Braving raging rivers, thunder storms and giant snow lopes, Robert Manning is thru hiking his way home from the Mexican border to Canada on the Continental Divide Trail – a journey of 3,100 miles (nearly 5,000 km) through the states of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.

Some mornings are so cold that he wakes up to frozen socks and has to warm them up with a brisk hike.

“You’re sitting on a rock on a ridge top and looking back over this huge vista and realising you just walked across the whole thing, how grandiose it is. But the main memory stickers are the terrifying moments that you just somehow managed to get through,” says the adventurer.

The general mantra for thru hiking the CDT is to embrace the brutality.

“I’m starting to understand what they mean.”

Robert says that for about eight hours a day he feels nice and warm in his tent, another eight hours a day he is somewhere fun, and the remaining eight hours are spent stuck in a situation he’s trying to get out of.

“Hip deep in a snow bank, or thunderstorms chasing you around, but it all passes and it’s a fun story to tell.”

Being so far away from the daily bustle and focused solely on the weather, trail safety, the next river crossing  or ascent brings things down to the essentials for him.

“It’s kind of like an analogy to packing. First you pack all this stuff and a month in you realise 90 per cent of it you don’t need […], so the mind set it similar and you realise what matters and doesn’t really matter.”

“Also your mind just wanders and you think all these crazy thoughts as you’re tracking through the bush and you get the universe all figured out, and the next day you forget what you thought,” he laughs.

Having been a forest fire fighter for 17 years and holding a commercial pilot license, Robert has solid outdoors and map reading skills and knows how to deal with dicey situations.

However, he doesn’t carry an emergency beacon and his family only knows he’s made it through the next stretch when he gets to a town and can update his facebook page with pictures and stories of the days past.

Despite the remoteness of the trail, though, hikers do meet each other frequently as there’s only a limited time corridor this trail can be done in.

“There’s only been a few days where I’ve been hiking entirely on my own.”

As he comes through Leadville, CO, he has completed about 1,300 miles of his epic adventure and is down to one set of clothes with various layers.

“I just wear the same thing everyday, which is great freedom. I don’t have to choose anything.”

The one set includes his cycling shorts that co-function as underwear.

Robert reckons river crossings double up as underwear washing days when thru hiking.

I think he made that part up because I don’t remember a wall of funk greeting me when we met, but then again, he had probably already showered and washed his clothes by then – wearing only his rain coat so that everything else could go in the washer.

Having only one set of clothes helps keep the weight down. Starting out with a big pack and gear for all sorts of eventualities, Robert says he soon sent parcels to his sister, realising he had completely overpacked.

“I had a knee brace in there, which, if I needed a knee brace, I wouldn’t be able to be on the trail.”

Gaining experience as he went, he improved his planning skills to the degree that he can now largely avoid emergencies.

“Instead of packing for emergencies, you just preplan and avoid emergencies, which is probably one of the best things to keep the weight down.”

His pack is now down to 20 pounds, excluding food and water.

And despite all the challenges, Robert is keen to extend his time on the trail. Having bought an orchard in Canada, he has time to hike while the trees grow and is moving faster than planned, giving him extra room to play.

The CDT runs to the Glacier National Park on the US border with Canada, but his true goal is a Canadian mountain his parents used to take him to as a kid.

“They are both teachers, so they had the summers off and they’d stick us all in a van […] and bring us out to the mountains for a month.”

Mt. Assiniboine is another few hundred miles of thru hiking along the Canadian Great Divide Trail, and trekking out to that mountain means more to Robert than just ending his journey at the Canadian border.

“I can’t wait to get there and see it again. Even in the crappy times, that’s what I think about is getting back there.”

“There is a neat little waterfall that comes off one of the adjacent mountains into a pool and there are always these little trout in the pool and I can always catch them. So that’s where I’m going, to catch those little trout.”

As I stepped out of the bus on the town’s wide main road, lined by old-time Saloons, I could hardly breathe. I had flown in from sea level Australia, and Leadville at over 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) altitude knocked the air right out of me as I dragged my suitcase to the Leadville Hostel on 7th Street. 

