Just call her shoeless Allie Ostrander.
Running her first cross-country race in nearly two years, Ostrander won Saturday's Greater Louisville Classic despite losing a shoe during the 5-kilometer race.
Video of the race shows Ostrander, a 2015 Kenai Central graduate and a redshirt sophomore at Boise State, running toward the finish line with a shoe on her right foot and a red sock on her left foot.
Teri Ostrander, Allie's mother, told the Peninsula Clarion the shoe came partially off when someone stepped on Allie's heel at the start of the race. The shoe came off completely around the three or four kilometer mark.
Ostrander breezed across the finish line in 16 minutes, 28.15 seconds, eight seconds ahead of runner-up Charlotte Imer of Eastern Kentucky. Fueled by Ostrander's win, Boise State took the women's team title.
@allie_ostrander takes the women’s race in 16:27 unofficially @FloTrack @RunnerSpace_com @letsrundotcom #greaterlouisvillexc pic.twitter.com/unSypSyjqN
— Edwin Kibichiy (@UofL_Kibichiy) September 30, 2017
"Our coach said she got clipped right at the start, and her shoe was half hanging off until the 3k mark when it completely fell off," Pete Clark, an assistant sports information director at Boise State, said in an email.
"Another fun fact — apparently it was her mom who recovered the shoe on the course and returned it to Allie after the race."
The victory, the fifth of her college cross-country career, burnishes Ostrander's reputation for toughness. After finishing second in the 2015 NCAA cross-country championships as a freshman, Ostrander missed last season with an injury but bounced back to win an NCAA track championship last spring in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
In July, Ostrander won her first Mount Marathon championship with the second-fastest women's time in race history.
Saturday's shoe incident left Ostrander bloody but uninjured, Clark said.
"Her foot was a little bloody after the race from getting spiked and stepped on at the start, but other than that she is fine," he wrote.
Saturday's race at Louisville's Tom Sawyer Park featured the course that will be used for this year's NCAA championships.