Want to get into ultra running but don’t know how to fit it around your kids? Get inspired to become an ultra marathon parent from a mom and personal trainer who has run some of the world’s toughest 100 milers. Your kids might actually love you for what you do.

Ana Braga-Levaggi’s family knows the drill. Getting up at an ungodly hour, watching her disappear into the darkness and then spending the next 30 hours making sure she doesn’t die.

Ana has run some of America’s toughest 100 milers, including Leadville, Wasatch and Western States. These runs aren’t stage races. Runners have to keep moving day and night through harsh terrain, with cut-offs between 30 and 36 hours, depending on the event. Like many others, she is an ultra marathon parent who fits her training around her family.

Born in Brazil, the 55-year old has lived in California’s Mill Valley for 30 years and discovered a love for ultrarunning after the birth of her children.

“After I had my second daughter in 1999, I thought I needed to get in shape. By then I’d just run two marathons and thought, okay, lets take it to the next level.”

Her first 50k race was a fabulous experience. “I walked the uphills and I ran the downhills and flats and I finished the race, so I was totally hooked.”

These days, 50k races are mere training runs to prepare for 100 milers. She has finished eight. To Ana, the right mental attitude is just as important as physical training when it comes to earning her 100 mile finisher buckles.

“Try to get into every single station with a smile,” she says.  “You are here because you want it. If you’re going through a bad patch, you can always think it’s going to pass, and you’re going to get through and you’re going to be just fine.”

A high pain threshold helps too. Ana had both of her children without anesthesia. Agony is something she expects and, unless she’s injured, doesn’t spend time worrying about it.

“It’s just pain,” she says.  “It’s going to go away when I stop and feel better.”

Her calorie intake is meticulous and she sticks to 200 calories an hour, even counting the number of biscuits she carries to ensure her intake is adequate. She has even sewn extra pockets onto her skort (a cross between shorts and a skirt) to store food and gear.

But sometimes, the digestive system doesn’t take kindly to endless hours of intense exercise and runners can have trouble keeping solids down.

This was a particular problem at the Wasatch Front 100 Mile Endurance Run across Utah’s Wasatch mountain range and which advertises itself as “100 miles of heaven and hell”. Cumulative elevation gain is nearly 25,763 feet and much of the race is at altitude – the highest point is over 10,480 feet.

“At Wasatch, my stomach shut down at night and I couldn’t eat anything, but food is what keeps you going in an ultra, so if you can’t eat, you can’t move forward.”

Gels kept her energized – no less than 48 of them. If you have never tried an energy gel, count yourself lucky, because the idea of downing nearly 50 of these slimy sugar portions would probably make you gag. But disgusting or not, those gels got her to the finish – with seven minutes to spare.

Ana’s training leading up to a 100 mile run usually includes spinning and weight training in addition to 100 miles of running a week. Working as a fitness trainer makes finding the time easier – she can do some of her training with her clients.

Even much of her spare time is about sports. Ana helps youths foster a positive body image and understand the benefits of an active lifestyle as a volunteer coach for 4^th grade through 8^th grade. You can also find her manning aid stations at various races.

“It’s wonderful to give back to the community. If I’m not running a race and I’m available, why not come and help.”

Her husband Chris, a keen biker, is very supportive of her passion.

“My husband is very involved and hands on, whether he paces me or in giving me what I need.”

And her daughters don’t know it any other way – they time her breaks during races and encourage her on. It sounds like a tiring job, but they’ve found a lot of inspiration in their mother’s achievements.

Her younger daughter Annika also loves to run, doing well in cross-country and track. Her older daughter Bella is a freshman in college – and she recently wrote an essay about growing up with an ultra marathon parent. It’s a special tribute, and as Ana starts reading, she has trouble holding back the tears.

Some rewards come in the form of finisher buckles, others in the love and appreciation of family.

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Essay by Bella Levaggi, Ana’s daughter

Describe the world you come from – for example, you family, community or school – and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations

The world I come from is bleary-eyed, mud-splattered, and tastes like Gatorade. It’s thirty-hour periods of intense stress, unfamiliar states, and five hours naps in a Volkswagen camper van parked next to a trail. It’s the life of an Ultra Runner’s daughter.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, Ultra Runners are uniquely inspirational basket cases who enjoy running one hundred mile footraces. They put themselves through excruciating blisters, dehydration, and fatigue… only to come out smiling.

My mom joined this cult of crazies when I was seven. She’s appointed my dad, sister, and me to spearhead her crew teams, and has dragged us across the West, all in the pursuit of adventure. But you know what they say about adventure: it’s pure horror enjoyed from the comfort of retrospect.

The starting gun always goes off at four in the morning, and the next thirty hours are gruelling for everyone. Obviously, my mom gets it the worst, with the actual running, but crewing for her comes with its own stresses.