Learn more about the Leadville 100 and how to prepare for it from race director Josh Colley (Interview Aug. ’16):

A usually rather sleepy place with a population of some 2,700 people, Leadville is hub of activity leading up to the 100 Mile MTB and footrace in August each year. Cyclists with limited leave from work are frantically trying to acclimatize in just a few days. Runners are doing speed training, checking their GPS watches and chatting with their coaches online.

Others are in Leadville to do altitude training for other races. You might even run into celebrity athletes like Rob Krar. The popular hangout, City on a Hill Coffee & Espresso, is always packed.

I had done what I could in the months leading up to the Leadville 100 and saw little point in training hard in the last two weeks. The first three days I rested up and drank a lot of fluids, and then started hiking to help my body get used to the altitude.  

A great resource for hiking routes in the area is www.14ers.com.

First up was Mosquito Pass, followed by Mt. Massive at 4,400 m and finally, some five days before the race, four connected peaks in one long day – the Mt. Democrat, Bross, Lincoln and Cameron route. Five of us from the hostel started out long before sunrise and only just made the last peak before ominous rumbling and a blackening sky chased us off the mountain as one of the usual afternoon thunderstorms moved in. None of us wanted to get stuck in lightening above tree line.

Quietly I prayed to the weather gods for clear skies on race day. Hunkering down below tree line for an hour or two as a storm passes overhead can cost you your finish at Leadville. 

At the hostel, packed with endurance athletes, we discussed splits. I cannot run a race when I think of having to do 100 Miles in one go. But if I break it into many little goals, my mind can handle it. 

However, guessing expected completion times for an unfamiliar course is hard. How would I know how long a particular uphill section will take me? While researching online, I hit gold – a website called climbers.net  combines past finisher times, averages them out and calculates likely splits depending on the overall target time you enter.

I printed and laminated three versions – the unlikely super awesome splits if I found energy I never knew I had, the likely medium splits I was aiming at, and the risky last ass splits that should get me across the finish line just before cut-off.

Then on the night before the race, I popped two sleeping pills and headed to bed at 6pm. A lack of sleep before a big race can affect the mind in unpredictable ways. Before my first 100 miler, the Bear, I had been so nervous that I only slept one hour the night before. On the second race day after some 30 hours on my feet without sleep or rest, I kept thinking about frog liver pâté and desperately wanted to know whether my pacer had ever ridden on a deer. I had learned from that.

Leadville Hostel owner Cathy Hacking put on a huge breakfast from 2 am and the hostel was bustling with activity as nervous runners frantically searched for misplaced items while their supporters tried to soothe them with calm voices. I for the heck of it couldn’t find my favorite socks. Somebody else thought his shoes had been stolen. All turned up in the end. 

At 4 am we were finally toeing the start line in the cold morning air – 100 miles with more than 15,000 feet in total elevation gain were ahead of us. Just about anything could happen in the next 30 hours, and only half of us would make it back here in time. I hoped I would be one of them.

The sky was still dark, a drone was whirring overhead. I knew I needed to go out faster than usual to make the 22k to May Queen in 2h20 in line with my splits and, more importantly, to make the first 100k by quarter past eight that night. The 100k mark is Twin Lakes inbound on this out-and-back course, and I’d been told repeatedly that runners who get to the lakes after nightfall don’t tend to finish. 

The next moment, the countdown started and we were off, a sea of bright lights in the dark as crowds of people cheered us on. Then the voices ebbed away, subsiding in the distance, and all that was left was the sound of feet hitting the dirt road leading out of Leadville. This was it, too late to change my mind, the only way was forward now.

Reaching Turquoise Lake, the darkness slowly changed to light as we ran along the water’s edge on single track, over roots and bouncy forest floor. It was magical, this time of the morning, with strips of color stretching over the dawning sky above calm and deep blue waters. Listening to my own breath and the soft, rhythmical drumming of countless feet, I felt like I was part of an ancient tribe, moving in wordless unison, celebrating life in its purest form. 

