Don't bother asking why. Raymond Sanchez cannot exactly put it into words and, even if he could, any explanation would pale compared with the visceral rush of running an ultramarathon trail event. You just have to experience it.

Beyond the pain and fatigue of running all day and into the night over hill and trail, beyond the soul-sapping mental obstacles, come moments of transcendence too ethereal to fully verbalize.

"There comes a point in a race," says Sanchez, 40, a mechanical engineer for Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Sacramento, "where it's like you've dreamed the whole thing away. You don't feel pain. You feel nothing. You're outside your body going, "Wow, I just did another 10 miles,' and you don't even realize it."

Sanchez lives for those times. He can endure the rest. Pain is the price he pays, willingly.

Perhaps only other ultramarathoners truly understand. But even some of those in this tight-knit community of long-long-long-distance runners look at Sanchez with a mixture of admiration and incredulity.

He's not the fastest ultrarunner out there, and certainly not the most experienced. But he arguably may be the most extreme and, certainly, the quickest learner.

Such precocity - yes, even at age 40 - has led Sanchez to be one of three U.S. ultrarunners (50 overall) invited to the Serra da Mantiqueira mountains for the Brazil 135 Ultramarathon in January.

Quite an ascension for Sanchez, who a little over a year ago was something of a casual runner. He finished 23rd - out of 27 who finished - in 58 hours, 46 minutes.

Sure, he had been such a good Golden Gloves boxer in his younger days that he qualified for the 1996 U.S. Olympic Trials in the 147-pound division. But since leaving the sport, entering the workforce and raising two daughters, he exercised "only here and there."

Then Sanchez started talking with Dr. Thomas Zinkle, a Kaiser psychologist and friend who is an avid ultramarathoner and booster of the sport. So, Sanchez figured, "Hey, if Zinkle is 63 and can run 100 miles, why not me?"

As a first test - a baby step, as it were - Sanchez signed up for the 2006 California International Marathon. His goal was to break three hours. He didn't do it, finishing at 3 hours, 12 minutes. That was good enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon, but not satisfactory to Sanchez.

He had longer, more grueling, races in mind for 2007. Essentially, he just never stopped running. Virtually every weekend, he'd find a race, marathon distance or longer, and run. By the end of 2007, he had completed 25 races - 10 marathons, two 100-mile trail races, two 50-milers, nine 50-kilometer (31.06 miles) races and a few smaller trail races (18 to 25 kilometers) when nothing else was available.

And it's not as if he was a shuffler at the back of the pack. He won the fourth race he entered, the Golden Gate Headlands Trail marathon on March 1, then turned around three days later and finished fifth in the Kaiser Napa Valley Marathon. Sanchez posted four other top-three finishes in 2007, but his most impressive stretch came over four weeks starting in mid-July.

He finished sixth in the Angel Island 50K on July 17 and, four days later, tackled his first 100-mile event, the Tahoe Rim Trail Run. He finished 19th in 27 hours, not bad for a newcomer, and came back eight days later to finish second in the Salt Point 50K. Finally, on Aug. 11, he ran his second 100-mile trail race, the Headlands Hundred in Marin County, and finished second.

This was not normal.

"Most new ultrarunners are happy just to finish," says Scott Dunlap, an experienced ultrarunner from the Bay Area. "But Ray stayed competitive throughout the whole season. It's rare to see somebody stay consistent through their first season."

All told, Sanchez logged 849.71 miles of racing in 2007, not to mention all the training he put in each week. And that's not counting the 107 miles he ran in September in the Rio del Lago 100 in Folsom, where Sanchez got lost on the course, did extra loops and eventually dropped out.

Amazingly, he had only one injury the entire year, a pulled calf muscle that slowed - but did not stop - him during a race.

Can you say obsessive?

Well, no. Sanchez, soft-spoken and quick with a smile, says his sudden affinity for ultrarunning is not an obsession.

