Less is More

am: 4 miles: 29 minutes

pm: 6 miles: 45 minutes

Less is more has been a big part of my belief system for about 15 years. I've never really owned much/ any 'stuff' and went through a period in my middle teenage years of throwing pretty much everything I had accumulated up to that point, away. This drove Mum crazy I guess it didn't really make any sense. Well 15 years later and everything I own still fits into one cupboard at my parents house and a pretty small cloth wardrobe in our room at Battersea. On top of pretty much minimal amount of clothing and some CDs the only thing Ive accumulated in recent years is a bunch of medals/ race numbers and some running shoes (about 25 pairs) plus thankfully a few buckles which are now on the wall. I realise that my philosophy hasn't really changed. More stuff means more to think about, more hassle, more to lose etc etc.

Each day I get up put on some shorts and a t shirt and run to work where most of my clothes live. Then at the end of the day I get changed back into the running gear and head home whichever way I feel like going. When I left work this evening in a the late summer sun I thought about the fact that I don't need any more 'stuff' to survive and be happy. Pretty much all my efforts go into trying to travel as much as possible and finish the races I so desperately want to run. That has gone from a list of 100s of marathons to about 8 ultras.

I also thought how great it was that I can train for a 100 mile race with total belief that I can finish and feel comfortable knocking out good quality mileage rather than cramming in as much as possible. Badwater was all about more is king. Caesars Camp has been about less, higher quality mileage.

There are people out there running 200 miles a week+. There are people out there running 80 miles a week and beating them over the highest level. Sometimes mileage is king. Sometimes less is more.....

Sunday 19th September

pm: 25 miles: 4 hours 30

Long and slow again because I was map reading for large chunks of it. Unfortunately map reading through the streets of north west london as I ran from Battersea to Radlett.

Weekly Total: 83 Miles.

Wednesday 15th

pm:  1hr 58: 14 miles

Nice easy run 2 laps of Hyde Park with Pete. Felt good tonight absolutely no issues and the first time I felt like Ive had bundles of pace in my legs almost since Badwater. I guess I must be over that car crash by now....

2011 Race Schedule

Pretty excited about all of these:

January: Country to Capital 45 mile. Repeat of this year.

February: Thames Trot 50 mile. Want to really nail a 50 miler as good as I know I can. 7hrs49 to beat.

March: Eco Trail De Paris 50 mile. Finish by running up the Eiffel Tower. Awesome.

April: Umstead 100 mile. Heading to North Carolina with Pete for his first 100. I hope to just have a solid run and maybe if all comes good i'll go under 20 hours for 100.

May: Comrades 56 mile. South Africa. No intro needed for this one. Will be with Lisa for the week leading up to it during her half term.

June: Western States 100 mile. California. Please please please please please etc etc.

August: Leadville 100 mile. Colorado. Im not going back to UTMB in 2011 now, I have a wedding to attend. Shame but I can live with missing it for a 3rd year in a row. Probably more excited about running Leadville to be honest.

So thats it. So many choices but I want to give myself time to train right and race properly rather than cramming them all in and running pointless marathons every weekend.

The year kind of hinges on Western States entry for me. If I get in that and Leadville will be my A races. If not then I may switch to Vermont instead and Im relaxed about that also.

Ive binned Hardrock for a time when Im actually qualified rather than crossing my fingers and writing essays to get in.

Monday 13th September

pm 4 miles 35 easy minutes

Just an easy run home today. Back to normal mileage tomorrow. Needed this though I slept pretty rough on Sunday night and probably wanted a day off after the longer one yesterday.

I read an interview with Jamie Donaldson today where she talked about her prep for Badwater being 4 - 6 weeks of 200 miles + per week. Thats what I did yesterday (50km) ie. 5 miles more than a marathon, every day of the week for a month and a half. I would like someone to explain to me how that is possible with a job (Jamie is a primary school teacher). I have found that when I run exactly half that for a few weeks in a row (ie 100 mile weeks or 14-15 miles per day) I can't really function properly at work and am knackered all week long. Pretty sure thats big mountain miles as well and not just flat road runs which is what i do most of the time. Wow.

Sunday 12th September

pm: 50km. 5 hours 2 mins.

Fairly solid run out to Syon Park down the Thames Path and back. Hot today and felt it towards the end but only drained two bottles of water in that time. Planned 9:30 miles all the way to get used to Caesars Camp 100 pace. Have a feeling that even that could be a stretch with the hills on the course. Legs felt pretty comfortable, probably would have been ok up to about 50 miles but not quite as strong as I'd have liked them to be ie. pre Badwater conditioning when back to back 35 milers felt a lot easier each day than this did.

This week I got a letter through the post form London Marathon letting me know that after 4 years of missing out on spots through the lottery, I actually qualified for a good for age place with my 2:58 at Washington. Then I realised that the letter had been sat in the postroom at work for 3 weeks and I missed the deadline. Typical.

Wednesday 8th September

am: 30 minutes

pm: 30 minutes

Total: 8 miles

Two pretty average runs where I didn't feel great for either, nowhere near 100% so kept it short tonight. Got a slot at the Umstead 100 miler for April. Another one on the list for 2011. 

Tuesday 7th

am: 30 minutes. great morning again.

pm: 1 hour 10. 30 minutes down to Blackfriars with Rusty and back up the Thames Path to Battersea.

Total: 12 miles.

Todays revelation is that there is still a race on this planet I'm not qualified to get in too. over the years more and more races have put strict entry criteria probably to limit the number of applicants in a vastly growing sport but also to make sure people are qualified for what they're getting themselves in to. Examples: Most 100s you need to have finished a 50 mile race or longer in under the cut off. Badwater you need to have run 2 x 100 mile nonstop races in under the cut offs.

My race plans next year are all sorted apart from 2 US 100's which have lotteries because they are so oversubscribed. Last year I missed out on one of them in the lottery, so did Frank. The other race is the Hardrock 100. With 68,000ft of elevation change over the 100 mile course and an average elevation above the treeline at 8000ft+ it is probably the hardest 100 miler in the world (bar Barkley maybe). Anyway there is a list of about 10 races you must have completed one of, to be eligible to apply for entry even in to the lottery. UTMB is one of those and my plan was to finish that and go for a spot at Hardrock next year. Well thats out of the window. I wrote to the Race Director and he needs to see a 500 word document explaining why I feel Im qualified to compete, given that 8 of the 10 qualifiers are in the States and aren't very accesible to me. This is the option open to international runners. We'll see how it turns out but I think my chances are slim. I love that there are still so many monumental challenges out there, my only fear is that I may wait years and years to get to have a crack at some of them. Still I fully endorse Hardrocks entry procedure. Frankly its more like a 48 hour mountain climb than a run. In fact I might start hiking instead.

Bestival in 3 days. Wow the training is going down the pan for a while.

Monday 6th

am: 30 minutes nice warm up felt better than usual (still can't run early in the day as well as I'd like).

pm: 1 hr 10 round Hyde Park in 7:30 miles with Webbo. Ran into Alasdair from RTP in town on business, then back down to Battersea Park for a loop before home. Bit tight in my left calf so much shorter tonight than I'd planned. 

Total: 13 miles.

