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Katie Lovis is a few weeks away from realising one of her trail running dreams. In the middle of August, she’ll be in Colorado, running the Leadville 100 mile race. It’s one of trail running’s most iconic events with a 40+ year history and an amazing backstory.

“Almost everyone who gets really into ultra running has dream races,” Katie says. “There are heaps of races that are cool, and that you want to do… But there are one or two races where you think, ‘If I can finish that, that's THE race. And Leadville’s always been that for me.”

It’s been quite the journey for Katie to get to the starting line. Her biggest training weeks are behind her. She’s done the work, all that remains now is to make the journey to the US and run the actual race.

Leadville is brutal, about half the runners who start don’t get to the finish line. And it’s run at altitude. Leadville has the distinction of being the city with the highest elevation in the United States.

That makes conditions very different to Brisbane, where Katie lives and trains, which is at sea level. Despite that, anyone who’s met Katie Lovis won’t be betting against her.

Road to Leadville

It’s not for nothing that Leadville is recognised as one of the toughest trail races on the planet. This is not a race for beginners, nor for the faint-hearted. Luckily, Katie is neither.

In fact the race’s trademark tagline “Grit - Guts - Determination” could just about be her motto. Perhaps best exemplified by that time she ran more than 300 kilometres on a broken leg. But I’ll come to that…

Katie says she’s always been an avid runner and has run five or six times a week for the past 15 years. “I started running when I was about 8 years old. And I remember quite vividly when I was a kid, I’d always do the running races in primary school and lose. And my Dad said, ‘It’s not that you’re not fast enough, it’s that the races are too short,’” she says. (BTW, don’t we all wish we had a father like that…)

At high school Katie started rowing, which she says taught her to do hard things for a long time. “I think that taught me to exist through pain fairly comfortably. My rowing coach used to say pain is just weakness leaving the body,” she says.

Rowing gave way to triathlon, but throughout she was running - albeit as a middle of the pack, four-hour marathoner. Then, around eight years ago, she moved to Margaret River in WA. “I got on the trails. And that’s when everything changed.”

She joined the Margaret River Trail Running Club “and just loved it”. It wasn’t like the other sports. “Trail running’s just about chatting with your mates … chats and snacks.” With the bonus of being out in the natural environment.

And she found while she was a middle of the pack road runner, it was a different story on the trails. “As soon as I got on trails, I started getting better and better. The longer I went, I got stronger and stronger. I had a really good community and it went from there.”

This is a theme Katie returns to over and over again during our conversation - the trail running community and how welcoming it is. “I think trail running is far more inclusive and fun because honestly, your ego gets squashed pretty quickly because Mother Nature dictates what pace you're going,” she says.

She draws the comparison between running or cycling on the road versus on the trails. On the road, you’re looking for every marginal gain you can find - super shoes, carbon frames, the one percenters. “Whereas on the trails, yeah, there’s gear that can help. But an old bloke in Dunlops can come past and beat you no problems because he’s just gritty.

“Especially when you start to get into the 100 milers - it’s a mental game,” she says. Then there’s the fact that most long trail runs are run at conversational pace, which is ideal for, well, conversation. And that makes it a whole lot easier to build relationships.

Hitting the trails

Katie’s first ultra was a 50k run entirely on sand - the aptly named Sandman 50. She came second. So she entered her local race - the Margaret River Ultra 80k. “I absolutely bombed it. I had no idea what I was doing. My nutrition was shocking, I vomited for 50 kilometres.

“But I finished and it was a huge day. I was crewed by my sister and my best friend Aaron. And I was like, ‘I've got the bug for this. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I know I can learn and I've watched all these people do amazing things.’ Just the feeling of finishing something that seemed so out of the scope of possibility – I was hooked!”

Not one to do things by halves, Katie’s next challenge was to run the Cape to Cape Track in Western Australia, home territory because the Margaret River Ultra runs along it. The track is 135k long and the tourist information website suggests it’s tackled as a 10-day walk.

Katie ran it in 17 hours and some minutes, setting the record for a supported run (as opposed to running with no outside help) by a woman. She describes it as one of her best running experiences ever. “I had the best day, just the best day. It was so much fun. And that really lit the fire in me and it made me realise if I put the work in, I could do something with this.”

Next was the Run Larapinta long course stage race - four days totalling around 130k. She won that. And she won the Pemberton 50k. And the Collie Trail Marathon. By this stage, it wasn’t just Katie who was thinking she might be able to “do something with this” - she became a sponsored athlete with Altra, a US-based footwear and apparel brand.