OK, how about masochistic?

The closest Sanchez will come to admitting that is his response to the question of what compels him to run: "It's hard."

Peers can attest to that.

"Ray must have a natural genetic trait of high endurance and ability to recover quickly," says Alan Geraldi, a veteran ultrarunner from Redwood City. "So even though Ray is relatively new to the sport, he has the benefit of starting with a much more developed base than, say, a person who has not been active in other endurance events."

Put simply, adds veteran Lake Tahoe-area ultrarunner Peter Lubbers, Sanchez "has the build for it, lean and small. Maybe it just took him awhile to find a sport where he clicked."

Whenever competitors ask Sanchez about his running background, he likes to say, jokingly, "I came out of the woodwork."

Not true. As a teen in the early 1980s, Sanchez ran cross-country at McClatchy and Valley high schools in California.

"I was good, but I never practiced," he says.

Boxing later became his sport of choice, and Sanchez did show dedication in the ring. He was a welterweight (around 140 pounds), competing in Golden Gloves competitions throughout the state.

"A lot of boxers don't like to run," Sanchez says. "I liked it. I ran a lot of stairs back then. They really are different sports, except both are a lot of torture on your body. In boxing, you'll have sore ribs and jaw, but you heal faster. In running, it takes a while."

His high pain threshold, coupled with inexperience in ultras, may be why Sanchez was able to race so often at such a high success level.

But more-experienced runners caution that he's tempting burnout.

"If you really want to peak at certain events, you can't be racing like he is every weekend," Lubbers says. "Certainly, if you do a 100-miler, you don't go out two weeks later and do it again. If he had not run the Tahoe (100) before the Headlands (100), he might have won that race." (Sanchez finished second at Headlands.)

But, as Geraldi adds, "What may be excessive for one person may not be excessive for Ray."

Sanchez says he respects others' opinions but disagrees.

"By running more races," he explains, "I get stronger."

What amazes Zinkle, the Kaiser doctor who first piqued Sanchez's interest, is his friend's doggedness.

"The general wisdom is that everybody expected he'd have lots of disasters, or crash and burn, because of lack of experience," Zinkle says.

Actually, Sanchez admits making many rookie mistakes, which makes his success all the more impressive.

"I'm lucky," he says. "There are things I have to learn."

Such as?

Well, such as not going out too fast. In his first 50-mile race, the American River Endurance Run, he made that error and finished a distant 47th, albeit at a respectable nine-minute-per-mile pace.

Such as not having pacers to run part of the way with him, or a support crew to hand him food and encouragement.

"I always do everything solo," he says.

Such as not having the proper equipment, including a headlamp for night running at the Tahoe 100. Or, not forgetting to leave extra shoes in his drop bag along the course.

"I learned the hard way to bring a light," he says. "It was dark when we took off and I was trying to keep up with the leaders. The first hill was three miles straight up, and I'm in the dark.

"And I wore out the bottom of my shoes on the Tahoe downhills. The rockiness literally took out the soles.

Such as not getting lost, as he did during the Rio del Lago 100.

"I still don't know how it happened," he says. "I was coming off the Hazel Bridge and went around part of the lake, but somehow ended up an hour and a half later back at the same aid station I had left. The lady said, 'Hey, you've already been here.' I thought, 'Oh, man.' I eventually dropped out rather than run the extra 17 miles, because I had two races the weekend after that."

For Sanchez, it's not about winning; it's about pushing. Farther and, secondarily, faster.

Which is why his 2008 goal is to take it all even a step (well, many steps) further. His plan for this year seems even rougher than last year - 26 ultraraces, including the three World Cup Ultra Marathons events (the Brazil 135, the Badwater 135 in Death Valley and the Arrowhead 135, from near International Falls, Minn., inland in the extreme northern part of the state, in frigid February).

"That's my next challenge," he says. "You've got to have something."

Why?

Don't even ask.