Todays little gem from Biffy

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Marathon Count

In the past I've had a few people ask me how many marathons I've done. Climbing up the Le Charme with James Adams in the UTMB a fortnight ago we got talking about him running his 100th marathon at the beginning of 2011. James is firmly in the camp of 'a number is just a number' rather than having made it an intention to get to 100 marathons, he has turned to simply running the races he wants to run and watching them add up (or not) as a result.

This got me to thinking about how many I'd done and what actually counts and I came to the realisation that my outlook on it had changed massively in the past 12 months.

I don't actually know anyone personally in the UK who has run 100 marathons but there are a lot. There is a significant group of runners on the UK circuit trying to run as many official marathon length races as possible. I don't think I've ever run a UK road race without seeing members of the 100 marathon club running in their club vests with a degree of pride and rightly so, it is an impressive achievement.

Something I struggle with now though is the idea of racing every week literally up and down the length of the country, simply to get your 'number' up. There is so much chat at the start of the countless uninspiring road marathons there are to choose from nowadays (Luton, Wolverhampton, Leicester etc etc) about how many races someone has done and where they will be for the next few weeks. For those people it is a community. Marathons have become their weekly/ fortnightly/ monthly catch up with friends and an opportunity to get in a run and tick another one off of the list. Honestly I can see why they would want to do it, after all there is always a sense of achievement when you finish a marathon whether you've done 1 or 1000 plus if you are running with friends then of course its much more enjoyable than doing a training run on your own for 4 hours. However travelling all weekend and spending £100s to go and start a race in October on a sodden road around suburban ring roads is now utterly pointless to me. It wasn't a couple of years ago.

From the time we ran the Marathon Des Sables in 2006, through to the Gobi March over 1 year later, I ran zero marathons or races of any length. It didn't even cross my mind to enter one. Id run one, i'd proved to myself i could do it and I didn't care about it. When I finished the Gobi however I realised that when people spoke to me about running they always asked me what my best marathon time was. I wasn't happy with my time so I started running to try and get it down (probably the most boring thing I've ever trained for). Then people started asking me how many i'd run and I realised I could only actually say 2 or 3 and again I was met with an 'oh I thought you were a serious runner'. Well it took me over a year to wonder why I was bothered about any of this. Its all totally irrelevant. About 90% of people won't know the difference or care even the slightest bit whether your marathon PB is 3 hours 52 or 2 hours 58. They won't care whether you've run 10 marathons or 100. And to the other 10%, the numbers do have meaning but honestly who actually cares? Last year I went through periods of running races for the sake of it, I didn't travel particularly far to run any one race but I spent a long time working out where I could squeeze a pointless regional road marathon in just to add '1' to the list rather than going somewhere I loved training and fitting it in around the 100 other important things that the pointless race overtook.

Certainly right now I can't see myself running any other crappy road marathons in the UK, ever. The exception being if its within a few miles of home and Im running with a friend. I reckon that will bring me out at around 2 or 3 per year. In contrast I will continue to run as many races offering epic tests of endurance, incredible scenery or just huge experiences as possible and Im still as PUMPED as ever to get out there and do that. I've had next years races planned out in my mind for a while and I'm entered into about 70% of them already, now its about waiting for the lotteries again to see which of the big boy 100 milers I get places....

So totally hypocritically after saying I don't care, yesterday I counted how many marathons according to standard 100 marathon club t's and c's which frankly are utterly ridiculous (eg. you only get to count 1 for any race ie. Badwater is 1 marathon not 5, desert races you can only include runs that are exactly 26.2 miles or longer etc etc) I've run and the answer is exactly 50. How about that. I would trade every single road marathon Ive ever run for any one of my desert medals but I'm not complaining about reaching 50 it seems ironic that I passed a milestone at Badwater and didn't realise it after being 'into it' last year. Maybe I'll reach 100 in a few years time, more likely I'll reach it in about 4 - 5 given that out of 10 races entered for next year and all but 1 of them is over 45 miles and thats the way I think it'll probably stay for a good while....

Date	Title	Distance	Unit	Outcome
12/07/2010	Badwater	135	miles	39:19:00
20/06/2010	South Downs Way Challenge Day 3	35	miles	06:14:00
19/06/2010	South Downs Way Challenge Day 2	35	miles	06:01:00
12/06/2010	South Downs Marathon	26.2	miles	03:44:00
08/05/2010	Orpington Marafun	26.2	miles	03:20:55
02/05/2010	Three Forts Marathon	27	miles	03:13:24
25/04/2010	Shakespeare Marathon	26.2	miles	03:12:23
28/03/2010	Jurassic Coast Challenge - Day 3	26.2	miles	05:48:00
27/03/2010	Jurassic Coast Challenge - Day 2	26.2	miles	05:04:39
26/03/2010	Jurassic Coast Challenge - Day 1	26.2	miles	04:49:00
20/03/2010	Washington DC - National Marathon	26.2	miles	02:58:07
07/03/2010	Steyning Stinger Marathon	26.2	miles	05:55:00
13/02/2010	The London Ultra 50K	50	km	04:25:00
24/01/2010	Winter Tanners 30	30	miles	05:08:00
16/01/2010	Country to Capital	45	miles	08:06:00
03/01/2010	Stansted Stagger Rescheduled Date	26.2	miles	03:59:00
29/10/2009	Sahara Race - Stage 5	54	miles	12:20:50
27/10/2009	Sahara Race - Stage 3	26.4	miles	06:31:26
26/10/2009	Sahara Race - Stage 2	27	miles	06:24:05
11/10/2009	Leicester Marathon	26.2	miles	03:26:14
20/09/2009	London to Brighton Trail Run	56	miles	11:02:00
06/09/2009	Kent Coastal Marathon	26.2	miles	03:37:00
28/06/2009	Herts Hobble Marathon	26.2	miles	04:28:12
06/06/2009	Old Dominion 100	100	miles	24:58:00
10/05/2009	Halstead Marathon	26.2	miles	03:44:30
03/05/2009	Three Forts Marathon	27	miles	03:52:21
26/04/2009	Valley & Views	26.2	miles	04:23:32
19/04/2009	Bungay Black Dog Marathon	26.2	miles	03:09:11
01/03/2009	Steyning Stinger Marathon	26.2	miles	03:46:30
07/02/2009	Rocky Raccoon 100	100	miles	22:54:32
17/01/2009	Thames Path Ultra	50	miles	07:49:17
19/10/2008	Amsterdam Marathon	26.2	miles	03:18:23
05/10/2008	London to Brighton Trail Run	56	miles	11:40:00
07/09/2008	Wolverhampton marathon	26.2	miles	03:26:01
14/06/2008	South Downs Marathon	26.2	miles	03:42:04
11/05/2008	Halstead Marathon	26.2	miles	03:33:27
04/04/2008	Atacama Crossing - Stage 5	45.4	miles	11:51:57
03/04/2008	Atacama Crossing - Stage 4	26.4	miles	07:02:20
01/04/2008	Atacama Crossing - Stage 2	26.2	miles	06:08:42
17/02/2008	Draycote Water 35	35	miles	05:22:40
19/01/2008	Thames Path Ultra	50	miles	08:24:00
02/12/2007	Luton Marathon	26.2	miles	03:38:29
27/10/2007	Snowdonia Marathon	26.2	miles	03:37:11
16/09/2007	Robin Hood Marathon	26.2	miles	03:28:07
21/06/2007	Gobi March - Stage 5	49.1	miles	15:03:11
20/06/2007	Gobi March - Stage 4	29.3	miles	08:30:05
14/04/2006	21e MdS - Stage 5	26.2	miles	08:20:49
12/04/2006	21e MdS - Stage 4	44.4	miles	14:06:52
28/01/2006	Tring2Town	45	miles	10:34:00
04/12/2005	Luton Marathon	26.2	miles	03:52:02

The Next Race

This morning i biked in to work, quads still sore from running up and down mountains at the weekend so took it pretty easy. Did a 30 minute recovery run at lunch and another 4 miles after work. Will try and build back up to pretty big mileage for the next 3 weeks with Caesars Camp 100 mile the next and possibly last thing on the race schedule for this year on the 9th October.

