a race she eats oatmeal with egg whites.

She runs through town most days, often six or seven miles. “Running generally clears my brain,” Ross said. “It’s my therapy if I’m freaking out about life. You could say it’s my drug of choice.”

Sometimes it’s her faith that gets her through a long run. “It’s a lot about God,” she said. “It’s when I feel like I can talk to God. My parents never really understood why I’m really passionate about it, but I think that God gave me this desire and ability. God created me like this.”

The Rosses have already done five races this year, and they might do five more, Audrey estimates. Next up is the Pinedale half-marathon again, and they’ll probably do Halloween and Thanksgiving races. She’s looking for more half-marathons.

She hopes to do a marathon again, this time injury-free.