Women Can. Voices of Strength: Meet Colleen MacDonald
Written by Kassandra Tuten
Colleen MacDonald has always been into sports and movement.
“It’s been part of me since I was a kid,” she said. “But I didn’t step into ultra running until later in life, in my 30s.”
Colleen had just wrapped up a long stint living abroad, came back to the U.S. and found herself dealing with reverse-culture shock in the middle of a Minnesota winter.
“I felt a little lost, honestly, like I had left this big, all-consuming life behind and was trying to figure out what came next,” she said.
She started running roads with Mill City Running, mostly to give herself some focus and motivation.
“I knew a little about ultras at that point, but the distance intimidated me,” she said. “Then, I met a few ultra runners in the group, asked them about a million questions, and before long, I signed up for my first 50K.”
Not long after that, Colleen jumped into a 50-miler and won it.
“That was a surprise,” she said.
The bigger surprise?
“I actually loved it,” she said. “The pain, the pushing, the ‘What else am I capable of?’ question that hung in the air after. My training was garbage at the time, but that win lit the fire. I thought, ‘If I can do this with bad training, what could I do if I really gave it a proper go?’”
Today, Colleen is on a mission to defy limits, embrace fear and empower the next generation of girls through her successful attempt to set the Fastest Known Time (FKT) on Mount Kilimanjaro (Kili). On Aug. 8, 2025, she and Brian Corgard became the holders of the FKT on the Northern Route Lemosho Lollipop of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain above sea level in the world. They completed the full circuit in 36 hours, 5 minutes and 52 seconds.
A Childhood Dream Realized
Colleen’s fascination with Kili began in childhood.
“When I was little, I wanted to be the female version of Indiana Jones,” she explained. “As a kid, my mom read me a book about a family caught in a storm on Kilimanjaro. Most kids would probably be terrified reading that, but I remember thinking, ‘Yes! That’s exactly the kind of adventure I want my life to hold.’”
Fast forward some years, and Colleen revisited Kili at a time when she needed direction.
“My race performances felt stagnant, I wasn’t happy in my career, and even though from the outside my life probably looked adventurous and full, I knew I wanted more,” she said. “I was also staring down the reality of aging, realizing if I wanted to take on truly epic things, I had to start.”
Originally, Colleen considered attempting the FKT via the Western Breach Route, a direct, 2,000-foot vertical climb up the side of the volcanic crater rim of Kibo.
“It’s risky, and people have died on that section due to the freeze-thaw cycle making rock fall a strong possibility unless you hit the wall at the exact right time, but since it hadn’t been done, I wanted to do it,” she said.
However, after further research and discussion with an outfitter, it became clear that the Western Breach Route was not viable.
“Instead, we decided to approach the FKT differently and put together a route that combined several established trails in a new way that no one had done before,” she said.
The route they established, called the Northern Route Lemosho Lollipop, starts as the Lemosho Trail head and follows the normal Northern Route (including a summit). It’s on the descent that the changes happen. Instead of descending all the way straight down, they turned right at Karanga Camp and descended to Barranco, passing through Lava Tower Camp and finally back to the Lemosho Trail and retracing their earlier steps.
The climb was completed in three parts, she explained: five days of recon around the whole Northern Circuit, two rest days back at the trailhead and then the FKT push.
“The recon was absolutely necessary, partly for acclimatization, but also for mapping,” Colleen explained. “We recorded the full route so we’d know exactly where to go during the push. We also dropped gear and food with a porter at three key points: Pofu, School Hut and Barranco.”
They even summited during recon, which Colleen said was critical.
“Physically, it gave us the altitude adaptation we needed. Mentally, it cleared the biggest hurdle,” she continued. “We knew we could stand on top, which meant we could take fear and doubt out of the equation when it came time for the actual push.”
The push itself was over 36 hours of highs and lows; literally and figuratively.
“I was nervous at the start and ended up with diarrhea in the first three-quarters of a mile; not exactly how you want to kick off an FKT,” she said. “Thankfully it resolved quickly, and I was able to carry on pretty well.”
What went right?
“Our pacing, the checkpoints and our support crew,” she said. “Adding a third checkpoint at School Hut was a last-minute decision during recon, and it saved us as we were able to travel a bit lighter and get hot noodles at 15K feet.”
What went wrong?
“Sleep deprivation, stomachs rebelling at altitude and the scree slope from up to Gilman’s Point. We hit it midday, so every step slid back half a step. It felt endless,” she said. “There were moments I wasn’t sure if we’d ever make the ridge. I also had a rough patch thanks to altitude.”
After descending from the summit (19,341 feet) down to Barranco at 12,000, the group had to climb right back up to 15,000.
“That’s where I got hit hard with nausea and ended up puking. Early acute mountain sickness signs,” Colleen explained. “Thankfully, we knew the fix: Get lower fast. So, I literally had to puke, rally and descend quickly, and by the time we dropped back to 12,000 feet, I felt much better.”
