Going Long

One year after my previous big race – Badwater, I stood once again at the start of a brutal Ultra. 106 miles, 32,000 feet of elevation and descent. The Trail Mont Blanc is the biggest European Ultra and certainly one of the toughest around. It is built around a popular hiking trail – the TMB, which is frequented by thousands of people every year. Most sane people, however, take 10 days to walk and enjoy the beautiful scenery of France, Italy and Switzerland, while they stop at quaint towns along the way and experience the local culture and cuisine. Ultra marathoners see a trail like that and get an urge to run it. So there I was.

I wasn’t alone mind you, 2300 fellow runners were standing with me on Friday, Aug. 26 2011, at 11:30pm, in pouring rain, waiting for the start. We had 48 hours to finish.

My goal was to finish in under 40 hours, something that was definitely achievable. As we took off, the rain continued to pour. The first few kilometers are an easy run through the Chamonix valley. The first big climb starts after 8km, and it really doesn’t let up from there. The going was slow for the first few hours. Everyone was running slow due to the rain, the trails were narrow, and were getting extremely muddy and slippery, which slowed everyone down even further. I had prepared for cold weather, so I was dressed well, and didn’t feel too cold or too wet. I was also taking it easy – everyone I’d spoken to told me to leave enough in my legs for the back half of the race, and I was taking their advice.

The sun rose as we were starting to climb from Les Contamines (at 31km and 1170m) to Croix du Bonhomme (at 45km and 2443m). I reached the halfway point of the climb – La Balme, and sat down by the fire to enjoy the view, dry myself out a little and change into a new pair of socks.

The rain never let up all through the night, and as we gained altitude it turned first to hail, and then to snow. As long as I kept walking/running everything was fine, but if I had to stop for whatever reason, I immediately felt the cold starting to seep in.

Finally, on Saturday around noon the sun came out. I was descending from Col de la Seigne to Lac Oombal, coming up on 65km.

As soon as the sun came out I immediately felt better and fresher, as I’m sure many others did as well. The prospect of running in bad weather through this beautiful landscape had depressed many the night before. We had one big climb and a long descent before crossing over from France to Italy and reaching Courmayeur. I was going to meet my family there, so I was VERY much looking forward to it.

Views of the valley, glaciers and mountains as I was climbing up to Mont Favre, on my way to Italy:

As you can see from the pictures – the landscape is truly inspiring. I took many pictures, and really tried to let the beauty of it all sink in, despite the difficulty of the race. I reached Courmayeur at 3pm on Saturday. I changed clothes, spent a few minutes with my family, re-energized, and was off again.

The rest of the evening and night were spent climbing from Italy to Switzerland. We climbed from 1200m to 2500m – culminating in a climb over Grand Col Ferret at 2537m. This is a high mountain pass with extremely strong winds and a killer climb to the top. I reached the top of the pass at around midnight and was relatively pleased with myself – I now had 20km of downhill running, and since I’d been saving myself all this time I felt good and was ready to rock.

I hit the descent at full speed, and really hammered the next 10 kilometers to La Foully, passing many people along the way who were too tired or in too much pain to tackle the downhill stretch. I reached La Foully at 2am. At this point I had been going for over 26 hours, and had run 110km. I was super tired. The fact we had started at night meant that I hadn’t really slept since Friday morning – and it was nearly Sunday morning!

The next stop was Champex, at 124km. It was 6am, and I was beat. I couldn’t keep my eyes open, and was afraid I’d fall down some mountain side while sleepwalking. I took a 15 minute powernap from 6:15am-6:30am, and was amazed at how much better I felt afterwards. Still, I had 46km to go, and for the first time in many races I felt like nothing bad would happen if I called it quits. I don’t think I would have gone through with it, but I definitely considered the idea for a few minutes before shrugging it off. I had had enough by this point, and didn’t see the purpose of yet another full day of going up and down mountains.
As I said though – it was just a thought, and it went just like it came. I kept going.

The rest of the day was hard, but uneventful. We descended down to 400m, and then went back up to 2500m before the final descent back into the Chamonix valley. The last few aid stations were in small towns that had easy access, so I met my family a few times during the day, which was fun and gave me something to look forward to.

At 5:30pm on Sunday the 28th I came into Chamonix – 42 hours after I had left it.

At the end of a race there’s nothing but satisfaction – and this was no exception. I think my net running time was around 35 hours, with the rest being breaks and stops. The first half was more disciplined in terms of time spent at aid stations, but at a certain point I stopped caring about the time, so I started taking my time. The winner was a Spaniard, who killed the course with a blistering pace of 20.5 hours. It’s crazy. Out of 2300 starters, 52% dropped out, and I arrived in 650th place. I managed to jog all the flats and the downhills, with almost no exceptions, and I felt good throughout the race with no injuries or food issues.

