Badwater 2018: Meditation on Toughness

Well here it is a month TWO months after Badwater and I still have not finished my race report. (Meanwhile Pam Smith made sure to inform me two weeks after Badwater that she had already written three posts all about Badwater, plus submitted an article to UR mag!) With Spartathlon imminent, I guess it's now or never. The problem is I still am not really sure what I have to say about Badwater. But I think the theme of this report needs to be toughness. What is a tough race? What is toughness in a runner, and in particular, where is the line, if any, between physical and mental toughness?
Background Badwater is on many an ultrarunner's bucket list, but for years it was never on mine. I don't do well in heat, and the race always seemed to me like torture just for the sake of torture. Also, I have to admit being put off by the whole "World's Toughest Foot Race" thing. More on that later. But when I first ran Spartathlon a few years ago, almost everyone else on the US team had run Badwater. Hmm. Well I guess they are somewhat similar races: hot, very long road race. Badwater is hotter and hillier; Spartathlon is more humid and longer (and has much tighter cutoffs, as well as some short technical trail sections). But perhaps they are sort of in the same family. Gradually (based largely on my community of enablers) I came to believe that I could do well at Badwater. I should be able to finish top-10 (so I thought!); on a good day, it wasn't inconceivable that I could podium (ha ha!). And after all I do love the desert. So finally this year I pulled the trigger. My focus for the past few years has been 24-hour, but after putting everything into making the US national team for 2017 Worlds and coming up an agonizing 300 feet short, I felt the need to branch out more this year and try different things. It's no fun continually banging your head against the same wall. Let's try a different wall! Of course the first hurdle is getting into the race. Thousands meet the minimum entry requirements and apply, but only 100 are selected. I thought my application would probably get me in – the biggest black mark was that I hadn't crewed at Badwater, but everything else was strong. Still, as the entrants were announced (in random order), and we were down to the last few without my name being called, I was beginning to think along the lines of crewing for Pam. But then they called me. Having gotten in, I was then hit with the reality that not only is this a very expensive race, it's also much more logistically complex than any other race I'd ever run. There is no on-course support; you need to bring your own crew, typically four people, rent a van (essentially a mobile aid station), arrange hotels for everyone before, after, and potentially during the race, figure out who needs to be where when... and then there is the gear. Staying cool is literally vital. All this was new to me; I really had no idea what I'd signed on for. I mean, 135 miles, pfft, how hard could that be? Ha! I should have crewed it first. So my first priority was to assemble a crew that had a lot more of a clue than I did. I wound up with an awesome crew with tons of experience: crew chief Heidi Perry, Linda Huyck, Matt Hagen, and Paul Kentor (at the last minute Paul was switched out for Susan Schenberg). Heidi gave me lots of reading homework and had very clear ideas on how crew operations should work. Great! I was setting myself up for a pretty challenging summer, with EMU 6-day in May, Badwater in July, and Spartathlon in September. Badwater got the short end of the stick. Dave Krupski warned me that if I didn't make it my top priority, it would not be pretty. But I was chasing records at EMU, and Spartathlon, well, that's my favorite race, and my goals there are simply more meaningful to me than Badwater. I had an injury to work through after EMU, and Badwater training never wound up quite hitting the level I would have liked, nor did I get my weight back to where it should really be. Yet somehow, the closer the race got, the more inclined I was to pace it aggressively. I'm known for putting a lot of planning into my races, and benefiting from my very careful pacing. So everyone told me I would kill Badwater; clearly it was in my wheelhouse! I wasn't so sure, but I began to drink the Kool-Aid. Several people told me they thought I could win. I knew that would not happen unless (1) I paced aggressively and (2) a lot of people fell apart. Theoretically possible, but pacing to win would be a sure disaster, so I put the thought well at the back of my mind. I didn't really sit down to analyze previous performances and put together a pacing plan 'til the week before the race. The ideal template for me looked to be Charlie Engle's over-50 course record of 26:15 in 2013. I had his split times at several points along the course. Compared to typical splits, his looked very smart to me. Start slow, run steady, be in position to put the hammer down for the 50K of downhill starting at Darwin (mile 90). Very similar to how I run Spartathlon. But the problem was, 2013 had a daytime start. Due to new Park Service rules the race now starts at night. That means (1) you start already having been awake all day, and (2) you now face both the toughest parts of course and what should be the fastest parts in the heat of the day, instead of at night. So I couldn't target Charlie's exact splits; they wouldn't work for a night start. But I didn't really see any way to move the minutes around to make all the splits look good either. Still, I came up with plans for 26:14, 28:00, and 30:00. Surely, I should be able to break 30. Which should also approximately mean top-10. But more and more I was inclined to go for the over-50 record. Almost everyone I looked at who had run both Badwater and Spartathlon was faster at Badwater, and I'd run 27:33 at Spartathlon. Toughness I OK so far that's a lot of hand-wringing about pacing and not much about toughness. So let's talk about "The Worlds Toughest Foot Race", self-described as "the most demanding and extreme running race offered anywhere on the planet". Two things. First, it's nonsense (Barkley, anyone?). Second, I mean, really? If you're the best you don't have to proclaim it. But, let's see if we can even figure out what the claim means. The most obvious metric of toughness of a race is the finishing percentage. At Badwater it's over 80%. At Spartathlon, it's typically 40%. At Barkley, it's about 1%. Now it's true that Badwater entrants are more highly selected than at Spartathlon or, I think, Barkley for their presumed ability to finish. Spartathlon has a lottery (though the bar is high to enter, and higher to auto-place out of); I'm not privy to the logic Laz uses to pick Barkley entrants. Thus, finishing percentage can be deceptive. The lower rate at Spartathlon is also due to the much tighter cutoff: 36 hours for 153 miles, vs. 48 for 135 at Badwater. Some years half are timed out by 50 miles at Spartathlon. But then, any race can be made tougher in this sense just by tightening the cutoffs (though it's worth mentioning that Spartathlon's cutoff is not arbitrary, being based on 2,500-year-old history). Clearly something more is meant by toughness... but what?