By the end, they were sunburned, blistered, running on fumes and “smelled awful.”
“But we looped the mountain, summited and came back to where we started,” Colleen said.
Colleen said she’s still processing how it feels to hold the FKT.
“The moment we hit the pavement back at the trailhead, it was relief and pride all at once,” she said. “My brain was kind of blank, trying to catch up to what had just happened. I never really doubted we’d snag the FKT, but when you’ve been working toward something for more than five years, it still hits differently.”
For years, Kilimanjaro was the dream. It was even the lock screen on Colleen’s phone. But over the last five years, there were times she felt that dream slipping away.
“When I first decided to do this, I was living back in Minnesota at sea level, staring out at snowbanks, and the whole project felt bonkers, like something far beyond what I could actually pull off,” she said. “So, standing there at the finish, it was relief and pride, but also this wave of disbelief: ‘What the fuck just happened? Did we actually do this?’ To go from never having set an FKT before to chasing a dream over five years in the making was huge. It took a lot mentally, physically, emotionally, to hold on and keep believing it could happen. There were so many moments over the past year when I broke down in tears, convinced the Kili dream was slipping out of reach.”
Although the prolonged recovery time from illness and the post adventure blues, which have “been really tough this time around,” made it difficult to properly celebrate the victory right away, now that things have returned to normal and she’s had some distance from the project, “I’m so fucking proud,” Colleen said.
“I feel more confident and surer of myself and I have a drive to get another project in the works,” she said. “To be clear, I’m proud of my whole career. It’s not just a highlight reel. It’s full of stumbles, failures, wrong turns and plenty of getting back up. But it’s also packed with adventure, joy and some accomplishments I never would have believed possible when I started out.”
She also feels more confident in her ability to use her voice and platform to encourage and uplift others.
“When I first started planning the Kili FKT, more than once I got dismissed, laughed off or told it wasn’t realistic because I was a woman,” she said. “From being mansplained about ultra training and gear to getting unsolicited advice on how I should run, what trails I should stick to or even how I should approach big mountain goals, I’ve seen/heard it all. I definitely used that doubt from others as fuel. But I’ve also learned that motivation for me can’t only be about proving people wrong. “If all I’m chasing is the chance to give a massive middle finger to the haters, it burns out fast.”
For Colleen, the deeper fuel comes from curiosity, love of the mountains and the drive to find out what’s possible and “give all this shit meaning.”
“The doubt from haters just adds a little extra kindling on top,” she said.
The Deeper Fuel
The underestimation of women in the outdoors is one of the reasons Colleen partnered with The Cairn Project during her FKT attempt, raising money for the Summit Scholarship Foundation, which seeks to expand access to outdoor education for young women and ensure more girls can experience the transformative power of adventure.
The Cairn Project empowers and inspires the next generation of girls and women through outdoor adventure. By providing scholarships for outdoor programs and mobilizing a community of support under the motto “More Girls Outside,” the organization expands access to wilderness and education opportunities for girls across the U.S. and serves as a hub for women passionate about the outdoors to connect, share stories and amplify the visibility of women and girls in adventure spaces.
“If women and girls aren’t seen, supported and funded in outdoor spaces, the cycle of underestimation keeps going,” Colleen explained. “I wanted my climb to push back against that and open doors for others. I’ve always pulled inspiration from women who show up unapologetically and push boundaries in their own lanes.”
When she was younger, Colleen loved FloJo.
“She was fast, fierce and stylish, and she didn’t try to fit into anyone else’s mold,” she explained.
These days, she looks to women like Stephanie Case, “who’s not only an incredible ultra runner but also uses her platform to advocate for girls having access to sports and physical activity.”
Or Beyoncé, “who keeps redefining what it looks like to own your power.”
Other sources of inspiration include Ilona Maher, “who’s rewriting what strength, body image and confidence look like in sport;” Simone Biles, “for her courage to step back when she needed to, and then come back stronger;” and of course, Courtney Dauwalter, “for showing us that limits are just silly constructs.”
What ties them together for Colleen is that “they don’t ask permission.”
“They take up space unapologetically,” she added.
When other women witness her take on something bold like an FKT on Kilimanjaro, Colleen hopes they see “a woman who didn’t back down from the big, wild dream, even when it felt ridiculous and scared the hell out of me.”
“I hope they see that following through matters; that the seemingly impossible is possible,” she said. “I hope this project encourages even just one woman to step outside their comfort zone to see what lies beyond that discomfort. If someone reads my story and feels that spark of ‘Maybe I can do this’ or ‘I’m going to take that first step,’ then that’s the point. Not to copy my path, but to chase whatever is calling to them.”
What Women Can. Means
For Colleen, Women Can means that the possibilities are limitless.
“We/I can define what we can and will do and how that action takes shape; it’s brilliant and amazing,” she said. “It also means that the impact I can have directly on causes and initiatives that are important to me is valid and worthy. We/I each have the capacity to leave things better and move the needle toward a better future.”