Adrenalin and excitement made running easy and I reached May Queen in good time. I had arrived in Leadville without crew or pacers, but had found supporters among the wonderful people who gather year after year in this mountain town. Retired pharmacist Michael Hester, who spends every summer in Leadville, had agreed to crew me and I had also found three pacers to share the entire inbound half of the course. Big smiles greeted us as we dropped our now useless headlamps to save on weight and filled up on water.

The next goal was Outward Bound, with the big climb up Sugarloaf Pass at 11,000 feet in between. After rooty forest trails, we came up a long, paved road that slowly snaked its way up the mountainside. Rather than running and spending too much energy too early, I power walked at a steady pace.

On the other side was a steep, wide dirt track beneath power lines, hence the name. The section must be hell when muddy and slippery, and I thanked the weather gods for firm ground. But as I jogged into Outward Bound, I realized that this leg had still taken me 15 minutes longer than planned. I had to make up time. 

By the time I reached Twin Lakes I was all wrapped up in my own race and only focused on getting in and out as quickly as possible. 

With Hope Pass towering ahead of me, I was glad that nothing but blue skies greeted me ahead. I wouldn’t be fried by lightening at the top, or miss my cut-off cowering below treeline.

All I had to do now was climb up to 3,850 m after 40 miles of going hard. My legs were tired and it would only get worse. The trail up Hope Pass is brutal. Leading up through through thick forest, you can never gauge when it will end, and every hope gets dashed by yet another steep section.

But there was no time for rest or catching my breath. I was only just keeping up with my medium splits. Falling behind could endanger my finish. Spending months of training, money on airfares, gear and entry fees, and then running a very long way only to miss a cutoff and being pulled is the last thing I was willing to endure. I ignored the exhaustion and pushed on, pumping all the air into my lungs that I could.

As the trees got sparser and finally made way for a green meadow, I saw what I had been looking forward to for weeks – the famous llamas.  These animals are long-term supporters of the Leadville 100 race, together with Vicky Foster and many other wonderful volunteers. Every year they carry water and food for over a thousand runners and pacers up this otherwise inaccessible pass. Leisurely, they now grazed on the lush grass, eyeing each struggling runner with renewed interest. 

I didn’t have much time to enjoy the sight. I was more than 10 minutes behind my splits and had to work on my downhill running skills heading toward Winfield, the 50 mile turnaround point. Fortunately I love downhill sections. Sliding on rubble and jumping over rocks on the steep trail leading down into the valley, I made up a decent bit of time. I even came running into Windfield aid station slightly ahead of my target, completing the first 50 miles in just under 12 hours.

Jen Kraxner, the best pacer you could ever wish for, was waiting at Winfield, shouldering my pack as well as her own to make the return climb easier for me. Leadville is one of the few races that allows muling i.e. for pacers to carry their runner’s running vests. 

I had met Jen and her husband Joe at the hostel. Both are past finishers of the Leadman/Leadwoman challenge. This superhuman feat involves the completion of all races in the Leadville series in one summer: the marathon, the 50 mile Silver Rush running or MTB race, then the 100 Mile MTB race, followed by a 10k run right the next day and finally the 100 Mile footrace less than a week later.

Jen and Joe had done the MTB 100 miler on a tandem mountain bike and finished the 100 Mile trail run hand in hand. They have been coming to Leadville summer after summer for many years, racing, supporting and soaking up the mountain air. There are no better two people out there to help you with your first Leadville 100.

Joe had even lent me a small portable charger to make the battery of my Garmin watch last for the entire distance. The little charger was tucked into my running vest, and a cable fed through the sleeve of my shirt to connect it to my watch with a clip. Now Jen was to help me over the hardest climb in this race.

I had been pumped arriving at Winfield, but those 50 miles in my legs started to show as soon as we began climbing again. The second time going up Hope Pass was far more agonizing that the first climb.

Jen made me march up that mountain, waving food at me on a regular basis, and told me how great I was doing even though I felt like I was going to collapse toward the top. Her ceaseless encouragement and the camaraderie among all the runners, whether they were still on the downhill toward Windfield or coming up again like me, gave me the energy I needed.

