This is from the USATF website:<br><br>
Ann Trason<br><br>
Born August 30, 1960<br>
Pacific Grove HS, Pacific Grove, Ca '78<br><br>
PRs (outdoor track):<br>
3,0009:58.2 '78<br>
10,00035:11.2 '78<br>
50K3:20:23 '95 (AR)<br>
40M4:34:55 '96 (AR)<br>
50M6:16:06 '91<br>
100K7:50:08 '91 (AR)<br>
150K13:21:45 '89 (WR)<br>
100M14:29:44 '89 (WR)<br>
12 Hours91M, 1258y '91 (WR)<br><br>
PRs (road):<br>
5K17:11 '95<br>
Half-Marathon 1:17:35 '85<br>
Marathon2:39:15 '92<br>
40M4:26:13 '91 (WR)<br>
50M5:40:18 '91 (WR)<br>
100K7:00:47 '95 (WR)<br>
12 Hours91M, 1312y '91 (WR)<br>
100M =13:47:42 '91 (WR)<br><br><br><br><br><br>
So far removed from the confines of mainstream track & field, Ann Trason would labor in virtual anonymity were it not for the mind-boggling scope of her achievements. She is the greatest ultra-distance runner in the history of the United States and probably the world.<br><br>
Consider the facts:<br><br>
*Her most impressive record may be her 7:00:47 for 100K on the road. That's 62 miles at a 6:44 per mile clip. That won her the 1995 World Ultra title, though she confesses she hates competing on the track, and only did it for the U.S. team.<br><br>
*She has won the Western States 100M trail race an unmatched seven times. Her record for the course is 17 hours, 37 minutes, 51 seconds. That's the time it took her to cover 100 miles of dirt trails in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada. Part of the run is in darkness; most of it is hilly: elevation changes some 40,000 feet from start to finish.<br><br>
*She is competitive with the finest men in the sport. Twice at Western States only one man has beaten her.<br><br>
Trason faces more challenges and ordeals in one race than the average athlete faces in a season. Last year, she encountered her biggest challenge. Troubled by mysterious leg pains, she stopped running for seven weeks early in the year to recover. Her leg felt better, but she had concerns about her resulting lack of fitness.<br><br>
She decided to run the Comrades ultramarathon in South Africa in June, a 56-mile contest that is the world's largest (13,000 starters) and most prestigious. She had long wanted to test herself on the course. Each year the race reverses direction; one year it's uphill, the next year down. In an ascent year, Trason broke the course record and beat the defending champion by 11 minutes.<br><br>
Twelve days later, she showed at the starting line of the Western States, the race she virtually owns. Still exhausted from the South Africa trip, she admitted she had no idea how she would fare. She made it seem easy, chugging along to win in 18:57:36, well off her own course record but behind only two men.<br><br>
The leg pain came and went. In September, Trason traveled to Nantes, France, for a major 100K track race. Leading by eleven minutes at 40 miles (she broke the American record and was on World record pace for the whole distance), she was forced to quit by the pain. "I just couldn't run anymore," she says. Then came the diagnosis from her doctor: A ruptured hamstring. When she finally had the surgery in November, the muscle was 90% ruptured.<br><br>
"It was a frustrating year because I didn't know what was wrong with me," she says. "The races, I knew they weren't my best. I think I know why now. It was quite painful.<br><br>
"The doctors had to reattach the hamstring to the fibial head. They never heard of anyone doing this before. It didn't show up on an MRI."<br><br>
The unusual surgery carries with it a recovery time of up to a year. Not surprisingly, Trason is down on her future prospects in the sport. "I can't imagine ever really competing again," she admits. "The surgeon is really optimistic. That's why I go to him. A lot of doctors would say, 'Hey, you know, you shouldn't run ultras. It's stupid.' This guy's a little insane. He's the doctor for the Ironman [Triathlon]. He says, 'I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to run Western States.' I said, 'And win?' and he didn't say anything."<br><br>
Trason says her doctor conferred with eight other surgeons in the field and said they all thought she'd come back. She counters, "But they're not living with this leg right now. It's hard to imagine.<br><br>
"I don't know about competing [again]. Because the pain last year was so much. I never felt so much pain in my life. We thought it was something else, a nervous injury. I just kept running on it. I don't know if I feel pain in a race again, if I'll just back off."<br><br>
If the competitive life is over for Trason, she says she'll be fine, as long as she can accompany her husband, Carl, on their favorite 30 mile loop. Soon she will be entering school again to get a masters in physical therapy. In the meantime, she spends time with her four cats; her friends call her the "Cat Lady." She adds, "My husband and I spend a lot of time working on an old house near Berkeley. We're the Readers' Digest home improvement video people," she laughs. "Home Depot is the most confusing place for us."<br><br>
Trason was an age group track star just prior to the time women had much access to track at the schools. As a senior in high school in 1978, she ran 9:58.2 for 3,000m and 35:11.2 for 10,000m. Tony Sandoval, now the Cal women's coach, recruited her to run for his team at New Mexico. "I was injured and I never could run for him," she says. "Such disappointment. I decided to transfer schools. I went up to Berkeley and was running five miles three or four times a week. I just got involved in school. I never really thought about competing. I didn't really like running on the track. I liked cross country, but they had me run 10K on the track when I was in high school. It was awful. My hat goes off to those people who do it. I think it's a horrible event."<br><br>
Years later, she returned to competition. "I was intrigued by endurance activities like triathlons," she explains. "I did a half Ironman in 1984 and I almost drowned. I can't swim. After that I got hit by a car on my bike and I damaged my arm pretty badly and I couldn't swim at all. My bike was destroyed. So I started just running." Good call, one has to think.<br><br>
"I wanted to run a marathon and I saw an ad for a 50-mile race. It seemed like it would take a little longer but it was the same mentality. That was in 1985, the American River 50. So I did it."<br><br>
In 1987, she worked up the nerve to try her first Western States run. She didn't make it. A year later, the same story. Then she went to Leadville, Colorado, for the annual trail 100M. She finished, even with having to cross 13,000-foot Hope Pass twice. "I've finished every trail 100 -- knock on wood -- that I've started since then. It kind of made up for those two disappointments."<br><br>
The secret to running long? "If you focus on the short goals, it goes by pretty fast," she says. "If you concentrate hard enough, the day goes by pretty fast."<br><br>
If only injuries went away so quickly...
