Ann is arguably the strongest athlete in the history of ultrarunning. Many Europeans may have never even heard of it which is like saying a football fan has never heard of Maradona.
For long-distance runners, she is a living legend, and we could not leave Runlovers without a piece on her, although it will never be exhaustive. Ann Trason has dominated the ultrarunning scene for two decades and I will try to briefly explain who she is, in addition to the palmares that would already speak for itself.
First of all, let’s say that Ann has always been shy of fame, vainglory and talking about herself; she has, in practice, never given interviews.
For us, it is normal to see even nobodies seek popularity and fan following, as well as to regard social media influencers as real stars; therefore, Ann Trason is a character that clashes with our contemporary way of thinking. In his own way, he is a character we might call “from another era,” mainly because of his low-profile attitude, which for most people is something inconceivable.
“I’m just a woman who ran a lot.”
Ann has always loved running, and in high school she was already running. She is strong, a determined girl, too bad about a knee pain that always bothers her. It was her sore knee that caused her to quit running after high school, despite being a promising athlete. He would later confess, however, that he was beginning to get bored with track athletics, due to the fact that everyone was so obsessed with the stopwatch.
He stopped running for a while, then at age 25, in 1985, he read in a magazine about a 50-mile race called American River. He decided to sign up, although he had never tried the distance.
He showed up to the race not knowing anything, it was a very hot day, and he had nothing to drink with him. She was “saved” by a guy on the route who gave her a small bottle of water.
Vince.
But then she decides to stop running again, even though people tell her she should continue.
Ann quits anyway, for two years.
In 1987, he was at the start of the Western States 100. Again, he has no idea what it means to run 160 kilometers.
He retired mid-race due to too much pain in his knee. However, while not happy with how it went, she is not disappointed. He discovered the unique side of ultrarunning, that of people helping each other, true friendships, and volunteers doing something because they love doing it, without seeking personal gain.
She was so enthralled that a year later, in 1988, she entered the competition again. He starts and retires after half a race, again, with a sore knee.
However, Ann is a determined girl and, more importantly, she can suffer.
A year later then, 1989, he decided to reappear again at the Western States 100, the race of races.
Vince.
It will be the first of 14 times he will win the world’s most important 100-mile race.
The following year, 1990, he tore his anterior cruciate ligament.
Keep running on it.
In 1994 he won Western States 100 again by printing the race record: 17 hours and 37 minutes. After a few months he also won the Leadville 100. Print the record there as well. 18 hours and 6 minutes. She finished second overall in the standings.
Ann’s record at Western States was broken only in 2012, eighteen years later, by Ellie Greenwood, in the year when temperatures in the race were particularly low; after that time, no woman has managed to run stronger than Trason. Never.
In 1996, while suffering from knee pain, Ann made it a double victory at Western States and Comrades, two races run within two weeks of each other.
The pain in his knee is such that he often comes home from practice crying.
The next year he still decided to run and again sealed the Western States 100 and Comrades double.
In the marathon he has a personal best of 2 hours 39 minutes without ever having trained specifically for this distance. This time earned her participation in the Trials for the Olympics marathon with the U.S. three times.
In 2003 he won Western States again.
In 2004, however, he stopped running.
That year Ann decided to see a doctor. The report says she has the ligament completely torn from the bone; she needs surgery.
The real reason that leads the California girl to hang up her shoes, however, is another, and it is certainly not physical pain, which she has lived with practically forever.
Her husband, a trusted assistant in competition and training partner, has an injury from which he cannot recover. Ann stops because he can no longer run.
At the peak of her career, when by now Ann is unbeatable and practically running for the overall and not the gender rankings, she stops, suddenly. Drop everything.
2013 arrives; a very strange year for Trason. The affair with her former husband ends badly; the two divorce. That’s 10 years in which Ann has not run a single meter. She limited herself to long rides on a road bike, because her husband was not bad at pedaling. Life in this year is called into question, as is often the case when dealing with trauma.
That year Ann was invited by Western States management to take part in a guest appearance the day before the event. No matter how much of a “no big deal” it is for her, she is still the woman who has won 14 cougars (which she has given away around area running stores) and a living legend for the entire long-distance running scene.
Ann attended the ceremony and returned to the Western States trails the next day as a volunteer, serving at the 70th mile aid station.
At one point a guy fighting to stay within the maximum race time asks if there is anyone who can help him. Ann decides to leave to be his pacer. A few runners notice the Californian: she is genuinely amazed that anyone recognizes her; the guy she was pacering, on the other hand, has no idea who she is.
Also in the same year Ann reappears at the start of a 100-mile race; she is 53 years old.
The story changes. Ann does not win, taking over 33 hours, about 15 hours slower than she was used to running. She says she is in the worst shape of her life, but she is having fun, a lot of fun, and finding the community she left behind, which was what she missed most. Victories come and go, glory also, people stay.
Ann, even now, has not stopped running.
Postscript
One day a couple of years ago, after a 100-mile ride in the desert, I was looking for a hitchhiking ride back to town. I stand with a sign by a road and wait. Along comes a blond chick, dressed in a fleece costume of a unicorn, who has just run 50 miles pacering for her friend.
He asks me if I need a tear down telling me that if he can help, he will gladly do it.