Break a leg

Winning all these 50k races was clearly a bit ho-hum for Katie - “I wanted to go and do something quite big,” she says. She had lived for a time in Broome, so in 2023 came up with a plan that would mean running through the stunning country of the Kimberley.

“I wanted to be the first woman to ever run the Gibb River Road, which is a 660-kilometre, four-wheel-drive track,” she says. I think we can all agree that qualifies as “quite big”. But this time things didn’t go to plan. She trained really hard, to the point of over-training.

“I got up to the Gibb and I could tell I was injured. My Achilles was really hurting and my leg in general was really hurting. Somewhere on that first day, my fibula snapped. I didn’t realise though, and then proceeded to run 363 kilometres.”

At that point though, a little over halfway towards her goal, she collapsed. “It was pretty devastating at the time, but now that I look back I actually have no regrets whatsoever,” she says. “I wouldn’t recommend anyone run on an injury like that, but for me to learn a lesson it’s got to be quite extreme, and I learned that [over-training] was too much.”

In case you’re wondering, the fibula is the non-weight bearing bone in the bottom half of your leg. So it’s possible, though not recommended, to walk with a broken fibula. I haven’t consulted a doctor, but I’m pretty sure running 360+ kilometres on one is a really bad idea.

This was a blow. Katie couldn’t run for 10 weeks and lost a lot of fitness. She’d only just signed with Altra, but they stuck with her through the rehab - gravel biking, walking, strength training, hours in the gym.

Finally she was ready for her comeback race - the Sandman 50 ultra, the race that had started her ultra marathon journey. She was second the first time around and this time she wanted to win.

“So I took off and I was like, ‘Oh, I feel so sick.’ And so I was running, running, running and feeling so sick, sick, sick. Then [after the race], I found out I was pregnant, so that was that.”

In the interim, she’d been accepted to run Leadville. Now she had to tell both her sponsor and the organisers of her dream race that she was pregnant. “But both were brilliant. 
They said no problems. We want to stay with you, we'll defer your entry, all good.”

As you’d expect, being pregnant was no obstacle for a woman who’s run more than 300k on a broken leg. “I ran two races when I was pregnant. I did the Golden Trail series in Newcastle, when I was four and a half months pregnant. I got fifth there.

“Then I ran one of the Scenic Rim Trail events when I first moved here [to Brisbane]. I was eight months pregnant at that point.
 I got second there. Then I had [my son] Alex, had about a month off and then returned.

“Since then I’ve done the Top of the Range race, which I won and then I did the Brisbane Trail Marathon, where I came third.” And she was seventh at The Guzzler 50k, run as part of her training program for Leadville.

Find your people

Katie says the running clubs she’s been a part of - the Margaret River Trail Running Club and The Trailiens - have made a huge contribution to her success, but also her “ability to withstand the failures”.

Having that community meant she was able to run throughout her pregnancy. There was someone there to walk with her when she was recovering from her broken leg. “They never made me feel like I couldn’t come. There were plenty of options,” she says.

“Those communities are so important. If you're a beginner to trail running and you want to get better, go seek them out because there are so many very quiet, humble people in those clubs that are phenomenal.

“You'll learn from them just by watching them and being in their presence. So I think that's been the biggest thing for my running career - being involved in those clubs. 
There's no way I would have persisted as I have without them.”

Tough mother

Becoming a mother has changed Katie’s approach to training and racing, but not as much as she thought it would. She says having a small human to care for has forced her to train smarter, not harder - a great discipline after the disaster of over-training in the lead-up to her crack at the Gibb River Road.

She’s never tempted to go longer than what’s in her training plan, and she doesn’t want to waste time. “I want to get home to my boy. I love hanging out with him. So he's definitely been the motivator to keep me in check with my program,” she says.

She also calls out the support of her partner Brad and his mother, who step in to help her keep on track. And again, the support of her trail running community.

Mentally things have changed for Katie since she became a mother too. “I feel mentally stronger than I ever have. I go out running and it's such a joy because that's my time. I don't feel any stress.”

Running has made her a better mum, she says, because she comes home happy after she’s been running, and she’s able to model an active, outdoors lifestyle for Alex, even though he’s not yet walking.

In a couple of weeks Alex will have his first overseas trip to watch his mum tackle one of the most elite events in world trail running. He may not remember it, but for Katie, it will be a dream come true.

Upcoming Events

There are way too many events for me to list everything that’s happening around the country, but here is a selection of upcoming races (with a bias towards South East Queensland).

The Running Calendar website is a great source if you want a comprehensive understanding of what’s available around Australia.