It’s my responsibility to keep my mom on schedule when she stops at various checkpoints scattered along the racecourses. I’ve become an expert at proclaiming the time and then obnoxiously prodding my exhausted mother up out of her camping chair once her allocated period of rest spills into overtime.

On paper, the job sounds easy, but in reality it’s a handful of heart-thumping minutes of crushing responsibility that carries the weight of eternity.

If I mess up, my mom runs the risk of falling behind and suffering a disqualification. What heightens the intensity and reward of these races is that they require us to band around our runner in a rightly oiled machine of energy and focus.

Amidst the blood, sweat, and Power Bars, though, there’s something satisfying about the end, when the four of us huddle within the medical tent. Ultra running brings us together at an epic level where my perception of my mom transcends from “personal chauffeur/macaroni maker” into hero.

The interesting thing about the word “crazy” is that it can denote insanity or passion. What my mom does is imbued with a dose of both. I grew up reading stories about people who are just like her. So it’s with her courage that I write my often condemnatory columns about social problems in my school newspaper.

It’s with her zeal that I spent hours interning for a publishing agency in the hopes of cracking the code to discover the qualities of a strong editor. And it’s her spirit – and the knowledge that I contribute to its preservation – that pushes me to pursue my passions, even when they seem a hundred miles out of reach.

Listen to the full interview with Karen Low:

Ten years ago, you wouldn’t have picked Karen Low for a runner. A heavy smoker for two decades, getting into running for health and fitness didn’t just help her steer clear of cigarettes, she also dropped 20 kilos along the way.  

“I gave up smoking in 2006, so I was in that…replacing a bad habit for a better habit, and running was it,” Karen says when dropping by for a cup of tea with two of her training buddies from the Mackay Roadrunners, Matt Stevens and Janelle Tilse.  

They are in Katoomba for the Six Foot Track Marathon – a scenic but very hilly 45k race in the Blue Mountains that has runners chase each other through rivers, and over single tracks and dirt roads all the way from Katoomba in the iconic Blue Mountains National Park to Jenolan Caves. The total ascent is more than 1,500 meters.  

The race attracts athletes from around Australia and usually fills up within minutes of registration opening, due to its popularity. But the experience of runners can vary widely, especially when it comes to Cox’s river crossing.

Matt Stevens, who is always easy to spot because he is usually a head taller than everyone else, says the river level was “up to the knees” on race day, to which Janelle laughs, “yeah, right, up to the neck!”  

Karen trained for months to do her first Six Foot Track and finished in 06:09:12 – a great result, especially when you think that just a few years ago, Karen was struggling to even run 5k on the flat.  

After devoting most of her life to working and raising her three daughters, Karen realized she needed a lifestyle change after an accident and decided to get off the cigarette and lose some weight. She turned to running for health and fitness.  

“I hadn’t run for many years, so getting the body back into shape to run has been good,” she says.  

Starting slow is important to get your body used to the sport, and it doesn’t mean you’ll see less of a result. Karen says she noticed the weight just dropping off her once she started training, first towards the goal of running and walking a 5k and then slowly building up to longer distances, all the way to running marathons.  

“I did my first marathon last year and my first half marathon the year before, and both of those training plans helped me to build in a good mileage and look at how to train […] and get some confidence to do that.”  

Leading up to the Six Foot, she was running up to 90k a week, a far cry from her comparatively sedentary lifestyle  just a few years back. Investing so much time and effort leading up to a race makes crossing the finish line even sweeter. 

“We’ve probably been going hard at it for three months and you don’t know until the end [if it works out]. So the jubilation coming down the hill [at the finish] and to think your plan’s held up…yay!”  

For Karen, running is also great to clear her head after work and to spend time in nature. And apart from the obvious health benefits, it’s the social aspects that matter to her, the people she runs with and the way her family responds.  

“My kids think I’m great, and my husband,” she said, with tears in her eyes.  

“My daughter texted me saying I’m a champion. That’s what’s good about it.”  

And the next goal? A sub four-hour road marathon, said Karen – and her running friends are confident she’ll smash it.  

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Doing the hard yards is always easier in good company, and if you are in the Mackay area in Queensland and are thinking of turning to running for health and fitness, the Mackay Roadrunners offer a deluge of support. I’m biased  as I trained with the club for over a year in 2010/11 and loved the camaraderie.  

The Mackay club offers several weekly runs, long and short, marathon training groups, club competitions and large events like the Mackay Marina Run with thousands of runners participating in the half marathon, 8k and 5k distances.  

And while you are there, also check out the Hamilton Island Hilly Half Marathon in the idyllic Whitsundays near the Great Barrier Reef – by far one of the most scenic half marathons you’ll ever come across, smack bang in the middle of paradise.