Ultramarathon Man

by Dean Karnazes

  I ran freely now, paying little attention to the ground in front of me or the pain. It’s funny how a dream that has almost been lost can come back to life with such power. Its rebirth infuses you with a vitality that’s both playful and shockingly resolute. Suddenly obstacles cease to exist. The only thing that matters is making that dream come true.

  That final half-mile into the Placer High stadium was run as though nothing else mattered. My shoes were falling off, my toes were bloodied, my shirt dangled by threads—all irrelevant. What mattered was making it to the finish line.

  Big tears streamed down my cheeks as I entered the stadium to run that final lap around the track. I began laughing and crying at the same time as I ran those last few steps. It was just after 2:00 A.M. and the stadium was nearly empty, except for a few diehards that fed off this sort of raw energy. They were standing on their seats, clapping and cheering as I ran, proudly crying, across the finish line. If pure emotion and passion are what these people wanted to see, they had come to the right place.

  Medical check at the Western States finish

  Laid out at the Western States finish

  The emotion got the better of me as well. That announcer at the start of the race had been right: I was forever changed by the Western States experience. Everything took on new meaning. My demeanor grew more carefree, as if the important things in life had become clearer. My outlook became more expansive; my shortcomings less significant. Others were treated with greater compassion, increased tolerance, broader humility.

  I liked the transformation this race brought about, and I wanted more. Scarcely a month after completing the event, I found myself lusting for the next challenge. My official finishing time was twenty-one hours, one minute, and fourteen seconds, and I had come in 15th place overall. Respectable for a rookie, given that this was one of the most elite ultra-endurance running fields on earth. Not that I cared much about my placing. Passion had fueled my progress, and I hungered for more.

  It was optimistic to think that I could run farther than 100 miles, especially under such demanding conditions, but I yearned to test the limits of human endurance and stretch the limits of self. I was listening to my heart, finding my place in the world. If it could be done, I wanted to do it. Because I needed to know how far I could go.

  Part Two

  Chapter 11

  Badwater

  Running with the devil . . .

  —Van Halen

  Death Valley July 26, 1995

  There is a temperature at which bread begins to toast. I’m not exactly sure what that temperature is—but I can say from experience that running in such heat is not advisable.

  After I’d successfully completed the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run, life became a little more vibrant. There was a certain spring in my stride, a newfound levity in my disposition. Even if most people I interacted with had no idea of what I’d done, I knew. That was all that mattered. The greatest rewards of high achievement, I had come to believe, were intrinsic.

  Beyond Western States, I didn’t know of any physical challenge more demanding. That is, until I read a short piece in the Los Angeles Times about an obscure footrace across Death Valley in the middle of summer.

  Badwater is the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere, smack in the middle of Death Valley, at the southeastern end of California, 282 feet below sea level. Summertime temperatures can exceed 130 degrees Fahrenheit, and the asphalt can get better than 200 degrees. Not your ideal place for a jog.

  But the summer after I completed the Western States, I found myself standing at the starting line of the Badwater Ultramarathon, drenched in perspiration, shaking with anticipation, waiting for the race to begin.

  Twenty-four of us were about to embark on what is called The World’s Toughest Footrace—a 135-mile trek across Death Valley to Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous United States. While the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run had been grueling, Badwater is widely considered the ultimate test of endurance and human resolve. Or just plain insanity. It can go either way.

  Athletes have traveled from across the globe to take on Badwater. The fittest of the fit have come here to push the body to unthinkable limits in hopes of reaching the finish within the official cutoff time of sixty hours. Unlike Western States, Badwater is a road race held entirely on paved highway. But there are still plenty of hills to contend with along the route, even before the road begins its twisted ascent up Mount Whitney.

  Scanning the starting line, what I saw was the most elite squadron of extreme endurance athletes on the face of the earth. They were clad in white desert suits, muscles taut underneath, preparing to embark on the ultimate physical challenge. And there I stood among them, heart pounding in the sweltering heat, ready to rumble.

  I’d spent the entire year training for Badwater, adapting my routine in preparation for the harsh conditions by running in a wool sweater and ski parka, attempting to simulate the desert heat. In talking with some of the other competitors around the starting line, it sounded like my training might have been light. Many of them trained inside a sauna.

  With a chorus of hoots and primordial screams from the racers and support crew (I didn’t see a single spectator in the crowd), the race began. The heat was like nothing I had ever encountered before, completely otherworldly. Undulating waves of solar radiation rose from the pavement in massive sheets as we made our way down the long, straight, featureless highway. A runner in the distance quickly became engulfed by the mirage that distorted everything on the horizon.

  Because the route we followed was entirely along the roadside, I’d decided to rent a motor home as a crew vehicle. Bad choice. As we’d crossed the desert in it on the way to the starting line, the alternator had fried, leaving my family and newly arrived daughter, Alexandria, stranded in a 125-degree immobile motor home. It was a risky decision bringing Alexandria, at six months old, to this event. Most guidebooks advised not taking children to Death Valley in the summer months. But I didn’t want to leave her. Luckily I had Julie, my folks, and my uncle George along for support.