Badwater vs. Spartathlon crude elevation comparison

Pre-race I rented the crew van (based on recommendations, a Dodge Grand Caravan) in the Bay Area and drove it down to Furnace Creek a couple days early to get situated, arriving midday Saturday (the race starts Monday evening). Heidi and Linda arrived that evening after picking up Susan at the Las Vegas airport, and Matt arrived the next morning, after an incomplete "Soft Rock" attempt.

Heidi and Linda took charge of organization. I had a bunch of stuff and a bunch of bins and more or less sorted it out, but they would be the ones managing it all during the race, so what went where and how it was staged in the van was up to them. This was not their first rodeo, and I was happy to leave it in their capable hands. My large new Yeti cooler did not meet with approval. Fortunately we collectively had a cooler surplus; in the end they went with FOUR coolers in the van.

Masters of organization

I did a short run along the course early Sunday morning. It was "only" 100 or so, but not exactly comfortable; it would be much hotter in the race. Ulp. Sunday afternoon, we did the runner check in. Lots of stuff I had to present to get my bib. Safety vests. Lights. "Biffy" bags (as there are very few bathroom opportunities on the course). Don't tell Chris, but as Pam's crew had not yet arrived and they had the vests, I surreptitiously lent her mine for checkin when I was through. After that it was time for the mandatory meeting for runners and crew chiefs, to go over all the rules and safety procedures, which are extensive – both because running 135 miles in the hottest place on Earth at the hottest time of the year is kind of, well, inherently dangerous, and also because of Park Service requirements. Previous winners in this year's race were introduced: Pete Kostelnick (course record holder), Harvey Lewis, Oswaldo Lopez, Marshall Ulrich, Zach Gingerich. And I think a few others I am not remembering. A pretty tough set of competitors if I was thinking top-10! However, many of them were coming in banged-up, and it was hard to know who the favorites really were. In my over-50 set Grant Maughan and Ray Sanchez stood out. Ray has run Badwater 10 times, with some fast finishes among them, and Grant has run the fastest over-50 time since the night start was instituted. But Grant at least was also in the banged-up category, after winning the Vol State 500k less than two weeks earlier. Next, the traditional group photo in front of the iconic Furnace Creek thermometer. 123° F on Sunday; it would be hotter Monday. The highest recorded air temperature on Earth is 134.1°. That was at Furnace Creek, in 1913.

And with that, for me, it was pretty much time to relax, get as much rest as possible, and let my crew finalize things. Monday, everyone made a big ice run. Then Matt and Susan left to stage his car in Lone Pine, near the finish, and return in Linda's car to spend the night and await my arrival in Stovepipe Wells, 42 miles into the race. (See, I said logistics were complicated.) I tried to nap as much as I could Monday while Heidi and Linda loaded the van. But I later learned that if you want to do Badwater right, with the night start, you will need some sort of pharmacological aid to sleep during the day on Monday. That's what the top competitors do. You can't just shift your schedule by half a day leading up to the race, because of the stuff you have to do during the day on Sunday. My thermometer / hygrometer sitting on the deck outside my room gave me numbers that equated to a heat index of about 180! But then I realized the humidity was coming from the air conditioner venting. Still, it was forecast to be more humid than usual, after recent rain, along with what now appeared to be record-high temperatures. Heidi convinced me (I didn't need that much convincing) that with these conditions, pacing for an age-group record just wasn't smart. I decided to start on the 28:00 splits and see how they felt.

