“No peein’ off the porch” is the sign that greets me as I wait on Craig Thornley’s deck.

He is in the kitchen to make tea and one of his cats is keeping an eye on me from under a wooden bench. What do Western States runners get up to on their race director’s porch?

Once he joins me with two mugs, he tells me it was just one guy, but he was a repeat offender. Some house rules might be inevitable, given how full his and his wife Laurie’s house can get come June.  The location is no accident – the race director lives just a mile from the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run finish line.

Listen to the full interview with Western States Race Director Craig Thornley:

This week, thousands of runners around the world enter the lottery in the hope of scoring a spot in this iconic race from Squaw Valley to Auburn, California. Numbers are capped at less than 400 runners, due to permits.

The organizers want to balance being an elite event that grants some top athletes automatic entry with being inclusive by giving also slower runners who have managed to qualify a chance to participate. Either way, those chances are slim and stand at less than 5% at first try. The most consecutive years you qualify and enter, the better the odds.

WS has come a long way in four decades. Originally a 100-mile race for horses called the Tevis Cup, a man called Gordy Ainsleigh one day decided to run it, and finished in under 24 hours.

“He obviously had something in his head that not too many of us were, at least, able to show that we had it. So he decides to run,” Craig Thornlesays.

After that first finish in 1974, the race doctor thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime feat that no one would ever duplicate.

“It was just so far out there to think of running in these kind of temperatures and this terrain, the canyons are just not very friendly, and he just started this crazy sport. It wasn’t that he started ultrarunning, but it was covering 100 miles in this type of terrain, ” Craig says.

By now, thousands have finished WS and many thousands more want to run it.

The training weekends, such as the Memorial weekend I took part in, are one way to see much of the course without winning the race lottery. Anyone can take part, and volunteers often include highly accomplished runners with a long WS history, such as Tim Twietmeyer or Ann Trason.

Craig sees runners off in the morning and greet everyone with a big smile and some hugs at the finish line each day.

The race director has grown up with this race. When Craig was a teenager, it found him in the form of an exhausted runner tumbling out of the woodwork as he and his brother were out camping.

The runner wanted to know where the aid station was. The brothers had no idea what he was talking about, but they never forgot the look in his eyes.

“Not blank, but there’s definitely a whole lot going on and we just knew that we have to experience whatever they are experiencing. You could read a lot into those eyes,” Craig said.

After working the Dusty Corners aid station for 10 years, Craig ran the race for the first time in 2001 and finished, a feat he has pulled of seven times since, always in under 24 hours.

Finishing in one day earns runners a highly sought-after silver belt buckle. These buckles are custom-made from sterling silver and valued at USD 355 – nearly the race entry fee.

The belt buckles are another legacy from the Tevis Cup, originally meant for riders. The makers from Comstock Heritage aren’t runners themselves, but have a lot of appreciation for what the buckle means to people.

“They are totally engaged, they are excited that they get to make the buckle that so many people want to earn.”

“It’s not just that it’s a 355 dollar buckle, but it’s what that buckle represents, that whole effort, commitment, not just on race day alone but getting to the race and preparing, and all the sacrifices. It’s symbolic of so much more than just a finishing time.” Watch how the buckle is made.

It’s not the first race Craig Thornley has been directing, but it’s certainly one on a completely new scale. His professional background is in IT, but on the side he’d already set up the Waldo 100k Trail Run in Oregon.

“I started developing Waldo and it became a really well-respected race, it was a national championship,” he says.

“I got to implement my ideas of what I think a race should be like, treating every runner equally, first class service at aid stations where the volunteers are very knowledgeable. […] I got to use it as kind of a playground, as a learning tool.”

Added to his race organizing experience, Craig was also a national sky patroller for years, and stewarded 16 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. So when the WS role came up, he had no trouble getting an interview. He did have trouble getting TO the interview, though.

Having committed to helping champion runner and friend Meghan Arbogast race the day before, he’d booked the earliest morning flight to make it in time.

It ended up being an epic day of flight delays, missed connection flights, rebookings, and finally a way-too-helpful rental car assistant hell-bent on selling him everything he didn’t need, ultimately leaving him chasing down the highway with no time to lose.

And then there was the problem of not usually using deodorant. We all know what happens when you’re under a lot of stress and there’s no deodorant around. Not good.

“The interview of my life and I smell so bad!” he laughs.

He was driving so fast that he made up enough minutes to storm into a petrol station and get some deodorant, and – smelling beautifully – got the job.

So now that he’s held the position for three years, where does he want to take the race?

“I definitely want to see us involved in the international scene. We are already making contributions by being involved in Ultra-Trail World Tour and the International Trail Running Association. I want to see the race continue to be relevant on the competitive scene in the world, attracting the top 100-mile runners of the world,” Craig Thornley says.

Craig is conscious of the fact that WS has less than 400 runners each year, while races like the UTMB series have thousands.

He believes the event’s relevance could decline if they don’t stay on top of things, cooperating with and learning from other races around the world.

“I want to make sure we continue to lead the sport and have the best practices in everything.”

The race also wants to continue evolving its medical research. Changes include moving away from overusing IVs to combat hyponatremia (abnormally low blood sodium levels), as it has been found that the risks often outweigh the benefits of this practice, and most runners will recover without infusions, Craig says.

“When we do get a case of hyponatremia we know now that we can give people hypertonic saline, which is three times the normal saline of your body. If you’re not hyponatremic it won’t hurt you, and if you are, it will help you equalise sodium in your blood, in your body, much faster.”

Continuing to attract the best of the sport is important, but WS also continues to be committed to welcoming runners from all walks of life and making sure everyone is treated equally special on race day.

“Every person who comes to WS, whether you are 30 hours or whether you are 14 hours, has an experience that will be unmatched. It will be a memorable day of your life, you will not forget your experience at WS.”

This year, the last finisher was 70-year old Gunhild Swanson, who made it with seconds to spare before the 30-hour cut-off, becoming the oldest woman to ever have finished Western States.

She ran the last mile accompanied by family, friends and overall winner Rob Krar, who cheered her on wearing flip flops after having finished his own race in 14:48:59 – a beautiful show of how much camaraderie there is in the sport.

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.