I decided today that Furnace Creek 508 was going to be way too big of an ask with the amount of preparation I've put in on the bike and the lack of time I'm going to have to get it done. Im absolutely shattered from so much travelling and with the abandonment of the UTMB I've got some unfinished business which a relatively local 100 miler will give me the perfect opportunity to attend to.

I DNF'd Caesars Camp 50 miler a few years ago when I damaged my left foot at around the marathon point and hobbled in to the 30 mile point to drop. The 100 is a tough race, 10 laps of 10 miles with a cumulative elevation gain of 15,200ft (the same amount of descent on top clearly). I have done the hill work to prep for UTMB so this should hopefully tie me over nicely to a decent performance in 5 weeks time.

Caesars Camp Profile

Furnace Creek can wait for another year, Im sure one of the Endurance Heroes will want to give it a go in the future and I'd be right there for it.

UTMB: The last 5 miles

Last night Jez Bragg and Lizzy Hawker made it a double win for the UK in the revised shortened version of two races that began on Saturday morning in Courmayeur. Im not going to call it the UTMB like the race organisers are here because it was nothing like it (90km not 166km). That isn't to take anything away from this new route, it was still undoubtedly an incredibly hard run. The reasons for me not being there for it have been posted below. About 1300 runners started from a combined total of 1000+ TDS and 2300 UTMB runners. Many of the top guys and girls were missing but that shouldn't detract from two awesome performances from Britains best. Jez covered the course in 10:33 and Lizzy in about an hour more than that.

This morning many of the runners were still coming in more than 24 hours after the start. Exactly as I did last year I ran backwards up the course to the last major aid station at the ski lift La Flegere, about a 2700ft climb in 7km, and came back down into town along the route the UTMB usually takes to the finish. The trails here are incredible. The views they afford & their condition as they meander in and out of woodland to open ski slopes and back make running here an absolute joy. The time genuinely just flies and up is as great as coming down. 

Back home tomorrow and some decisions to be made about what comes next. Having thought I was going to be out of commission with stiff & sore legs for 10 days after this weekend its a small bonus I guess to have got 2 decent training runs in and preparation can begin for the next adventure. 

Short video of the views form the La Flegere. With views of Mont Blanc like this all the way around the course its not hard to see why so many people want to come here and run this race. 

And this is probably the funniest thing I've seen for a while

http://www.morecowbelloriginal.com/

UTMB: The Race That Never Was

After all the many hours of deliberation over whether to run yesterday or not I threw myself into the race and committed around lunchtime by finally registering. I spent the afternoon sleeping, managed to eat my first proper meal in 72 hours and had no repurcussions to that point of the stomach problem.

At 5pm, Eberhard came up to our hotel and I finished getting ready. 10 minutes before the start I wandered out of the hotel. Ive honestly never felt so relaxed before a race of even half this magnitude. The fact that Id been so unsure I was actually going to start, for so long into the run up, meant that the pressure was off. I had one plan, finish, and that simply meant reaching each aid station by the cut off point. I hate racing this way. I am a competitive person and gain a lot of mental strength during races from being able to push hard and cover the course in good time. To have to endure a suffer fest over 2 full days of running non-stop was going to be a whole new arena for me and I wasn't relishing the thought. I was however excited to see this fabled course up close, to see how serious the climbs really were and to test myself over a mountainous 100 for the first time.

Well nobody got the opportunity to do so last night. We left chamonix at 6:30pm. The start, whilst incredibly uplifting as one huge celebration, was incredibly frustrating for me. I was literally at the back by the time we got across the start/finish point and it took me 15 minutes before we could actually break into a jog, once almost a km down the road out of Chamonix. There were people lining both sides of the street, 5 deep, photographers, giant screens and of course 2300 other runners. I didn't care about being at the back because frankly thats where I knew Id have to spend the race, what bothered me was that Id wasted what could have been an invaluable 15 minutes if I really did start struggling to meet the cut offs.

The first 9km are 'flat' (rolling trail) down to Les Houches. It began raining a few minutes before the start and it really started falling hard on this first section. I ploughed on rather than getting out my poles or waterproof jacket and enjoyed the fading light. At 9km we hit the first climb up to le Charme. This is a 7km climb up a ski slope passing underneath a bubble lift from 1000m to 1776m (about 2300ft).



About half way up I bumped into James Adams and finished the climb with him before getting to the descent. This was way worse than the climb as the rain had turned it into a bit of a mud chute. Loads of people went over, there were poles everywhere but I didn't see the point in getting them out for now, I would wait until 35km to do that.

We dropped further down the mountain all the way back to the height we'd just come from the other side and into the town of St Gervais at 21km and the first major aid station. I felt rough on this descent it was taking me a while to find my legs, I felt light headed, weak on my feet and clearly just devoid of decent energy reserves from days of not eating. I had to keep banging gels in just to stay focused and I knew I was in for a long night in the cold and rain but had just prepared myself for getting on with it. Just before I came into the checkpoint I passed 3 British runners coming the other way back up the hill shouting 'they've pulled it there's a massive landslide'. I carried on anyway and got to the checkpoint. The guy on the line just said to me 'finit' The race was over, there were runners everywhere struggling to understand what had just happened. I moved through the checkpoint and found an american guy who had flown in just for the race and he was pretty much in tears. The decision was a brave one from the organisers as the chaos this caused and is still causing has been monstrous, but of course runner safety is the most important thing. In those conditions it is hardly suprising that they did what they felt they had to do. They have come up from criticism already but I think that is wrongly placed, it is, however, about how they now make it right for 2300 runners whom have been training for months for this event and who have spent a fortune on getting here to run it.

They shepherded us towards a sports centre in the town where it became clear that the weather had created the threat of landslides around 20km further up the course and that it was just too dangerous to pass. There were all kinds of rumours about another race start tomorrow morning and questions over whether we would be allowed back next year. They sent us towards the train station but I was lucky enough to run into Paul who we'd met at the South Downs Race in June & an English girl Josie who kindly offered us a lift back to Chamonix in her friends camper van.

When we got back to the hotel I stayed up until 3am pretty wired from all the gels Id been hammering, trying to find out what they had announced in the press conference but nothing was appearing so I went to bed.