  Fearing for Alexandria’s safety, and ours as well, we hastily abandoned the broken-down RV and fled for shelter, leaving most of my running gear, food, and supplies inside.

  Thankfully a park ranger found us shortly after we’d left the vehicle on the roadside, and he drove us to shelter. With the RV cooked, Julie, my mother, and Alexandria got a ride with the ranger back to a hotel near the end of the race in a little town called Lone Pine. Uncle George went with them and picked up his Mazda sedan that he’d left in town when we met. I would now be supported during the race not by my entire family in a motor home, but by a skeleton crew consisting of my father and uncle in a compact car. We had only salvaged one small cooler from the RV, and we had very little ice. It was far from ideal, but out in Death Valley you take what you can.

  The ordeal on the way to the start had been unsettling, but I tried not to let it break my composure. Every inch of my flesh was covered with a white UV protective suit—like a running mummy—to prevent the sun from searing my skin. I needed to focus on staying cool, on not overheating inside the suit. There wasn’t a tree in sight, not even so much as a rock to crawl under for shade.

  Running down the white line on the highway to hell

  The asphalt quickly grew so hot that it literally melted my first pair of running shoes within an hour. I didn’t see it coming, the soles just disintegrated. I switched to a second pair. Watching some of the other competitors, I learned to run down the white line that edged the roadside, which reflected enough heat to keep this new pair from melting, at least for the time being.

  Even running down the white line, the inferno radiating off the road surface was like a blast furnace. Within twelve miles, my feet developed blisters. By 15 miles, blisters formed on top of my blisters. We stopped and cut huge swaths out of my shoes, reducing them to makeshift sandals. It helped a little.

  We’d been advised
to carry a plant mister to help me stay cool, and we’d brought one. But without ice, the mister was useless. As hard as I sprayed, most of the mist evaporated as it came out of the nozzle and never reached my body.

  Earlier this year, a European tourist had roasted to death in the mudflats beside the road. Apparently, he had walked out to take some pictures. The coroner’s report noted that the corpse’s feet were severely disfigured. Poor bastard had stepped through the narrow surface crust into a layer of molten-hot mud. Trapped by the ankles, he’d literally baked to death. He, too, had been carrying a water mister—a lot of good that did him. . . .

  Furnace Creek is the first remote outpost along the course, seventeen miles from the start. There is a small service station—which was closed—and a hotel, and lots of scorching red sand blowing across the road. To conserve our limited supplies, I guzzled from the gas-station hose before noticing a small placard next to the spigot: NON-POTABLE WATER.

  Badwater.

  The vomiting started at mile 30. Severe dehydration and cramping followed. I was less than a quarter of the way into it, and already things were going haywire.

  My friend Tom Servais hosing me down at Badwater

  “How about trying some food?” my dad asked from the Mazda window.

  “Sure, I’ll try anything.”

  He lowered the window and handed me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I ran with the sandwich for perhaps a hundred yards, trying to stave off the nausea enough to take a bite. When I finally chomped into it, I found that the bread was toasted. That’s strange, I thought to myself, Why would we bring a toaster to Death Valley? Then it occurred to me: I was running in a toaster.

  It was 1:00 A.M. as we made our way into Stovepipe Wells, 42 miles from the starting point of this godforsaken race. The road was dark and silent as I ran, except for the whistle of the wind howling across the barren expanse of desert and the periodic tumbleweed bouncing along the way. It was pitch-black when we arrived—the middle of the night—and the temperature was 112 degrees. Birds had fallen from the sky earlier in the day.

  Stovepipe Wells has a single hotel, with a small pool. I ran straight to it and jumped in. Unfortunately, the water was as warm as a Jacuzzi. As I climbed out, another runner ambled up to the pool. He was dry-heaving continually, and, under the pale-yellow glow of the naked bulb illuminating the area, I could see him lurching uncontrollably. He stepped feetfirst into the pool without removing any of his running gear, shoes included. He was still dry-heaving when he clambered back out, dripping wet. He passed his crew in a daze.

  “Did it help?” one of them asked.

  He shook his head and staggered past them, straight into the hotel. That was the last we saw of him. Game over.

  Exiting Stovepipe Wells, I was hallucinating vividly as I trotted along. The farther I progressed, the more delirious I became. At one point an old miner appeared in the road ahead of me, gold-dust pan in hand. “Water,” he croaked. Feeling sorry for him, I filled his pan from my bottle. It was only when the water splashed and steamed on the road that I realized he was a hallucination. Or a ghost.

  Then came hallucinations of rattlesnakes on the road. “Look out!” my dad and uncle screamed, flashing the headlights and honking. The snakes were real.

  Besides the rattlesnakes, there were scorpions and big tarantulas to watch out for on the dark road. My vision wasn’t very focused, and my mind was in a haze. I plodded along recklessly, unable to remain mentally attentive. My guard was down at a time I needed to tread cautiously.