Last year after Badwater I wrote I would take a break from Ultras, and I ended up a liar. This time I won’t promise anything. I’m signed up for the Frankfurt Ironman in July 2012 – so I think that will be my big event next year.

Have fun out there, until next time…

Badwater is the most brutal, disturbed, masochistic race I have ever had the honor to participate in. 135 miles, nonstop, across Death Valley in July, in temperatures exceeding 120 degrees. It feels as though an impetuous human was once having an argument with mother nature about who’s stronger. To prove himself correct, the (not so smart, let’s face it) human said: “You know what, I’ll show you who’s stronger! I’m going to…Death Valley, yeah, you heard me…in the summer! Oh, and I’m going to RUN for a whole day…no scratch that – I’m going to run across the WHOLE thing – yes! And I’ll start at the lowest spot, and I’ll end at the highest – ha! I’ll show you!”

And so a race was born.

On July 12 at 8am I stood at the starting line at Badwater, on the brink of my personal journey. Supported by 4 people whom I barely knew, and who barely knew each other. I’m no rookie to endurance racing, but the entire situation screamed ‘CRAZY!’.

Chapter 1 – Preparations

Participants are notified of acceptance to Badwater in March, only 4 months before the race. Most begin training for the race before March, with the hope of getting in. The first two things you’re told when you’re accepted are (1) book rooms at the start and finish, and (2) find a crew. The first assignment accomplished successfully, I started on the second. It took 3 months, numerous emails and phone conversations, but ultimately, I managed to group together 4 individuals who were willing to come out to Death Valley on their own, and assist someone they’d never met before cross one of the most inhospitable stretches of road on the planet. I’m still thankful to all of them.
Elad’s crew, as the shirt said, included:
- Charlie Barkowski, New York. Pastor, amateur ham radio operator and ultrarunner
- Sheryl Collmer, California. CPA, long time runner and philosopher
- Sam Pruitt, California. Race director, triathlon coach and commander-in-chief
- Dave Elsbernd, Oregon. Engineer, ultrarunner, grandfather, a voice of reason

I had met Charlie and Sheryl prior to the race. I saw Sam and Dave for the first time a couple days before the start. Everyone seemed great, but all of us were Badwater rookies, and we were all heading towards the unknown. At the starting line I crossed my fingers and hoped everything would work out.

Chapter 2 – The Race

Section 1: Miles 1-42 (Badwater – Stovepipe Wells)

I started too fast. I was tearing the tarmac at 10 min/mile for the first hour or so, until the adrenaline started to wear off and I slowed down. The plan had been to jog 12 minute miles on this section. The crew and I tried to establish a routine – what should I get at each aid station, how should it be presented to me. I refused to stop, so the crew had to run alongside with whatever supplies I needed until I was set, and then they’d drop back to the van, until next time.

The sun decided to show off some of its true power that Monday. By noon, it was 120 degrees. I slowed down, and the crew kept my head, hat and hands wet every mile. By 2pm, it was 127 degrees. As Sheryl later wrote: “Laws, it was hot. Hot-hot. Unrelentingly cruelly hot. Mega-hot, ultra-hot, hotalicious, hotadelphia, Hot City, hot-0-rama. There is NOTHING, not even a Texas summer, that could have prepared me for that kind of heat.”

At 33 miles, I quietly stepped off to the side of the road and heaved everything I had ever eaten or drank since high school. Maybe even a few internal organs found themselves lying on the dirt. The first thing I saw when I finally managed to stand up was a photographer, who had apparently risked life and limb, hurled himself out of a moving car just to be able to chronicle this marvelous feat. I felt better afterwards, but completely drained. So I staked out. At Badwater that’s a literal statement – you place a stake in the ground, your crew can drive you somewhere, and then you need to return and start running from the same spot. After an hour with the medical crew I was able to resume the race. For those who know me, the decision to stake out didn’t come easily. It was an admission of defeat in some sense. In retrospect, though, it saved my race and allowed me to keep going. Without that break, I would have simply brought myself to severe dehydration and that would have been the end of Badwater for me.

A word on the crew – they were amazing!
Truly there for me, they took care of me, listened and respected what I was saying, but pushed back when I was obviously off the deep end. I never saw them argue or in a bad mood. They kept me going, varied my food when I didn’t really know what I wanted and paced me at all times. Without their positive attitude the race would have been first and foremost a disaster, and I probably would have never finished it.

Section 2: Miles 42-72 (Stovepipe Wells – Panamint Springs)

This was a nighttime section for me. Nearly 5,000 feet of climbing up Towne’s Pass, and down the other side to Panamint. As if climbing wasn’t enough, crazy headwinds kept pushing us back all through the climb. The desert is an amazing place at night. Everything comes alive – we saw a snake, mice, desert skunk, the stars were out in full force. I took out my iPod and lost myself to the tunes as I climbed for 6 hours.