This morning I woke at 9am, checked online and found out that the organisers had text 'everyone' in the field at 5am to let them know buses would be leaving Chamonix at 6am this morning to take people to Courmayeur where a 100km race (the CCC course) would be run in place of the UTMB. I didn't receive the text so wasn't even given this option. 100s of runners are in the same boat including Geoff Roes who was pre race equal favourite for the win, so clearly this wasn't an elitist texting strategy. I rang Mimi who had received the text but had decided not to run. I probably would have made the same decision even if it had been mine to make. I think if Id got the text, my year was empty from here on out & I felt 100% over my stomach trouble I would have got on the buses, but not in this condition was I going to optionally run a 100km mountain race which I wasn't fussed over completing, it is not after all the UTMB I came here to run. With other things only weeks away I will instead plough all of my energy into those events and PRAY that they give all of us a chance to come back and run this thing next year. After 2 years of coming here and running a total of 13 miles in that time I would be devastated if I didn't get a crack at finishing this in 2011.

Tomorrow Im going to start putting the training miles back in, beginning with a nice long alpine trail run, a pretty rare & awesome opportunity.

Here's to the race organisers, please get it right and open 2011 back up!!!!

6 hours to go

Well I just registered I figured what is the point in coming all the way out here two years in a row and not starting both times. My stomach is still terrible, breakfast was 4 pieces of dry bread. The plan is to eat something proper, take some immodium and try to sleep for an hour before the start that way I hope I can ingest some energy.

This race was always about just finishing but I just tore the cut off times out of the race manual to carry with me as I have no doubt that my perspective on this just changed to just trying to make each cut off one by one and keeping enough energy there to do so to the end. It is my policy in races not to stop for anything and to move straight through aid stations/ check points without stopping. This time I am going to have to rest and try and recoup wherever possible.

It is cold and absolutely tipping it down with rain. Right now this is looking like a misery fest but somehow I think once i get out there and try and slug it through the first night out, the sun may just come out in the morning and I may just feel like pushing on....

You can follow it live at http://utmb.livetrail.net/tabPassageEntete.php?course=utmb&tab=utmb

UTMB

Well the 2nd big run of the year starts tomorrow at 6:30pm in the centre of Chamonix in France. Last year I had to pull out of running the race due to shin splints and achilles tendonitis, I still travelled but instead crewed the race for Frank Fumich.

This year I've been in good shape in the run up, no injury worries and my legs feel strong and recovered after Badwater. Last night we returned from Sri Lanka after 11 days holiday. For the last 48 hours of it, I was in trouble with a stomach bug. I've spent the whole of today unable to eat anything apart from a couple of pieces of dried toast and the trouble continues. My energy levels are through the floor and my frustration is mounting with every hour that passes as we get nearer and nearer the race. We fly this afternoon at 5pm out of Gatwick so ive got 2 hours before I leave the house. Everything is packed, drop bags, running pack, race gear, drop bag for Lisa who is going to come and meet me at Champex Lac 123km in to the race. Tomorrow I will get up, check in to the race and pray that I can get at least one proper meal in before we start. Being realistic this is not the sort of race that you can rock up to and knock out feeling like shit. But at the same time I don't think I can face not starting again. Who knows if my stomach picks up over the course of the first 24 hours of running I may be able to gorge on the sausage, cheese and baguettes that they serve at the aid stations.

Well fingers crossed that this goes to plan. Its unlikely I will get in to this race again next year due to the increasing popularity, I really can't face thinking about having to wait years to run this one again, there's other things that are pretty high up on the list and a few of them are right around this particular weekend....

Badwater Video

Here it is. Thanks Rich for the filming, direction and inclusion of the greatest song of 2010. Clearly you are in the wrong job....

(If this doesn't work for you just type James Elson 2010 Badwater into Youtube)

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Badwater: Part Two

Furnace Creek was the first time station on the course and marked the 17 mile point. I ran into the Resort and straight through into the bar where I promptly had my first 'sit down' of the day. I didn't rush, there was no point after all with 118 miles left, so I took my time and jogged out back past the officials and onto the course rejoining about 5 minutes later. From this point on runners are allowed their second crew vehicle if they need it, to ferry supplies/ people too and from the main vehicle but more importantly for me, they allow pacers from this point. 'Pacer' is a bit of a fraudulent term here, you can basically have anybody you like run directly behind of you for the entire rest of the race. That person is there for moral encouragement, to provide you with things you can't carry or just generally be there to push you back to the left slightly if you become delirious and stray out onto the road.

I saw Charlie here with the 2nd car bringing more ice back to the main vehicle, I guessed because they had dumped so much over me in the first 3 hours. I ran the first mile (17 - 18) solo and at that point Frank came across and ran with me. I hadn't realised until after the event but plenty of people have commented on how hot it was that day, even by normal Death Valley standards and the thermometer at Furnace Creek maxed out at 134 degrees F or 54 centrigrade during the afternoon.

Thermometer at Furnace Creek on race day. c/o Tony Portera!

Having Frank there was a big help. The road grinds on and on through the desert at this point and can stretch away for miles ahead of you making it a tough psychological battle so early, with the heat biting at your heals. The temperature off of the road was horrific just felt like you were being cooked from every angle and I mentioned to Frank I was getting a sore throat from the dry heat. For all of this though it was still so great to be there and the scenery of Death Valley was stunning. Frank stayed with me for 5 miles then dropped back to the vehicle to cool down and refresh his water supply etc and then rejoined me a mile later. 

Without really knowing it, this stretch pretty much wrecked the entire of the rest of the race for me. Two things were key, that I had gone slightly too fast and had used up an awful lot of energy and that the boys were still dumping whole gallons of water over my head every mile. This was inadvertently leading to massive chaffing under my arms and around my groin and nuts which would really come good later on. I dropped off from 10 minute miles to 11 minute miles and then down to 12 through the next 25 miles to Stovepipe Wells. As the afternoon wore on Frank and I started to walk all of the ups and jog the flats and downs which is pretty standard ultra practice but made even more sense in this heat, which causes your heart rate to increase massively even just remaining stationary. Frank felt the heat too so the last 5 miles or so down the hill to a right bend in the road and then the flat straight part past the sand dunes to Stovepipe Wells, I went alone. At this point the field had spread out greatly. I had reached and passed Jack Denness from the 6am wave and stopped to give him a hand shake and a big slap on the back for encouragement as he sat under a parasol by the side of the road, fanned by two of his crew. The legend that he is rather than say something about the heat or how crap he was feeling he just said 'check this out for service!' The sun was just starting to drop in the sky as I came in to Stovepipe in 8 hours and 25 minutes, 5 minutes ahead of my 30 hour schedule.

I felt awful and I'd gone too fast even though comparative to any other race Id ever done I'd gone very very slowly. I sat on the side of the car for a minute and felt a little dizzy and sick. The boys passed me a turkey cheese bagel but it was like trying to swallow bits of car tire, my throat was dry and the bagel did nothing to help that. I also cut the lining out of my shorts because there was some pretty bad pain coming from chaffing with the water and stitching in the shorts. Marshall Ulrichs wife Heather came over at this point with the race photographer. She mentioned that Marshall who'd started in the 6am wave had had an hours sleep here, that his foot was still painful but that he was ok and had gone on up the road to Townes Pass. Frank told me to take a quick nap in the car so I got in the air con, told him to let me sleep for 5 minutes and promptly dropped off in about 8 seconds. He shook me awake again and I felt a little bit better so stepped out of the car and started to walk up the road out of the time station.

