In Aesop's Fables, Jamie Donaldson would fall squarely in the Tortoise camp. After all, the Hare wouldn't last two minutes in Death Valley.

"It's all about patience, saving yourself for later," Mrs. Donaldson said.

Among the myriad crazy-sounding endurance sports in this wide world, it is widely acknowledged that the Badwater Ultramarathon is in the top five on anyone's list.

Ultras are grueling in nature, often run through forests, deserts, in the dark of night -- and they can be more than 100 miles. Badwater is considered in a league of its own, a 135-mile California footrace from Badwater, Death Valley, to the portals of Mount Whitney. That's a cumulative vertical ascent of 13,000 feet, from 280 feet below sea level, across three mountain ranges, to the highest point in the contiguous United States.

And it's held in mid-July.

Mrs. Donaldson, 35, who got her start running track and cross-country at Freeport Area High School, will run again in Badwater this year and she is more than up to the task. She owns the Badwater women's record of 26 hours, 51 minutes and 33 seconds.

Badwater is such a dangerous event that sponsor AdventureCORPS uses a rigid screening process to limit the field to fewer than 90 runners. Each participant has to provide a personal crew to supply food, fluids, even massages.

"I can't do it without them," Mrs. Donaldson said of her helpers. "In a normal ultra, you might be running by yourself for 20 miles and come to an aid station. My husband might be there, then you run three or four hours and there's another aid station.

"Badwater is so different. It's more of a team effort because they're all working toward one goal. Sure, I'm doing all the running, but they're working just as hard, filling water bottles, keeping me comfortable. There's that common bond, and it's a wonderful thing."

By day, she teaches middle school math in Littleton, Colo. Before dawn and after school, she's on the roads, including running some 24-hour events on weekends.

"I don't think [my students] can really grasp it, so I tell them, when you're just getting up on Saturday, I'm running. While you're eating breakfast, I'm running. You go to bed, I'm still running!"

Mrs. Donaldson is quick to note that speed is not her forte. She competed well for Freeport Area and Penn State University, but running wasn't a true calling until she ran the 2002 Pittsburgh Marathon with her father, Rex Rutkowski.

Her 3:23 time -- which would have placed her among the top 30 women who finished this year's race -- was just the start. A 50-kilometer race was the next challenge, followed by a 100K, or 62.14 miles.

"I had found my niche," she said.

Summers spent working in the Rocky Mountains as a housekeeper -- "You step out the door every day and it's like a postcard," she said -- prompted her to move west after college.

She has been putting in 100-mile weeks on the roads, but her real travels involve running for the U.S. national team. At the world 24-hour championships sponsored by the American Ultrarunning Association last week in Brive, France, she finished 111th among the 229 combined male and female finishers Friday after completing 120 miles. She competed in previous years' events in South Korea and Italy.

Last year, she ran more than 136 miles in difficult conditions at the world championships, finishing first among American women and men and fourth overall for women.

One of the big differences between ultras and regular, 26.2-mile marathons can be pretty wild: an alligator lounged by the road in an event in Florida, and a rattlesnake with full-on rattle was on the path of an April training run. Once at Badwater, she practically kicked up a scorpion.

But the real danger comes from the wear-and-tear of all that running.

"I just have to be really careful to listen to my body. I follow a schedule of hard/easy, it's a lot of miles ... In races I learned really quickly not to pay attention to anyone else. Stick to it, be patient."

Because slow and steady really does win the ultra race.

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