  At four in the morning, along with the vomiting came severe diarrhea. My stride was so shaky that I could barely make it to the shoulder of the road to yank down my shorts and expel wretchedly from both ends simultaneously. The next remote outpost, Panamint Springs, was at mile 72. I needed to get there soon, if only for a roll of toilet paper. We had run out long ago.

  My dad and uncle were with me straight through the night. They would pull the car some two miles up the road—looking for critters—and then would wait for me to saunter by, always ready to help. Although I’d stopped eating and drinking long ago, for fear of ejecting the products, they kept up the support all the way through.

  The toughest footrace on earth was kicking my ass. The official finish at road-end on the side of Mount Whitney was still 63 miles away, and I had no intentions of stopping there. With my newfound spirited determination, I wanted to make an extreme endurance event even more extreme by blasting through the finish line and running eleven additional miles up the trail to the summit.

  Call me a masochist. Plenty of people were starting to.

  I was thinking that myself as I staggered into Panamint Springs, hunched over like an ape. My head was spinning and I saw stars, though it was now daylight. Someone decided I needed fruit and stuffed a piece of warm, limp cantaloupe in my mouth. I threw it up immediately.

  “Is he all right?” I heard a man ask my crew. It was Ben Jones, M.D., the local doctor, surgeon, obstetrician, pediatrician, psychiatrist (lord knows they need one out here), and mayor of Badwater.

  “We’re not sure,” my dad answered.

  “Would he like to use my ice bath?”

  Behind his car, Dr. Jones was towing a coffin on wheels filled with ice water.

  I shook my head. There was no way in hell I was crawling into a coffin, even for an icy cold bath. The prospect of ending up in one for good seemed all too real.

  I could dimly make out the doctor consulting with my dad and uncle. They sounded like a bad transistor radio, complete with static and irregular volume. I looked up; the sun appeared to be pouring down in a molten red mist that swirled around the distant dunes and then weirdly evaporated back up into the sky. I took a step forward, veered sideways, took another wobbly half-step, and collapsed in a heap on the burning ground. . . .

  When I awoke, the hotel sheets had been removed from the bed, and I was lying naked in a puddle of sweat.

  “Where am I?” I mumbled. “Dad? Uncle George?”

  “Would you like a towel?” my wife asked softly.

  I squinted up at her face. “What are you doing here? Where are we?”

  “The race is over, honey. You’re at a hotel in Lone Pine.”

  “But I didn’t finish, did I? How did I get here?”

  “You were driven here. You passed out.”

  “No!” I croaked. “Why did they take me away?”

  “Let’s see: you were severely dehydrated, vomiting, slurring your words, and on the verge of heatstroke.”

  “So?”

  “So when you passed out, they thought enough was enough.”

  “But I was only halfway done.”

  “It sounds like you were all the way done.”

  “I can’t believe they carted me away like that.”

  “Would you like me to take you back out there?” she volunteered.

  The idea of heading back into that inferno triggered an impulse of nausea. I sat up, wincing. I could see circular pus stains discoloring the sheets where my blisters had oozed a yellowy discharge from the abscesses covering both heels.

  “I failed. I’m a failure.”

  “You did not fail, and you are certainly not a failure,” Julie said firmly. “You ran seventy-two miles without being able to keep anything in your system. How much farther are you willing to go?”

  To Julie, the bad luck encountered out in the desert was just something to be taken in stride, a bump in the road, not the end of the road. There would be other races to run.

  Julie was rational. I wasn’t. To me, it was complete, incomprehensible devastation not to finish Badwater. It didn’t occur to me that this distorted overreaction possibly came from the same internal force that drove me to run great distances and allowed me to endure unfathomable amounts of pain. Most people would let it go at a point. Win some, lose some. But to me, failure was terminal. In my way of looking at things, it was more honorable to die trying than to give up. Thank God I’d passed out back the
re; who knows what I might have done to myself otherwise.

  Much of my bullheadedness, I knew, came as a result of losing my sister. After Pary’s untimely death, life became more real. People can say things to you like, “You never know when your number’s going to come up,” but it doesn’t really mean much until you have someone you love taken away from you unexpectedly. From that day on, my delusions of immortality ended. Every minute now mattered. There were no second chances with life; you really didn’t know when your number would come up. Failure was insufferable to me. I had no time to waste failing.

  “Let’s pack it up,” I said glumly. “We’re a long way from home.”

  I felt awful. The list of those I’d disappointed was long. Not only had I let down everyone who had supported me along the way, I had put my family in harm’s way and had nothing to show for this imprudence but a broken heart and shin splints. Worst of all, I had failed my sister, my greatest inspiration.

  Had I let myself down? The pain ran much deeper than that. I wasn’t even worthy of consideration. I didn’t matter. I was nothing more than a loathsome creature undeserving of the least bit of sympathy. Mere self-pity was three rungs above the dark hole where I resided. My honor was shattered.

  During the long drive home with my family, there was ample time to reflect on the lessons from Badwater, and I eased up on myself. Yes, I had failed—but it had actually been a spectacular failure, gloriously disintegrating every aspect of my body and soul until I literally fell over in the dirt. In the words of Theodore Roosevelt:The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.