(Frank looking a bit concerned)

The next 16 mile section is the first major climb of the race, 5500 feet up from Stovepipe at Sea Level to the summit of Townes Pass. This is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand you are climbing out of Death Valley and the hottest part of the race for good, on the other you are climbing up a monster hill, the sun is still out and worse there is an enormous hot wind coming straight down the road into your face. The first few miles I had Eberhard with me as a pacer for the first time. Eberhard has run Badwater 6 times including running the double one year (he ran from the finish line to the start before commencing the race and returning to Mt Whitney in a total time of 104 hours). Need less to say he was a good man to have on the crew. He explained that the hairdryer coming down the hill was normal and that I really had cracked the hardest part of the race and should be pleased with myself for my performance so far. As we climbed onto the steeper section of road we started to pass a lot of the 6am and 8am runners. As Frank took over the pacing duties, the higher we climbed, the steeper it got and the harder the wind blew. It felt exactly the same as if someone took out a hairdryer and positioned it 6 inches in front of your face and turned it on. People were starting to break down here. All down the right hand side of the road were runners crew vehicles but rather than moving, most had their respective runners and pacers sat out of the relentless wind behind the car, some laid out on the road getting some sleep. I went past Mark Wooley a fellow Brit living in Southern Spain whom I had met at the registration and he seemed in good spirits taking a well earned break off of the road. 

As we climbed we passed each 1000ft elevation marker and the sun finally dipped below the mountains giving us respite from the heat for the first time. We carried on up the road with our reflective gear and lights on, reaching Marshall as we got towards the top of the climb. He seemed to be dragging his right foot along but was ok as we walked with him for a couple of minutes. Towards the summit of the hill the climb tailed off a little but it seemed to take forever to reach the top. When we did, Eberhard and Charlie were pulled over on the side of the road waiting for us as Charlie and Richard had gone on to Panamint Springs to get an hours sleep before coming back to us. Frank hopped back in the car here and I grabbed a turkey wrap and coke which worked way better than earlier on. Charlie joined me at this point for the 12 mile section of downhill running in to Panamint Springs at mile 72.3. This was my favourite part of the whole race. Eberhard had made sure I knew that this section was runnable so to keep enough in the tank to have some 'power' coming down into Panamint. Well I didn't have a lot of power but after half a mile of walking and eating, Charlie and I kicked up a reasonable jog and stayed solid most of the way down the hill. Each stop I was alternating between coke, mountain dew and non alcoholic lager, a weird combo but one which worked well as my taste buds rejected any more sweet stuff and then craved it again in almost minute by minute cycles. The pattern was set for this stage, we would collect a drink from Frank and Eberhard, walk a few hundred metres and then run the next 1300m to the car again. In this way we made reasonable time, I was just slightly off of pace for the 30 hour mark but not drastically. Marshall came back past us at this point and we followed his red LED all the way down the hill to the last 3 miles into Panamint where you're back on the flat/ slight uphill. Turning around we could now see a trail off into the far distance of runner lights coming over the mountain and down the hill behind us, it was a stunning sight. We got into Panamint in 17 hours 50 minutes, just before 4am. The guys were filling up with petrol when we go there and I sat in a chair for 2 minutes whilst they did a hand over, Rich and Graham coming back out to swap with Eberhard. 

It was pitch dark now but I could see a lot of runners asleep at the time station in chairs or 'cots' collapsable beds. This was a pretty good tactic at this point but I hate stopping in races, ive never done it and I felt it was better just to keep moving. Out of Panamint we faced the second major 18 mile climb back up to around 5000ft. It was more of a gradual ascent but it was still pointless trying to run any of it. The boys took it in turns at this point as we went higher and higher up the road. Graham and Richard both took on pacing duties as the sun came up behind us illuminating Panamint valley and the road we had come down on from Towne's Pass. I wanted to try and get the climb done before the sun came back out so that I could just concentrate on jogging slowly the 50km section from mile 90 to 122 at Lone Pine although in the heat, the downhill would prevent my heart rate from climbing too high.

By the time we reached 80 miles however the sun was out. The camber on the road was driving me crazy, the road sloped badly off in one direction or the other as we went up the switchbacks and putting pressure on parts of my feet that were already blistered. I hadn't really noticed my feet until this point because the road was straight and even which meant i was pounding the same parts of them and they were therefore just numb. Now I was changing my gait to allow for the camber it started to feel like I had raw nerve endings exposed on the soles of my feet. Frank stepped back in as we got the flatter part of the climb and paced me all the way to Darwin at Mile 90.

Severe Bad Language Warning


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Before we got there we had time to run within a foot of a coiled up rattle snake just sat on the side of the road. It was a rare section of running for me as I came past it and I could hear Frank shouting at me over the sound of my ipod and I turned around to see him pointing and shouting snake. We'd passed it and thank god it hadn't gone for us I couldn't imagine having to DNF for a snake bite.

The boys put some signs up around the snake and we continued on the flatter straight road to Darwin. We were running intermittently now and not a lot of it, my balls and undercarriage were really starting to chaff and I was noticing how Id had to start walking with my hands on my hips to stop the skin from under my arms rubbing the raw wounds I had underneath them. We got to Darwin, mile 90.1 in 23 hours 35 minutes, just before the start of my second day of running.

From this point on I am going to recount what I remember of the 'race' but there is unquestionably large chunks I can't really remember or worse that I have imagined. I have discussed various things with the boys in the crew in the aftermath and there are quite a few things that I have no recollection of.

I'd broken the race down into chunks the whole way along so that I was able to cope better mentally with the idea of running 135 miles. So far we'd covered:

0 - 17: Badwater to Furnace Creek
17 - 42: Furnace Creek to Stovepipe Wells
42 to 60: Stovepipe to Townes Pass (Climb 1)
60 to 72: Townes Pass to Panamint Valley
72 to 90: Panamint to Darwin (Climb 2)

Now we were entering the last 3 Stages and with 'only' 45 miles left I was in good spirits so still to come were:

90 - 100: Darwin to the 100 mile marker
100 - 122: 100 Miles to Lone Pine
122 - 135: Lone Pine to Whitney Portals (Climb 3)

I fully intended and had pre-warned Frank that I wanted to run the 50km section from 90 - 122 so in the car at Darwin I got out a serious amount of vaseline again and applied it everywhere to abate the chaffing. I changed my shorts which were rock hard with salt, for Franks longer fresh pair. I would love to have changed my shoes or even taken the off for a minute but I knew if I did I would never get them back on and the bigger pair id bought before the race were in my lost luggage. So at this point I just had to grit my teeth and deal with the reality that I wasn't going to be able to look at them or handle any of the blisters until the end of the race, maybe another 16 - 20 hours away. I ate another turkey cheese wrap and had a coke and off we went. I felt awful but I knew I really had put myself in with a chance of finishing in a half decent time.