Half way through the climb we came across a female runner from Brazil – I don’t even know her name. She was delirious, and zigzagging across the road. When she saw us she begged for water, which we promptly gave her. All attempts to talk to her and find out what was wrong were futile. She knew 2 words in English – “water”, and “buckle”, and she kept repeating them in succession. How crazy is that? Everything she knew and wanted, her entire world on that night in the desert was summed up in two words – “water…buckle”.

Finally, Sam managed to understand that she was a diabetic, and needed her insulin. Her crew wasn’t around, and Charlie sped back to Stovepipe to alert the medical staff. In the end she was OK, and even finished before the 60 hour cutoff. No buckle though, so I wonder how she felt at the end.

Section 3 – Miles 72-112 (Panamint Springs – Lone Pine)
I peed blood the entire night. I was crazy worried, and so was the crew (although no one said so). We managed to convince ourselves that the blood had accumulated during the first few hours of the race. Since everything had stayed in since, we surmised it would eventually wash out and be OK. Morning brought the second big climb, and clear urine. Bodily functions in an ultra are a never ending source of concern and conversation, and I was relieved (literally and figuratively) to have one less thing to worry about.

This section was a killer. I got to the top OK, but the decent was a gentle downhill of 30 miles, along a boring, feature-less stretch of road. After a few miles, my right quad resigned. It didn’t cramp, or tire out, or even give notice. Just picked up and left, deserting me to hobble along, with 20 miles to go in scorching heat. I didn’t feel well, and crashed in the van. Once again, Sam, Sheryl, Charlie and Dave were amazing, and really tried to get me back on my feet. They covered me in wet towels and ice to try and get my body temperature down, doused me with cold water and kept a positive attitude. They were intent on dunking me in a huge ice chest, but for some reason I could not think of anything more horrific to do, and I completely resisted. After 30-35 minutes I was back up.

There’s always a rough patch in an Ultra or endurance event, and I’ve pushed through many. Pain and discomfort are bound to appear, and it’s really a matter of how you deal with them mentally. Halfway through the second day, I wasn’t having fun. Instead of pushing myself to deal with a tremendous physical challenge, I found myself dragging my feet along a never ending road, in the middle of the desert with 120 degree heat.

Luckily, my family came to the rescue.

My wife had sent the crew a stack of funny pictures of her and the kids, with encouraging messages: “We love you”, “You can do it!”, “If you’re tired – jump!” (that one courtesy of my 2 year old). I had reached a true low point, and then someone shoved one of the pictures in my hand. The timing, my fragile mental state, whatever it was – I suddenly had a burst of energy, and for the next few hours managed to keep a decent (walking) pace and cover some ground. For a brief period I was completely detached from the heat, the pain, the desert, the road, the race – everything got locked in a small box in the back of my head, and all that was left was the present – just keep moving. I’d never dug so deep before, and here, out of the frustration, I managed to learn a little more about myself. That alone was worth it.

At 11pm, 17 hours after leaving Panamint Springs, 39 hours into the race, I reached Lone Pine. 13 miles to go.

Section 4: Miles 122-135 (Lone Pine – Mt. Whitney Portals)
One last climb. 4,600 feet. All I wanted was to sleep. I tried music, conversation, 3 cans of Red Bull (it did not give me wings) – nothing. I don’t remember most of the climb as I was half awake in some nether-world. Sam and Dave walked up with me, and tried to keep me moving in a straight line.

At 3:57am we came around the final bend. 200 yards ahead, the finish line. 5 people, a few projectors, cheering me to the finish, encouraging me to run.
At 3:59am I crossed the finish line.
At 4am I crossed it again with Sam, Sheryl, Charlie and Dave.

Finally.

Final Thoughts
Badwater put me through the ringer, more than any other race. Looking back though, I only have myself to blame. From January to July I ran about 750 miles. That’s slightly over 30 miles/week, during a period where I should have been running close to 100. It’s a wonder I crossed the finish line at all. The past couple years have not given me real training time, so I’ve ‘pushed through’ – last year at Western States and this year at Badwater. Next year I won’t do an Ultra, I’ll focus on something that I can properly train for and really sink my teeth into, not just survive.

I have no regrets though. I’m honored to have met and made 4 new friends – we now share a common bond and an experience we’ll never forget. I’m happy I raced, finished and buckled the ‘World’s Toughest Foot Race’. And finally, I peeled off another internal layer, and got to know myself and my limits a little better, and at the end of the day, that’s what makes Ultras an enriching experience that I keep coming back to.

Until next time – happy running.