Sunday Fun in the Sun - Race Tomorrow!

The hot hot hot course!

Just back from a trip to the start line (lowest point below sea level in the US).  It was amazing to walk out there on the salt flats with the ominous 11,000 ft peaks just a few miles off in the distance. I took lots of good photos with my real camera of the team and the sights out there. My post race report should be a great one to see next week!
Before our trip out to the flats this morning, I woke up at 5:30am (still on east coast time in my head) and caught the brilliant sunrise over the mountains to the east. Fellow crew member Dan Hartley told me the 'golf course' here at the resort is the lowest in the world in terms of elevation, so I walked over to check it out. On the way I found 3 golf balls in the brush, so I figured that was a sign that I needed to play a hole or two in order to be able to say I played at the lowest course in the world. The guy at the pro shop let me borrow a 7 iron and putter, and I was able to play two holes (bogey, par) before the sun was over the mountain and I needed to run for shelter. As you can imagine, no one actually plays this course this time of year, and even at 6:30am I knew why.
I'm off for my run on the course now (5 or 6 miles) to keep the heat acclimation going strong. Race day will be here tomorrow!!!

Welcome to Death Valley!

No Internet out here, but I can send texts to my blog from my phone, so that might be the plan for the race updates as well on Monday/Tuesday.

Our 5-person crew (plus Chris!) all arrived at Furnace Creek today so we're ready to roll. There isn't much civilization out here in Death Valley, but Furnace Creek (at about mile 17 of the race course) has a nice little resort and gas station (and that's it!), so all the racer crews use it as a home base before the race. When we arrived (at 2:30pm) I went for a run on the course right away to get a good feel of what it will be like on race day. I could go on and on here trying to explain how hot it was, but I lack the literary skill to properly do it justice. Let me just say it was 123 degrees with a hair dryer breeze that made it feel like 150. The wind filled my mouth, nose, and eyes with extremely dry heat that made it unbelievably more uncomfortable than when the wind was at my back. It's no understatement that I'm really hoping for a tailwind on Monday!
Even now, at 9:30pm, it's still well over 100 and not much more comfortable than the afternoon. As my fellow crew member Mark said when we walked outside after dinner, "for the first couple seconds, it doesn't feel so bad...but then the 3rd second comes."
We're off to bed now with a busy day of meetings and briefings tomorrow (and another acclimation run for me!). I should be able to post another update tomorrow night, and hopefully a couple on Monday during the race...as long as my cell phone doesn't melt!

It's Badwater Time!

Back in February of 2009, I made the long drive down to Florida to run the Iron Horse 100 miler. As it turned out, I went on to register the all-time worst 'driving miles' to 'race miles' ratio at that race as a pre-existing injury I was hoping to hide forced me to stop after just 3 miles. Round trip, it ended up being 1400 miles of driving for 3 miles of running. As they say in the hallowed halls of the Oxford library: That ain't no good!

It wasn't all bad news, however. After I dropped from the race I spent the rest of the day volunteering at the main aid station and meeting lots of great people. Two of those great people were Chris and Erin Roman. Chris was running the 100 miler, and Erin was doing her best to keep from gagging every time Chris came by and asked for help with his blisters. I think I may have offered the advice of switching to bigger shoes and Drymax socks (or possibly suggested basket-weaving as a better hobby choice), but whatever I said we ended up chatting for a bit and continued our conversations online in the following days.  Chris mentioned one of his major goals was to run Badwater (a 135 mile race from the lowest point in the U.S., across Death Valley, to the end of the road that leads to the highest point in the U.S. at Mt. Whitney). The race is a world-wide spectacle*, and I told him I'd love to be part of his crew if he ever got into the race.

*Lots of movies and news clips have come out about Badwater over the years, and most recently the BBC followed my friend (and 3-time Badwater Champion/Course Record-Holder!) Jamie Donaldson as part of their show "Inside the Human Body". You can see the part about Jamie starting here at the 12:37 mark, and then finishing up here. There was also a popular 60 Minutes story about the race a few years back that you can watch here.

Fast forward to the present, after a couple years of taking all the right steps to gain entry into the race (serving as another runners crew in a previous year, running another 135 mile race, etc etc), Chris is now less than one week away from the starting line in Death Valley. That fact, of course, means I'm now the same amount of time from getting my own first-hand experience of running right behind him in 120+ degree heat while spraying him with ice water. Naturally, I can't wait!

Since this race has no aid stations (just a couple timing check-points), each runner must spend the months prior to the race convincing 5 or 6 of their friends that it would be a good idea to drive a couple cargo vans full of ice very slowly through the desert while saying things out the window like, "Stop complaining, it's a dry heat...".  Lucky for Chris, he's a great guy, and he's got a stellar line-up of folks ready to help him get to that finish line next week. Since I'll be doing lots and lots of running with Chris to gently encourage his forward progress through the day and night (read: This means yelling. Lots and lots of yelling.), I too have spent the past few weeks preparing my body to handle the heat. Post-run sauna time has become a nice routine for me recently as I do my best to heat-acclimate. Here's how my thought process goes every time I sit down in that cedar box and it heats up to its max temp:

5 mins, 120 degrees: This isn't so bad, I can definitely run in this.
10 mins, 180 degrees: Ok, this is definitely hot, but the race won't get this hot, so this is just good training.
15 mins, 210 degrees: Hmm, what if the door to this thing somehow became locked and I couldn't get out...
25 mins, 240 degrees: Ok, I'm outta here. Time to see if there's still room in that basket-weaving class at the Rec Center.

The good news is, between my sauna sessions and my daily running in the DC heat, I'm brilliantly heat-trained right now and in great shape to help Chris reach the finish line. Chris, as you can imagine, is also in great shape, but he hasn't been wasting all his time on training for this race. Chris has been working just as hard to use the platform of this race to raise money for the Challenged Athletes Foundation. I've been humbled by the fact that many of you followed the donation link I posted here a few weeks back, and to date Chris has raised $7,000 for this excellent cause through the generosity of folks like you. He's a winner already in my book!

In terms of race coverage, anyone wanting to follow along at home/work can find all they need on the official race site, with photos, videos, twitter updates from the course, etc. etc.. There will be 88 runners in the race who will be begin running on Monday morning in three separate waves of start times (6am for the slowest runners, 8am for mid-packers, and 10am for the speedy folks). Chris is in the 10am wave (that's Pacific time, btw). From what I understand there isn't much in terms of cell coverage out there in the desert, but I'll do my best to take some photos and videos and post them to this blog when I can. It'll be a spectacle out there for sure, and I'll do my best to share the shoe-melting fun with everyone!

Who: My buddy Chris Roman
What: The Badwater 135 mile race (coverage here)
When: Starts Monday, 10am (PCT)
Where: Death Valley, CA
Why: I have no idea.
How: One step at a time!