(Spread legs. No need for a close up of what is going on underneath)

We jogged away form the car and made it around half a mile, a nice gradual downhill before I had to slow to a walk to readjust my shorts and stop them tearing into my balls. We carried on jogging and came to a walk again for me to repeat. This happened for the rest of the race. Every 300 yards I had to stop to readjust the shorts into a position where I could actually continue moving forward. Without putting the reader off from the rest of this report, basically the skin had blistered on the inside of my thighs, then on my perenium and up my butt crack, but worst of all on the actual nuts themselves. Whilst the blisters were actually bearable, what was now causing a sharp massive burst of pain every couple of minutes was that the blisters had burst. I had a lot of bleeding weeping skin rubbing on another patch of bleeding and weeping skin. The vaseline was totally ineffective at this point now matter how much I applied.

I spent some time trying to explain to Frank just how bad the pain was without worrying him into thinking that we were going to be out for another 24 hours because I was going to have to stop all the time. We just kept jogging and walking and then walking even more to the point where we were only jogging the proper downhill sections. The sun was back out in force now and was climbing in the sky as it got to midday. I reached the 100 mile point in 26 hours and 5 minutes which was still respectable but we had big problems now. It was back up to around 40 degrees and there was just one big straight road leading away into the distance for roughly another marathon before we got in to Lone Pine. There was no respite, no shade, just a hot wind and a long painful slog. Frank took me to 100.5 miles where Eberhard was waving an enormous Union Jack along the side of the road. The boys had been incredible thus far but when they saw the kind of pain I was in now they just turned in an epic performance to carry me through. Eberhard took over from Frank for a few miles, who still hadn't been to sleep and coached me through how this section would work. We would go around 17 miles to a small mining village called Keeler, then we would turn left across the salt flats and have a 5 mile section down into Lone Pine.

I didn't see anyone on this section. Frank Mckinney and David Ploskonka had come past me as I slowed to walk between 90 and 100 but once through 100 miles it was just me and the boys. Eventually I stopped running and resorted to walking as quickly as I could which was around 18 minute miles. When thats your max pace you know its going to be a long day. The heat crept up, Eberhard stayed with me and every 300 - 500 yards I would stop still and make adjustments to be able to carry on. The pain was undoubtedly the worst Ive ever had, probably because it was sustained over so many hours. It got worse and worse and worse to the point where when the boys would stop alongside me, now every half mile instead of a mile, I would readjust downstairs and my hand would come up with a good amount of blood on it.

Without re-iterating the already unnecessary details Ive just given, basically the 50km stretch that I was hoping to cover in around 7 hours, took me over 11. In the end I fashioned a bandage for my damaged areas out of an arm sleeve which I taped in place around my leg. The problem with this was that I obviously needed to keep going to the toilet so I had to keep removing and retaping it. In the end I binned the tape and would just reposition it again every few minutes. I wasted literally hours having to go through this process. In hindsight its easy for me to say 'well I should have just gone on with it and wasted less time' but I can tell you its sending shivers down my spine just recounting this bit and I know that if I hadn't done what I'd done I may well have been stopped almost dead in my tracks. A few other things went wrong at this time also, the heat was up and Id not been as diligent with my drinking and eating because my mind was focused on just blocking out the pain. I started to dehydrate a bit and then felt like I was headed into the path of heatstroke so took  a few minutes in the car at one point again to sit in the air con and cool down. Any longer and my legs would have turned into lead. I also had some stomach problems and at one point wasn't able to make it to the crew vehicle even before I had to dive into the desert for a pit stop. That meant one of the boys (Frank) had to come back a few hundred yards with some loo roll so I could carry on.

The boys kept amazing spirits up all the way through this patch and I just bowed my head and kept putting one foot in front of the other. I think they all took turns in walking with me for stretches but I can't really be sure. To me now it seems that Eberhard was with me almost all the way down to Lone Pine with Charlie for a bit and Richard doing some miles, with Graham taking me the last few in to the town but its all a bit hazy.

Anyway enough wallowing. When we could finally see Lone Pine in the distance, we could also see Mount Whitney and the surrounding mountains looming massive and distant in the background. The car kept stopping every half a mile all of the way into Lone Pine as we rounded Keeler and dropped down and over a river before a short climb up and flat section into the town itself. When we hit the road junction Graham and I turned right and the car was there with a load of Mcdonalds for us. Id ordered some chicken nuggets and finished them in about thirty seconds flat. I wandered off down the road on my own now knowing full well that the left turn into the last stage up the mountain was less than a mile ahead. Again I stopped to readjust everything in front of a hotel and the boys formed a kind of screen in front of me so as not to scare the rest of the general population, I remember that much.

When we got to the turn there was a time station and it snapped my back into reality. Frank set himself up with reflective vests and handed me the same along with 4 ibuprofen to try and help with the pain, at this time it was just after 8pm and we'd been going for a little over 34 hours straight and 122 miles of running/ walking. We turned past the time station and left at the traffic lights. The Portal Road was very different from the way I'd imagined it. I had expected a thin single lane road with over hanging trees and more of a mountainous feel. The reality, and i've no doubt this was my mind playing tricks on my as a result of fatigue, was that I felt like I was entering a theme park. The dark quickly came down and Eberhard, Frank and I began just to pace up the hill one step at a time. At first we moved quite slowly and in the twilight it seemed to me that the trees overhanging the boulder lined road were reaching out like giant inflatable animals towards us. The boys carried on beside us in the crew vehicle stopping every half mile for the duration of the climb. After a couple of miles I decided the best thing to do would be to let Frank take the lead and sit in behind him. I spent the time from 9:20pm to 11:30pm just staring at the reflective strips on the back of Franks trainers lit up by my headlamp and it ate up the time. I would guess we were travelling about 3.5 miles per hour in that section and it suprised him and Eberhard but me also as to how much better I fared on this stretch. No doubt the end being within reach was a big factor.

We still hadn't seen any other runners in a long long time but it felt like we'd made good progress and would likely have made a bit of time back. At about mile 129 though I had to slow again. The pain from my undercarriage was back and my legs were starting to tire on the climb. Frank pushed on as fast as he could without losing me but I was taking a long time to push up the 2 miles to the 131 mile time station, the last one of the race. In the end we hit that in 37:30. The whole way along I had moved the finish time goalposts in my head as things began to unravel. 30 hours became 34, became 36, became 38 and it was here I realised I would just like to finish this thing and if sub 40 was possible then great. 48 hours is the cut off for the buckle and 60 for the entire race so clearly by this stage these were in the bag barring a total physical collapse.

We walked that last 4 miles at about 2 miles per hour pace. The whole portal road is uphill, ascending from 4000ft to almost 8500ft and the last steepest kick spans from mile 131 to mile 133.5. At this point, Marshall, who had rested at Panamint after passing us on the way down from Townes Pass came back up to us. He walked between Frank and I and grabbed my arm as if to say good job almost there. He asked Frank if this was the last switchback and Frank kind of laughed and said 'you should know buddy', Marshall being on the path to his 16th official Badwater finish. We rounded that switch back, walked up to mile 134 where I could finally see the road enter the trees which I knew we would have to do before we hit the end. The boys left us here and drove up to the finish so that they would be ready. Frank, Charlie and I pushed on and it seemed to take forever. There was no sign of life or any directional help at all. Just utter darkness with overhanging rock formations and trees, no lights, no people, no sign of the finish line. In the end we made educated guesses as to the route and rounded a corner to see the boys up ahead. Eberhard gauged there was about 1km to go and we walked as a group up that last 10 minutes into sight of the finish line. They let me go at that point and I ran the last 15 yards over the finish, with James Adams cheering us on from just beside it where he'd been since finishing 2 hours before us. Finishing time 39 hours 19 minutes 2 seconds, 38th place. 80 Starters.