No face flew past without a “good job”, “great work”, or “well done” being exchanged. There were smiles everywhere. And then there were the views. Seeing those majestic mountains stretch out to the horizon puts pain into perspective. I couldn’t help but feel awed and utterly fortunate to be part of it all. I was doing Leadville!

As we reached Hopeless aid station the second time, more than 15 minutes behind schedule, Jen ran ahead to get me soup while I sat down to eat and look at llamas. After some food in my stomach and faced with another long downhill to make up time I started running again. It hurt, but I needed to get to Twin Lakes before nightfall. I was wedded to the idea that if I could just get there by 20:15, I would finish.

Once we had waded through Lake Creek, Jen ran ahead again to get my drop bag ready. Everything was laid out as I came into the aid station right on time. A big group from the hostel was there, cheering and helping out. I was so glad to see them all. With that much help, changing out of my wet shoes and putting on warmer night gear took no time at all.

My new pacer Juliette Schmidt was ready to go, so off we went back into the forest, for the long hours through the night. Reflective trail markets flashed ahead, and the rustling of small animals making their way through the undergrowth accompanied us. The air was fresh now and a little damp, as the shine of our headlamps led us through the woods. 

Juliette was planning to run the Leadville 100 next year and wanted to get experience on the course. She had been volunteering for the race when another hostel guest matched us up.  

Having someone to share the journey with cheered me up a great deal, but I had been on my feet for some 17 hours now and physical exhaustion was threatening to settle in. Even my stomach was tired and eating wasn’t easy.  I sucked on hard candy and TUMS when my body no longer wanted the calories I needed. We walked some, and ran some, and walked some and ran some.

Energy levels rose and fell, but overall we were moving well. At Half Pipe I was 10 minutes ahead of schedule, and by the time we reached Outward Bound, I was half an hour faster than my medium splits. Even so late in the night, a big group from the hostel was waiting for us, cheering, updating how the other hostel runners were doing, and sharing hugs and smiles. 

Now came the climb up Powerline and I remembered another runner’s advice: It’s much longer than you think – beware the false summits. So I kept my head down, didn’t look for any summits in the dark and just marched on until music and flashy lights greeted us at the unofficial aid station at the top.

I had been told this aid station offered hard liquor and a naked guy. Wondering how the naked guy would survive the freezing cold at night and admiring is dedication, I had been looking forward to meeting him. No naked guy could be found, though, so I only filled up water and marched on, leaving Juliette to investigate the situation more closely and catch up with me later.

I started running again on the downhill, and by the time we arrived in May Queen at quarter past four in the morning, I was still more than half an hour ahead of my splits.

There was a problem though. My next pacer, Megan Finnesy, couldn’t be found. Jen Kraxner had recruited Megan for me, badgering her until she agreed to pace me from May Queen to the finish. But now she wasn’t there and I didn’t want to lose precious time waiting. 

Juliette had to go, so I set out on my own. Had I been sick or disorientated this would have been bad, but I felt alert. I was awake and had been warm all night under my various layers of merino wool. I was good to go.

As I left the aid station I even felt a sudden boost of energy and started running on the flat toward the lake, overtaking Chris Calimano and his pacer.

Chris is a very nice and very accomplished athlete who completed the 4 Deserts series in one year. The series involves running 250k each in the Sahara in Namibia, Gobi in China, Atacama in Chile and in Antarctica. Overtaking him made me feel pretty good and I had no desire to relinquish this hard-won lead over someone who is a much better athlete than me.

Of course, unlike me, Chris was actually doing Leadman and had completed the 100 Mile bike race just a week earlier. But I was ready to take every confidence boost I could get and “chased” further ahead into the forest along the lake.

I was going fast! 

Then a young man came lightly jogging up behind me, easily catching up. What bastard runner was this, looking so fresh at close to Mile 90??

He turned out to be a volunteer kindly offering to pace me after learning that Megan hadn’t shown. May Queen aid station staff had been alerted that I didn’t have a pacer and sent someone after me to help.