The Start Badwater starts in three waves. As race director Chris Kostman puts it, the fast people start at 8:00. The faster people start at 9:30. And the fastest people start at 11:00. I was sorted into the 11:00 bin, which, apart from the longer prior time awake, suited me well – the start would be a little cooler, and I would have more of the finish after dark (assuming I finished before the second sunrise... uh... yeah). As the afternoon turned into evening suddenly the endless wait became an urgent scramble. I had toe taping required, that Heidi and Linda helped with. I always get blisters on the bottoms of my little toes after 75 miles or so, and Badwater would subject my feet to more extreme conditions than they'd experienced before. I had personalized advice from John Vonhof, as I'd been fortunate to chat with him quite at bit at Western States. He offered two different solutions, and I tested each, one per foot, in a 50K. Both were fine for 50K (but then so was no taping), so I went with the simpler one. But taping your little toes in a way that will stick is still a pain, and it took longer than expected. So, I was a bit frantic after that. Though all the pre-race stuff is in Furnace Creek, the race actually starts 17 miles south, in Badwater Basin, 280 feet below sea level: the lowest point in North America. And it ends at the top of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48. Well, it used to anyway. Now you need a Forest Service permit for the final stretch, so the race ends at the Whitney Portal, at 8,360'.

As we drove this stretch we saw all the bobbing headlights and flashing crew-vehicle hazards from the second-wave start strung out along the highway. I saw a jester hat go by, and yelled out the window for Ed Ettinghausen. OK this was getting pretty real now! We finally arrived, and I rushed through the final check in, verifying lights etc. Then we had the final pre-race announcements and the wave start photo, and we were off!

My slow-start splits, even for what I thought would be top-10, had me running the first 42 miles – mostly flat – at 10:00 pace. So as expected I quickly fell to the back of of pack of the 30-odd in my wave. Pam and I are friendly rivals and had similar goals, so I thought maybe we would be running together for a while at some point, but she moved ahead early. (The difference was, she was actually a favorite to win the women's race.) I did seem to be on about the same pace as Grant Maughan. Again, it was a miracle he was here at all. I'd seen photos of his feet after Vol State. Finally I pulled ahead of him. Over the first 17.5 miles to the Furnace Creek timing station, Heidi, Linda, and I worked out the kinks and settled into a steady rhythm. About every 1 3/4 miles they would pull over, turn on their hazards, and wait for me with a new hat full of ice, a spray bottle to wet me down, and a fresh bottle of either water or (once per hour) my custom drink mix. I hit Furnace Creek at 2:55 on the clock, bang on my pace plan. I was pretty comfortable, keeping it at an easily sustainable effort, and not too hot.