I felt ok on the line. There was no massive release of emotion, just a general pleased to be done kind of aura. We all hugged each other and I thanked the boys each in turn for a massive performance and their help. Chris Kostman then took some shots at the line, solo, with the whole crew and with just Frank bearing in mind this was the first leg of 2 with the bike ride coming up towards the end of the year. Someone fetched the car at that point and we cruised on down to the hotel at the bottom of the mountain. I kept drifting in and out of sleep on the way down that drive and it was very painfully that I managed to get into the shower and then onto the bed for a few hours kip before the drive back to Vegas.

I've been in a pretty bad way since the end of the race. We had almost 2 full days in Vegas and for 24 hours or so all I could do was lie in the bed and eat a small amount occasionally.

My calves, feet, undercarriage, underarms and stomach were all in bad shape.

I made it out to dinner in the Venetian restaurant Tao on the Thursday night but with a 6am flight the following morning hit the sack about 10pm. The 36 hour journey home about finished me and I've come out of the other side of this week still feeling a little shaky but well on the road to recovery. My feet and energy levels are the last things to come back.

I would recommend this race to anybody, anywhere. It is probably the hardest thing you'll ever do but it is a monumental run and in my opinion worth everything you have to give to get to the finish. Its easily my single greatest accomplishment in a short 28 years. The barriers to success start with the entry criteria, they will not accept any applications from people who haven't run at least 2 x 100 mile non-stop races. The 90 places are highly covered and I was extremely fortunate to get a place with only 40 rookie slots each year. The fact that so many of the runners go back to race time and time again is a pretty good indication of just how special Badwater is.

Perhaps the most special accomplishment ever on the Badwater course took place this year. Jack Denness finished the race for the 12th time in a total of just over 59 hours. The time seems slow but Jack recently turned 75 years old. Ive said it elsewhere already that I think this may be perhaps the greatest sporting achievement Ive ever witnessed. All in all there were 5 British finishers this year with James Adams, Mark Wooley and Tim Welch all making the finish as well. A good performance from the UK!

Would I run it again? You can never say never but I think for next time Id like to crew someone else and get to see the event from the other side of the fence. From everything the boys came out of it with, you get a similar experience without the handfuls of punishment.

Next up its UTMB and FC508. Thats it for me in 2010, its already been the best year of running and racing I've ever had and could have hoped for despite being over 9 hours outside of my goal time at Badwater. In the end it was just about finishing and that is no bad thing. Id take just the same result at the next two all day long.

Badwater: Part One

Frank and I between Panamint and Darwin around mile 88. Photo c/o Luis Escobar.

'Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us' Hebrews 12:1. Quoted on the eventual race winners hat at the start. 

This is long so I’m sorry but this was the longest, hardest, most painful and most rewarding journey I've been on yet and there is a LOT to say. This is a bit of a cleansing process for me psychologically, a week on and the race is still extremely fresh in my mind. My feet have bottomed out now, the nails are gone, the heels have come apart but they're healing. Apart from about 3 kgs which I am still missing I am 80% recovered physically but I still need to get my head around the whole thing. Basically for 3/4 of the race I went pretty good but the last 1/4 I spent skidding out of control all over the road only narrowly avoiding smashing into the reservation and having to book a return journey to start all over again. I have an awesome and dedicated crew to thank for that but I guess also a pretty high tolerance for pain and some experience with what endurance really is. Ive faced most things before in a race but the problems i'll come to at the end were something i NEVER want to go through again.


Here is Part One of the report. Part Two will contain the gory details of how my feet, underarms and 'undercarriage' fell apart….

A lot of races claim to be 'the toughest in the world'. Plenty of people have written articles set on answering that question from a non-biased perspective and almost universally, the consensus is that its Badwater. The raw facts are often quoted as the rationale:

Distance: It is 135 miles non stop.

Environment: The first 42 miles of the race take place in Death Valley, the second hottest place on the planet with a peak record temperature of 56.7 degrees and an average July temp of 50. The race is specifically organised to start during the hottest part of the day, on the hottest day of the year.  The remainder of the race is run in the Mojave Desert and second day temperatures, when runners have already been going for 24 hours, rarely drop below 40.

Elevation: The racecourse covers three mountain passes each between 4000 and 5500 ft with a total of 14000 feet of cumulative gain.

The End: At 122 miles, runners enter the town of Lone Pine and are greeted with probably the hardest finish of any race anywhere, 13 miles of steep ascent to Mount Whitney Portals, the gateway to the highest point in the contigious US.

Badwater is the hardest thing Ive ever done. That’s an easy thing to say. I have until now maintained that the MdS would always be the hardest thing I’d ever do because it was a week of utter suffering. Jim and I were rookies back then and you could really really tell (http://runthroughtime.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2006-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2007-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=1). During that race I was often unsure of how we could continue. Of course we did and I realise when I look back now that I had no idea then what real suffering was. My legs hurt and I couldn’t hold food down. These are problems which can be solved in an hour with some ibuprofen and some cool off time in a tent. Believe me Im not trying to say that the MdS is easy, unil this month it was the hardest thing Id ever taken on. The level of suffering I reached in Badwater on the other hand made the MdS look like a cake walk. Even Frank who crewed the entire event and watched pretty much every step I took stopped with the gentle abuse and cajoling, usually a very common method of getting each other through stuff like this when he saw my bowed drunken stagger down the last 50km stretch of flat. He said in an e mail to me afterwards that he thought Id gone through about 10 times the pain anyone should have too and it did honestly feel like that. It was still unquestionably worth it.


I didn’t realise until being at the event itself and particularly in the few days afterwards quite how much the race means to 1. The organisers, volunteers and past runners of the race and 2. The running community looking on. The outpouring of e mails and the number of people who have followed the race online across the world, throughout, has been massive and I guess based on the above, the running community in general really does view the race as something uniquely special. Past runners always reflect on how Badwater is like a family. Once you run it or crew it you become part of that family and you build an affiliation and affetion for the event. Cynically I found this a little hard to believe but having run down that massive never ending stretch of tarmac I see what they mean. Badwater is different and for me the reason for that is simply how hard it is. 

The race start and Badwater itself is the name of a geographical point in Death Valley which stands as the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere at 282 feet below sea level. The nearest major city is Las Vegas so we flew in on the Friday night. We took a long route in order to save costs and went via Rome and New York. Each one of the 3 flights were delayed and in the end we were lucky to get there by 1am Saturday morning, we made our connection at JFK by minutes. The useless incompetent lazy airline Alitalia also lost all of our baggage and wouldn’t see it again until after the race. Its hard to describe how much of a problem that is. 