Together we continued when, suddenly, we heard rustling ahead and saw someone running towards us through the woods. It was Megan! After realizing she had missed me at May Queen, Megan had driven around the lake to catch me from the other side.

Now I had two pacers, which can get you disqualified, so one had to go.  

Too tired for decisions I let them sort it out amongst each other, and ultimately headed on with Megan. As the sky turned from dark to light for the second time during my Leadville 100, I could hardly believe the experiences that lay behind. All this time felt more like a dream that may have spanned weeks rather than just a bit more than a day.

Around me I recognized the same path I had run so easily the day before. Now the going was slow and my legs were stiff and wobbly, but every step also brought excitement. This was the final stretch, the final leg before the finish. I was going to finish Leadville!

Already years ago, I had read about this race in Born to Run, marveled at Ann Trason’s course record, the mind-blowing achievements of the Tarahumaras, and soaked up the stories and legends spun around the Race Across the Sky.

After winning the lottery, I had spent endless hours pushing myself, training in difficult terrain, doing sprint sessions on hills, still always fretting that it wouldn’t be enough. And here I was, just a few last miles from the finish, feeling indescribably happy.

Leadville. I couldn’t believe I had nearly made it.

One more hill, a few more steps, and ahead was the Leadville 100 finish line. As we drew close at eight o’clock in the morning, I ran the last meters uphill and made it in 28:03 as the 165^th finisher out of some 650 starters. As usual for this high altitude event, only about half of us finished that year. 

There were hugs from my wonderful pacers and new friends from the hostel, and a finisher medal, necklace and red rose from race founders Ken Chlouber and Merilee Maupin.

For a while I sat and cheered on the other finishers, including Chris, who wasn’t far behind and successfully completed his Leadman challenge. I drank some hot chocolate, but was unable to eat. Walking was also out of the question, so some lovely hostel buddies picked me up by car and brought me back.

I couldn’t eat all day. Sitting with Chris at the finisher’s ceremony, we were laughing at our nauseousness, hoping we wouldn’t suddenly puke when receiving our treasured belt buckles. Luckily, both of us managed to hang on to our stomach contents, and by evening food started to look good again.

After dinner we all rested up on the giant couch in front of the TV, eating ice cream out of the tub, and dozed off happily spoon in hand.

Finishing my Leadville 100 race, video by Joe Kraxner:

Leadville 100 quick facts  (latest information on the race website):

Course records:
Matt Carpenter 15:42:59 (2005)
Ann Trason 18:06:24 (1994)

Course type: Out and back

Cut-off: 30 hours

Elevation gain: 15,600 feet (4,800 meters)

Highest point: 12,600 feet (3,850 m)

Surface: Mostly forest trails, dirt roads and short stretches of asphalt

The popularity of ultra running has shot through the roof with finisher numbers in the U.S. nearly tripling since 2007, and the number of women in the traditionally male-dominated sport rising dramatically.

One of the world’s most famous female runners is Ann Trason, who broke 20 records in her day. Her signature race is the 100 Mile Western States Endurance Run from Squaw Valley to Auburn in California.

Ann has run this trail so often that she knows it like the back of her hand. Once at night, when she didn’t want competitors to know how close ahead she was, she switched off her light and ran in the dark.

“It’s a place I call my home, it’s a special place,” she says sitting on a bench overlooking the Western States trail leading up to Auburn. She still remembers the first time she ran it.

“It captured something in me, I just felt it was in my blood, I can’t explain the beauty, the freedom.”

The Western States is the world’s oldest and arguably most famous 100-mile race. It leads runners through snowy mountains and boiling hot canyons, over rocky trails and hanging bridges – all with only 30 hours to finish. If you are even one second over, bad luck. No finisher buckle for you.

Ann has won this race 14 times and her course record of 17:37:51 stood for 18 years. But she has never really identified with the term “elite”, she says.

“My favourite runs are things where I run across the Sierras by myself,” she says. “I would just do these runs and mail my clothes somewhere and spend the night and then run back to my car a different way. That’s my favourite thing to do in the world. If I could do that every day, I’d be happy.”

