Three seasons exist in southwest Montana: calving, haying, and feeding. Between the all-nighters to bail alfalfa glittering with dew, tagging a sea of 1,870-pound Black Angus cattle, aiding birthing cows, and bottle-feeding dozens of calves, the Crazy Mountain 100 race director Megan DeHaan throws in runs whenever she can—often around 4:30 A.M., when she’s not grinding dusk to dawn. It helps that the ultrarunner-rancher’s two boys, Cody and Cayson, are now old enough to cook, do laundry, and drive the tractor.
DeHaan, 37, is a rancher, ultrarunner, and race organizer of one of the gnarliest 100-milers in the country. The race, which launched last summer, also happens to be Montana’s first 100-mile foot race.
DeHaan didn’t grow up running or ranching. She grew up in California but felt a call to be a cowgirl. “I took the first ticket out of the [San Francisco] Bay Area I could find,” she says. When she saw an ad for a horseshoeing course at Montana State University in Western Horseman, the 17-year-old left.
That saddle-making school, as well as an animal husbandry job with Trans Ova Genetics, planted her…
