Badwater 2007

July 23-25 marked the 30th anniversary of the Badwater Ultramarathon. Badwater Ultramarathon is the legendary, epic, 135 mile running race which travels in the heat of Summer from Badwater in Death Valley (elev. 282 feet below sea level) to Whitney Portals on Mt. Whitney (elev. 8360 feet). Usually the temperature is about 130 degrees, this year they had overcast skies and relatively cool – if humid – temperatures around 112F. Its tough to run when its humid (read my long run # 2 blog for training in humid weather), but then again these runners are tough, some train in sauna's to withstand the heat. As a result of 112 degree weather the two year-old course record for the Kiehl’s Badwater Ultramarathon was smashed by the rookie runner Valmir Nunes, 43, of Brazil, who came back from third place to take a hard-earned race win after an eventful night. His finishing time of 22:51:29 was a long way inside the previous mark of 24:36:08, set by Scott Jurek in 2005. This year Scott did not run. 2004 Badwater winner Dean Karnazes who is possibly the best know ultrarunner and author of the national best seller "Ultra Marathon Man confessions of an all-night runner" finished the race in 10th place with a time of 31:31:34. Akos Konya finished in second place for the second year in a row. David Goggins who also ran the Zane Grey 50 miler in Payson finished in third place. Had I known who David Goggins was when I ran the Zane Grey 50, I would have liked to have met him, but all I was worried about was running in the race, that is considered the toughest 50 miler.

David Goggins, actually came to Badwater through a heartfelt impulse and a fortuitous web search. As a Navy S.E.A.L., Goggins lost several friends in Afghanistan and felt compelled to do something to help the families of his fallen compatriots.

"I'm not the kind of guy who's going to have a bake sale and sell cupcakes, though," he laughs. "I went online and looked for a way to raise some money for their families. I typed in a search for the '10 hardest things in the world' and Badwater came up." This year, once again, Goggins is running to raise money for the children of those who have been killed in service to their country through the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (http://www.specialops.org).

"I started to think about the race a lot and contacted Chris Kostman, the race director about participating. He told me I had to do some qualifying races, like a 100 miler. So I looked around and found that there was going to be a 24-hour track run in San Diego in November. I was a powerlifter, not a runner. I mean, I ran 20 minutes every other day to stay in shape, but I'd never done a marathon. I showed up at registration for the San Diego race looking more like a power lifter, too. I was 240 lbs. then, and the race director, John Metz, just shook his head. Well, I did 100 miles in a little over 18 hours, then stopped. I was done, but I had my qualifier."