Even if she doesn’t identify with the term elite, Ann has had the competitiveness of an elite runner from the very start. She doesn’t like to be shown up. After learning that one of her idols, Sally Edwards, had run the American River 50 Mile Endurance Run, she decided to sign up too, only six weeks before the event.

Ann caught up with Sally during the race, but the more experienced runner called her a rabbit, suggesting Ann was going out too fast and wouldn’t be able to keep up. That comment didn’t go down well.

“My feelings got hurt, and I decided I was either going to die or I was going to beat her,” Ann recalls.

She won American River that year and set the course record. And then she heard about Western States. When she called home to talk about the 100 mile race, her mother said: “Oh you heard about that? I was afraid of that.”

Knowing how to prepare for such a distance wasn’t easy. The sport was far from as popular as it is now and there was little information to go by.

“There was one guy, Chuck Jones, who’d won it and he ran like a 180, 200 miles a week. So I thought that’s what you did.”

The plan didn’t go well and she ended up with a swollen knee three weeks before the race, dropping out at mile 50. The second year, she became very dehydrated and felt miserable at mile 93 – and the medical staff pulled her.

But this second defeat prompted a big rethink. Ann retreated to her parents’ remote property and spent days writing down everything she had learned in the last two years, seeking solutions for the problems that had cost her the finish. This analysis was to be the key to her subsequent successes.

From then on, she always noted down three problems she might experience during a race and how she would deal with them, be it gear failures or insufficient calorie intake.

“I set my watch to go off every 30 minutes so it reminded me to eat.”

To stay alert mentally, she invented games, such as pretending that every mile she ran represented her age.

It worked well at Western States where runners are faced with a massive climb right at the start. Those first steep miles can discourage runners, but Ann used to tell herself that she was just a few years old and learning to walk. Once you are over that mountain though, there is a lot of downhill.

“At mile 16 and you’re like, you’re adolescent, you better calm down and control your enthusiasm, because you’re going to hit middle age.”

Middle age is the gruelingly hot canyon section, and Ann would promise herself a beautiful retirement of fast running if she took care of herself in middle age. Finally even she would run out of energy, but that’s to be expected when you hit 90.

“With mile 93 when I feel really horrible, I go hey! You’re 93 years old, you’re moving, good going!”

It’s not surprising that Ann has become such an expert at overcoming challenges. She had to.

At college she suffered a knee injury and could no longer run. But after completing her biochemistry degree with honours at UC Berkeley, she got back into training and did a Half Ironman. Then she got hit by a car during bike training and decided to stay away from motor vehicles. She started trail running.

There were plenty of other injuries. She’s run both the Comrades 90k and Western States with a torn cruciate ligament, once badly tore a hamstring and still raced on it, and she has often struggled with back pain. Her surgeon thinks she has a very high pain threshold.

These days women make up nearly a third of the field at ultramarathons, but times were different when Ann started out in the 80s.

“It would be all guys and then there’d be Ann,” she says. “There were a lot fewer women running. There were still a lot of very talented women running, but probably not the depth.”

That also showed itself in some of the attitudes. After she failed to finish Western States twice, a male friend told her she simply didn’t have the right genes for this “man’s sport”. At the next WS race, Ann got back at him.

“When I saw him at mile 75, 70, when I passed him, I asked him how his genes were doing,” she laughs. That year she finished, and won.

Her gene-focused friend wasn’t the only one with outdated ideas. Taking women less seriously in the sport was a common attitude.

In 1996, Ann Trason told the New York Times that when she set a women’s world record some years earlier for 100 kilometers in the Netherlands, the media ignored her and instead focused on the male winner who’d finished ahead of her but hadn’t broken a record.

She also recalls that at some award ceremonies, the men received metal trophies and the women flowers that didn’t even last until they got home.

None of this could stop the sport’s rising popularity among women.

In 1987, when Ann entered WS for the first time, 16 of the 183 finishers were women – a mere 8.7%. In 2003, when Ann ran it for the last time, that percentage had increased to 20%. And at the 2015 Trails in Motion film festival, half the short films were about female athletes.

To be coached by Ann Trason check out her website.

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.

***

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.