I had been planning Badwater since February the 17^th when I was formally accepted into the race. That is planning in terms of 1. training, 2. acclimatisation to heat and 3. kit. One of those, albeit the least crucial arm of the three was instantly removed. I lost all of my energy powder responsible for about 200 Kcals an hour which I couldn’t replace (It is a European Product) and the last thing you are advised to do in a major race is change to something new right before in case you react badly or get nauseous and cannot keep anything down. I lost all of my Enduralytes  These are salt replacement tablets that are essential to take if you’re running prolonged periods in the heat. If you don’t take them and drink only water you become hyponatraemic and can drop into a fast and dangerous coma. Throughout Badwater Eberhard my German crew and 6 time finisher usually takes about 3 every 20 minutes. Thankfully I managed to get hold of Frank before he left home and he bought with him enough to just see us through the race. Of course I also lost my spare trainers, running gear, food for the race, headlamps, reflective vests, sprayers etc etc all things that we had to then buy back in Walmart on the way to the race. This was stressful and time consuming and of course what we bought as replacements didn’t match the quality of the stuff id packed. Thankfully I had worn a pair of running shoes on the plane out in case the worst happened.

Picking up the hire cars, a dodge caravan as the main vehicle and a small dodge charge and buying the supplies in Walmart plus a small detour meant we didn’t reach Death Valley until 6pm on the Saturday night, around 6 hours after we’d planned. However the crew were together and we were in good spirits. My team consisted of Richard, Charlie and Graham whom had come out from the UK and Frank (DC) and Eberhard (Germany) both previous finishers and good friends from other races.  I literally would have been lost without any one of them. I was followed and looked after better than I could have ever imagined but i'll come to that in more detail later.

When we got into Death Valley we pulled onto the stretch of the race road from mile 32 to 42 at Stovepipe Wells. Frank pulled the car over and we stepped on to the side of the road to take in the conditions. The sun was down but there was a wind blowing across the sand dunes and into our faces and evening at this time in the early evening the temperature was 119 degrees. Immediately noticeable also was the smell of sauna. The intense baking of the rocks across the landscape and its enclosed nature, ringed by mountains, made it feel and smell exactly like the wooden box Id spent so long sitting it at the gym in 'training' for this insane race. 

We drove up to Stovepipe Wells for the night, the mile 42 time station of the race and stayed there in decent accommodation. There were a few other racers and crews around and it was just great to actually be there. The following morning we spent the first hour writing ELSON #28 on the sides, front and back of each vehicle as necessitated in the race rules with black masking tape. It looked pretty bad but did the job. 

By the end we were drenched in sweat. We then drove down to Furnace Creek the 17 mile first time station to check in. En route I jumped out and ran a 2 mile stretch. I got back in the car afterwards and the sweat was pouring off of me. I wanted to panic at how much i'd overheated in a 20 minute jog but suppressed it so that the boys didn't think to themselves 'holy shit he's just had trouble running about 1/70th of what he's supposed to do tomorrow?'. At check in the atmosphere was good. Badwater only has between 80 and 90 invited runners each year but the scale is way bigger. Each runner has on average 4-5 crew and with officials, media and staff the total pre race meeting consisted of around 400 people. We were taken through the rules, a few old stories, introduced to the organisers and each other and given a quick recap of those in the room whom had run previously and who had the most finishes. It was a long meeting but I left feeling pretty comfortable. 

(Eberhard, Frank and I at check in. Photo c/o of Ben Jones)

Our group of 6 then ate the last supper (one beer for me as forced on my by Frank saying that the only race he'd ever not had a drink before was his DNF at Leadville the first time) and bought about 20 bags of ice for the start in the morning. The boys spent the rest of the evening preparing the cars which is a massive job in order to have everything on hand for when we would need it: Ice, Water, Food, Electrolytes, Hats, Lights etc etc etc . The time was upon us….

We got up on race morning at 6am. Id slept well and I felt ready to go. We tidied up the last few bits of gear and got down to Furnace Creek where the boys ate something before we headed on 17 miles back further down the road to the start at Badwater itself. I had been assigned a slot in the 10am wave so the 6am starters and 8am starters were already on the road. It was great to see people heading back towards us from the opposite direction with their crews and vehicles all rolling with them and making sure they had what they needed. I recognised lots of faces and names on the cars, in particular James Adams whom I hadn’t managed to catch up with pre race. He had already reached mile 8 ish and was only a bit over an hour in.

The Sea level Sign

When we got the start the other runners looked like they were there to race. The 10am wave contained all of the fast runners, previous winners: Jorge Pacheco, Marco Farinazzo, Jamie Donaldson, Pam Reed. All in all I was way out of my depth. We had photos at the Badwater sign and moved across to the startline. I was the last one to join it and stood directly behind Jamie who’s crew kept jumping in to spray her down and make sure she started in 100% peak condition. 

As we stood on the startline I thought about what was ahead and I wasn’t daunted. Id trained, I had a pace strategy, I trusted my own ability to get through the race in a reasonable time and more than anything I knew I had the grit and determination not to quit for any reason aside medical ones I may lose control of leading to potential long term damage in which case that call would be out of my hands. Chris Kostman the race director introduced Casey Dukus who stood by our startling and sung the national anthem beautifully. Even the boys afterwards admitted their hairs stood up on the backs of their necks (apart from Rich who thought it sucked). Stood there in that unholy place in that incredible heat in silence with such a monumental task ahead with that rendition of in my opinion the most uplifiting national anthem was awesome.

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Chris counted down from 10 to 1 and off we went. I'd set up a strategy with the guys that they would see me at the 1.5 mile point and then every 1 mile from there, giving us an opportunity to avoid the early pile up of crews on the roadside who would stop each 1 mile from the start. My starting gear went like this: Yellow headsweats cap so that the boys could pick me out, white cotton head and neck scarf which we called the 'wizard hat' drenched in ice cold water, ice necklace which Frank invented the night before and would keep my carotid artery cool, white moeben armsleeves, race shorts, long white compressions socks, my usual 8.5 road trainers, 2 watches, my St Georges Cross and a water bottle. My pacing strategy was to aim for 30 hours. The first section from Badwater to Stovepipe Wells would be an 8.5 hour run for the 42 miles. 

At each mile mark the boys took off my wizard hat and replaced it, handed me a new water bottle with enduralytes in and sprayed me down with water from a garden store plant sprayer. Then every 3rd mile they would replace the ice necklace with a new one. To start with we were a mess and that was purely because we hadn't practised but the boys quickly got it down so that from mile 5 onwards we looked like a nascar pit stop. The first few miles I was running in a group of 5 with Connie Gardner, Jamie Donaldson, Jimmy Dean Freeman and Michelle Barton. We all overtook each other when one of us slowed for the crew and then proceeded on. We were running roughly 10 minute miles which was a little quick but nothing too bad and i certainly didn't pull anything quicker than a 9:45 during the entire race. When the crew came up bang on went the headscarf and the ice necklace over the top. Eberhard got a little excited in the early stages and kept pulling the wizard hat all the way down around my neck but we ironed that little problem out and the team were unreal. Plenty of checking to see how I was doing, some minor heckling as they went back past in the car to the next mile point but just the right amount. After around 7 or 8 miles the race started to spread out a little. I guess I ran most of that first section around 15th - 20th out of the 8am wave of 25 runners and certainly didn't feel like I was overcooking it, but I did run all of it even the smaller uphills. At mile 17 we hit Furnace Creek Aid Station/ Time Point Number 1. I reached that marker in 2 hours 57 minutes. 

Early on around Mile 6. Photo c/o Chris Kostman