As we continued to head north towards Stovepipe Wells it became a little more difficult. There was a decent headwind that left my shirt bone-dry pretty quickly between wettings. Also the terrain became a little more rolling. Grade perception can be deceptive in the dark, and a long, very gentle rise seemed like a big interminable uphill to me. As a result my pace began to fall off, even at what should have been such an easy effort. Also I was already tired. Around 4 am I took a NoDoz, in retrospect a mistake. There was a bathroom in Stovepipe Wells... but I didn't quite make it. A few miles short, I got to experience first-hand the joys of using a biffy bag, with Heidi and Linda holding up a tarp for privacy. You can't just go behind a bush, no bushes. Plus, to foul the National Park is a DQ (or as Chris put it, you're allowed to water the desert, but not to fertilize it). The uncomfortable posture led to severe abdominal cramps, and I immediately took a HotShot. But it was a while before I was able to get moving again. I finally rolled into Stovepipe Wells around sunrise, 7:20 elapsed, 17 minutes behind my planned split for a 28:00 finish. Ugh. Slipping Here we picked up Matt and Susan, fresh from a night's sleep, giving Heidi and Linda a break. And beginning here you are allowed to have a pacer. All of my crew paced me at some point; Matt started. Pacing is a little different here than at other races. For one thing, both you and your pacer must be on or left of the white line on the left side of the road, and the pacer must be strictly behind you, no running side-by-side or letting your pacer actually "pace". But on the flip side, here pacers are allowed to "mule", i.e., carry gear for you. Once Matt was carrying my bottle I could tell a big difference in how easy it was to move! Also here we started using Heidi's patented wet towel around the shoulders secured with a solid diaper pin, easy to change every stop. This helped quite a bit and mostly kept me cool and comfortable, and I think gave me a definite advantage over most of my competitors. Also here begins the first of the three big climbs of the race, from sea level at Stovepipe up to 5,000' at Townes pass, over 17 miles. The first half of this is somewhat runnable, but the second is pure walking. The day began to heat up (though I don't think it had dipped below 100 during the night). Still tired, I took another NoDoz. Somehow I lost a lot more time here (including another bathroom stop) and crested the pass 37 minutes behind schedule. Wow. Guess I walked too much the first half of it. Well, if 28 wasn't going to happen it wasn't going to happen. The important thing was to get to Darwin in good shape to run fast, and stay within striking distance of top-10. I wasn't asking for any position updates yet, they weren't relevant. But already I had passed Harvey Lewis, who actually took a 9:30 start, still recovering from his fast traversal of the entire Appalachian Trail, and somewhere in here I passed Pete's van, though I didn't see Pete. He was coming off a fast win at C&O 100 and I'd expected him to do well here, but obviously he was having issues. Towards the end of this stretch Linda took over pacing from Matt. I expected that for the next stretch, 5 miles at about a 9% downgrade, I might be running alone; I'm a fast downhill runner in road races. But it turns out that, though Linda was the only non-ultrarunner of the bunch, she's MUCH faster than I am up to marathon, and had even run in the marathon Olympic trials! I'd had no idea. So she had no trouble whatsoever staying with me as I flew down the mountain, making up some of that lost time, but honestly at a faster pace than was wise at that point (mostly 7ish pace, dipping down to 6:20s here and there). The hardest stuff was still to come. But I did pass Yassine Diboun here. I kept up a pretty quick pace over the gentler descent of the next 4 miles, but then walked the last 4 slight uphill miles into Panamint Springs. It was now after noon and very hot, and I was very tired. Took another NoDoz. Some guys were going up and down the course with an IR thermometer checking asphalt temperature, and my crew recorded that it was 168° here. Yeah, it's not just the air temperature. You are baking on that asphalt! A popular story goes that you run on the white line at Badwater because if you don't your shoes will melt. I'd thought that was a myth, but Pam did have part of her sole detach. Speaking of Pam, she'd had issues of her own, and apparently I'd passed her somewhere after Stovepipe Wells, but not noticed.

