As Tropical John Medinger astutely observed, ultrarunning is a hard sport for everyone – back of the pack, middle of the pack and those at the front – and it is this shared experience of suffering that brings all ultraru...

Dear Ann, As a woman new to ultrarunning, I love the sport and its supportive community. But I know it must not have always been so welcoming to women. Can you share what it was like to be a woman in the earlier years o...

As runners, we focus on what will allow us to run and race better, identifying ways to be quicker and to avoid slowing due to numerous potential problems in the later stages of an ultra. Although there are myriad reasons...

In this issue, I wanted to write about gender and its impact on ultrarunning. While I had my own thoughts, I knew they were very much based on personal experience, so a quick online survey would be a good way to see if m...

Vegan, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is defined as “a person who does not eat any food that comes from animals and often does not use animal products, such as leather.” A vegan does not consume seafood, da...

A few years ago, I stumbled upon a book with an interesting subject matter: handwriting analysis. Little was I aware that there is a whole “science” behind the meaning of the flow, shapes, sizes and slants of people’s wr...

No matter what ultra distance you’re tackling, the long training run is going to be the heart and soul of your preparation. Developing stamina, conditioning the muscles, dialing in eating and drinking, testing out clothe...

Women and men take part in marathons in equal numbers, but women still make up a relatively low percentage (~33%) of participants in ultra races. A paper in the mid 1990s published in the prestigious journal Nature predi...

The meat sizzled in the pan – kind of like bacon, but the smell was definitely a little off. I was actually able to swallow it a few minutes later, although that might have just been because it was covered with avocado i...

I still have the letter, though it dates back 20 years now. It was the summer of 1997, and I was a few weeks removed from my first Western States Endurance Run. I’d finished, which was normally cause for celebration....

It has been quite a long time since I have written a book review for this esteemed publication. In the years that my husband and I published UltraRunning, I reviewed five to seven books a year, but that figure is but a s...

I know it’s tempting to skip right to the cool bras we’ve compiled for you, but I ask that you bear with me for a quick moment. See, in researching this article, I’ve learned that many of us ladies are getting the bra th...

“She’s way too thin!” “She needs to wear more clothes. She only does that for attention.” “You don’t fit the image we’re looking for.” “That tattoo is a tramp stamp.” “I can’t believe she’s wearing so much m...

Back before she gained acclaim as one of the foremost female distance runners on the planet, Marcy Schwam entered her first marathon as… a man. At least in the eyes of the Boston Athletic Association. A year after...

It started off like any normal training run: meet at the trailhead and warm up, with the usual chit-chat. As we began, one of the guys asked his buddy, “Hey, Matt, how’d your 100-miler go?” Exuberant, he proudly excla...

When I first heard the term “getting chicked,” I thought it was fairly comical, albeit somewhat sexist. The expression succinctly explains the phenomena of a female ultrarunner passing and beating her male counterpart. I...

This is not one of my usual rants, but rather an affirmation of a widely held concept. The fact is, the female of our species rules, though some of us men would like to believe that we have the upper hand, because we thi...

I suppose I was drawn to Badwater, described as “the world’s toughest foot race,” for much the same reason that I was once compelled to stop and eat at a food truck that advertised “the world’s largest corndogs”: the cha...

It was late afternoon of the sixth day of their trek, and JT, Kim and Novle walked resolutely down the middle of 16th Model Road. Their feet and legs ached with that deep-down ache that comes from 240 miles on the road....

This year, on July 23, 204 runners set out to race the 50k. Waiting for us were views of the Marble Mountain wilderness, Mt. Eddy, Mt. McLoughlin, Preston Peak, the Red Buttes and the Crater Lake rim, all jutting up thro...

Hilly, hot and humid has been the norm at the Psycho Psummer Run Toto Run for the past 10 years. This race was originally conceived (by me) to address the complaints of the winter racers about the (often) very cold condi...

This year marked the 23rd running of the Afton 50K. In 1994, the first year that the race was held, we had thirty-nine 50k finishers, and only one of them was under the age of 30. This year, we had 209 finishers, with 33...

The weather gods smiled on the Tahoe Rim Trail Endurance Runs once again as we enjoyed perfect weather for the 15th edition of this scenic and challenging course on the Carson Mountain Range on the east shore of Lake Tah...

The second annual Angel Creek 50 Mile trail race had a surprise finish, a returning champion and a returning adversary. The race, held on July 16 in interior Alaska’s Chena River State Recreation Area, features 12,000...

The 2nd Annual Sheep Mountain 50-mile was held in Fairplay, CO, on Saturday, July 16. The race serves as the second of five races in our yearly Human Potential Running Series. It’s the middle race of the three we host in...

This year marked the 28th annual running of the Finger Lakes 50s, and there was no letdown. The race is capped by the Finger Lakes National Forest at 250 runners combined for all three distances: 50 miles, 50k and 25k. A...

A few months ago, totally crazy friends of mine convinced me to enter a brand new, invite-only “fat ass” style race in the Washington Cascades happening at the end of July. “Let’s road trip!” they said. “It’ll mostly be...

The morning of the Honey Badger 100 Mile road race was similar to that of any other race. I met up with my fellow ultrarunner friends at the start line and tried to calm the nervous butterflies in my stomach. I started t...

In just its third running, the Buff Epic Trail Aiguestortes took the world stage as host to the 2016 Skyrunning World Championships from July 22-24. As a family of travelers and adventure-seekers, we were planning to spe...