I was no longer paying attention to splits, but by Panamint Springs, mile 72.7, I was nearly an hour behind plan. Here my crew had to restock with ice, and it turns out they were rationing it! Lesson: next time start with even more cooler space and more ice. Toughness II Now, in the hottest part of the day, it was time for the toughest part of the course, the climb from Panamint up to Father Crowley, 2,000' over 8 miles. What makes it even tougher is that because of the narrow twisty road there are limited places where crew can pull off. With the heat and the hill you might want your crew every quarter mile here, but you are only allowed crew access at a handful of fixed spots, some of them over two miles apart. I tend to be a pretty good-natured runner and easy to crew, but Heidi will tell you I was complaining all the way up this hill. It was too damn hot and steep and long and far between crew stops. So yeah, "toughness" here is not about cutoffs. It's just hard to make it up that hill under those conditions, even walking, with 70+ hot miles on your legs and 60+ still to come. Fading I think really this climb was where my attitude started to go south; it didn't recover until much too late. Halfway up the climb my Garmin died. My crew were unable to get it to recharge in the van. For some reason my Garmin is like a lifeline to me, what I anchor my math around, and if I can't do splits in my head I am adrift. Also during the climb, I guess because of the long waits between stops, I somehow fell off my hourly sports drink schedule. I had been controlling calories, and now I wasn't, and that wasn't good. My memory is fuzzy here but I'm sure my crew were trying to get calories in me, but, see attitude. Finally, the taping on my little toes was not working. Near the top I had to take a break while my crew treated a blister. As we were doing this Pam caught back up, in and out of the crew area, moving well again. Once you reach Father Crowley the climb is not over. There's another 1,000' feet to go, but spread over 10 miles. By this point I was starting to pay attention to my position. In Panamint I was told I was in 6th, and I think only Pam had passed me since then. But as the day wore on I found it harder and harder to stay awake and keep moving. I needed another blister stop, this time for a blister on the front of my sole, unusual, as well as the other little toe. But there was little my crew could do about the sole blister, though both Heidi and Matt are foot experts with full kits. So I just had to deal with it. Every step became painful. Another NoDoz. Somewhere in here I tried to restart a regular calorie schedule, with reduced quantities. I was getting more and more tired and wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep. I told myself I just had to get to Darwin still in good position and it would be OK. I would have that long downhill to energize me. Just like at Spartathlon, right? Toughness III We got to Darwin, mile 90.6, and the switch didn't flip. It was getting dark, it still hurt to run because of the blister, and I was still fading in and out. I told my crew "Guys, I'm really sorry, but..." and didn't think what this would sound like. After the race they told me they thought I was about to drop. Ha! With a 48-hour cutoff?! No. It was "I'm sorry, but I can't keep going without a nap." I was throwing in the towel, not for finishing, but for running what I thought of as a good race. I was letting the rest of the top 10 pass me by unchallenged. So, I dozed in the van with the AC on for half an hour. For the third goal race in a row (Snowdrop 55-hour, EMU 6-day, Badwater), the second evening killed me. Certainly part of the concept of toughness is mind over matter. Your body is screaming in agony but you push through it; that's toughness, right? The kicker (as I've also discussed in earlier blog posts) is that your brain is also part of your body; it's a false dichotomy. When my brain is that tired, it's like the motivation switch has been turned off at the source, and no amount of willpower will overcome it. No-Man's Land Dave Krupski says that the race is won or lost on the 50K mostly downhill stretch from Darwin to Lone Pine. If you can run it in 5 hours, you win. Now that's not a fast 50K by any means, especially downhill, but it is searing hot and you have 90 miles on your legs and the final climb up Mt. Whitney still to go. Under 6 and you are usually top 5. My 28-hour pace plan had me at 5:55 here. I figured, most competitors here are 100-mile runners; they will be severely challenged and in new territory. Whereas my strength is much longer races; I'd run well over 100 miles I think 12 times. I should be just getting started! Well I will skip most of the details here, as they are pretty fuzzy anyway, but suffice to say my Darwin to Lone Pine split was not 5 hours, or 6, but over 11. Yeah, I lost over 5 more hours here. The biggest reason, I think, is that I'd just given up. It hurt to run, there seemed like no point, and I walked most of it. And I had a few more naps along the way. Towards the end of it Grant Maughan, who to my mind had no business being mobile at all, passed me back. (This is said of a lot of people, but he's really not human.) Everyone else I'd thought of as a competitor had either dropped or long since passed me. What I remember most about the night is (1) Linda and Susan's limitless supplies of stories to keep me moving and (2) endless peeing. Ever since around the climb to Father Crowley I'd had to stop every 10-15 minutes. It seemed like somehow my output far outstripped my input. Actually I probably have this to thank for not sleeping even longer, as I urgently had to get up again before too long at each nap. As we approached Lone Pine the sky gradually lightened, and my energy gradually returned. The Sierras were magical as they gradually emerged from the murk.

Toughness IV As many runners will tell you, and I will concur, hanging in there when your goals are gone is one of the hallmarks of toughness. Yeah so I was going to get a buckle, big deal. The distance from Darwin to the finish seemed incomprehensibly large, when I knew I would be painfully walking most of it. What was the point? To prove I could do it within 48 hours? But that's like forever, so what. But. Quitting was still unthinkable. This is a kind of toughness I generally have, and it comes from a belief, anchored in past experience, that my future self will not let me down. And it comes with a sharp edge. If you quit, you are a quitter, and you know that, and it makes it much harder to keep going next time you are in the same place, because you can't trust your future self. That's why I really, really, really hate quitting. Denouement As we came into Lone Pine I was now all smiles. Yes there was Mt. Whitney and I was going to have to walk up it. But, that was walking for everybody, and now I was walking well, and it was a beautiful day, and the end was in sight. Matt got me a couple of Egg McMuffins and I double-fisted them coming through the Lone Pine checkpoint. Eventually we made the turn onto the road up the mountain. And yes, it went up, up, up. 5,000' over 12 miles. Heidi walked up a bunch of it with me, pointing out local landmarks she remembered from her two finishes, and Matt took over for the last few miles.

Nightmare Rock

Finally, at long last, we were there. Not in 28 hours, but 36. Hottest year ever in the hottest place on Earth; I'll take it. It was with huge relief and joy that I crossed the line with all my crew. Funny thing, I have a great finisher pic, but it was actually staged. Chris was a little slow on the camera the first time, so we had to re-do it for the photo! But I can't imagine it coming out any better.

Toughness Conclusion So what is toughness? I don't know. It's a bunch of things. Is Badwater the World's Toughest Footrace? I think my earlier comments stand. But I will give it this. Badwater broke me; Spartathlon has tried and (so far) failed. I'll be back for another shot. Thank You This journey would of course not have been possible without Heidi, Linda, Matt, and Susan, and every one of them made it one of my fondest memories. Crewing Badwater is a real commitment; it's no small thing. I hope I can repay you sometime. And Chris, you throw a hell of a party.