SUN PRECAUTIONS BADWATER 2000

-Ben Jones Story

FIRE AT BOTH ENDS

     This year’s Race featured fires at both ends and plenty of heat in the middle. A few days before the Race started; there was a national news report that there was a fire in Death Valley. My original thought was, “So what’s unusual about a fire in Hades?@ At the same time, wild fires hit the southern High Sierra. A major fire took place in Kennedy Meadows just 50 miles southwest of Lone Pine. The sun was eclipsed during the second day by smoke and the sky was bright-orange at sunset with ash “raining” down on the last third of the course. In addition, to add extra heat, a road re-surfacing job was taking place on a 10-mile stretch along Owens Dry Lake near Keeler (some call it “Killer.”). The hot tar would stick to the under surfaces of the running shoes providing a sort of retread.  The temperatures in general were about as to be expected with highs up to 122 in Death Valley and the lows no less than 95 for the first half of the Race. The coolest might have been around 55 at Whitney Portals at night.

     Hi-Tec Sports, USA, Inc. put on the Race starting in 1987. Last year the Race Co-Directors, Matt Frederick and Karen Raby, left that firm. It took most of the summer for me and Chris Kostman of AdventureCorps and the Furnace Creek 508 (bike race) to establish that Hi-Tec was not going to pursue putting on the Race any more as they were not marketing any products such as desert running shoes or apparel for sun protection. Chris set up a website:

http://badwaterultra.com

and I kept mine going:

http://www.badwaterbenjones.com 

     All the information needed for applying to the Race and anything pertinent was included. Dana Prieto Tanaka handled the marketing. Denise (Jones) and I spent a lot of time corresponding by email with the applicants. We arranged for desert training clinics on Memorial Day weekend where we had 39 people and Fourth of July weekend where we had 24 people. All together, 15 of these were runners and twelve had successful journeys during the Race itself. The other three, who did not do group participation, dropped. We feel that attending these clinics is very important and almost a prerequisite for race readiness and entry. Also, Denise, the First Lady of Badwater and the “Blister Queen,” put on a foot care clinic. She has been passing off her talents to other cosmetologists which will make it better in the future with so many runners.

     Jodi Rods, Assistant to the Chief Ranger of Death Valley National Park, who handles the permits, allowed us to have 90 entrants this year. That is more than double that of the previous year. (Eight to ten years ago there were only 12-14 in the event). This year there were three wave-starts of 30 each at two-hour intervals. Actually, on 07-27-2000, there were 32 in the 0600 group, 22 in the 0800 group, and 15 in the 1000 group. This was for safety reasons and also to not impair tourist access to the Park. Rules and regulations were clearly spelled out and a structure for penalties and disqualifications was announced.

     The pre-race meeting was held the afternoon before the race in the auditorium of the Visitor’s Center at Furnace Creek Ranch. Almost all of the 300 seats were filled with 69 runners and their pacers, crew and family members, as well as volunteers and Sun Precautions Badwater 2000 staff members. It took at least two hours to get the race packets handed out and for announcement to be made. Special recognition was made regarding Angelika Castaneda who set a woman=s record last year and also completed the Furnace Creek 508 garnering her the cherished Death Valley Cup. The Russian Federation and USA teams of three each were introduced. A group photo was taken of the participants who entirely filled the stage. Elyse Glickman of Denson Weissman Communications announced that “Running On The Sun,” filmed last year of the Badwater 135 Race, was going to be screened at the Hollywood Film Festival at Paramount Studios in the near future. It has been already been presented at several Festivals and will be presented at several more in the next few months. It is hoped that it will be nominated for an Academy Award as a documentary. During the afternoon, several Badwater personalities who had passed on during the last year were memorialized: Bob Givens and Greg Jenkins. This year=s hero, Rick Nawrocki, was introduced. He had just completed extensive chemotherapy and IV radiation therapy for Hodgkins lymphoma and ran this year as a cured individual. Several runners were planning a double-crossing (=300 miles).  

     Many stories have unfolded and are available on the websites. As it turns out, the first five places went to International athletes. The Russian Federation sent their best runners, who are among the best ultrarunners in the world. First place went to Anatoli Kruglikov in 25:09:05 for a new record by 2 hrs 40 min! Second went to Dusan Mraljve of Slovenia in 25:21:20, only 14 minutes behind. Third went to Kamame Sakurai of Japan in 27:52:14. All of these runners broke the previous record set by Eric Clifton last year. Fourth was Ivan Labutin in 29:42:24. Irina Reutovich of the Russian Federation was the first woman in 29:48:27. This time broke Angelika Castaneda’s record of last year by seven hours! See the Race results below.

     Then there was a wave of US runners. Tim Hewitt showed up with only his wife to crew him. Fortunately, he inherited a great team of runners and crew members along the way to get him past at least 50 runners from earlier starts to finish at the Portals in a respectable time. Next was Dean Karnazes who entered late after placing 11^th at Western States a month earlier. He took the place of a friend who became injured recently. After him was Jay Grobeson who almost got wiped out at the Memorial weekend clinic session and then came back for a spectacular performance.

     It is always interesting to talk with the media. This summer I traveled some with Maria Biel, journalist with German Playboy. She wanted to know what type of person does Badwater. She was expecting to hear that it was some person like a “Universal Soldier” such as Dolph Lundgren or Jean Claude VanDamme. I had to tell her that it isn’t like that at all. Most have inherited good genes and probably good VO2 Max capabilities. Maybe there is such a thing as super-slow twitch muscle fibers. This race is mostly about endurance rather than speed. Mainly it is a mind-trip plus physical adaptation to heat and altitude as well as the distance. Coming to Death Valley and the High Sierra to familiarize oneself with the environment are important factors. Crewing or pacing a runner and attending the clinics in addition to doing some 50 and 100-milers are necessary. Many runners are over 40 years of age. Well, no telling what will appear in the European version of Playboy. Read the stories of the runners and see what it takes.

Sun Precautions Badwater 2000 Results:

Badwater, Death Valley, at 282 feet below sea level to Whitney Portals at 8,300 feet above sea level over 135 miles. The trail to the top of Mt Whitney, at 14,497 feet elevation, is 11 more (hiking) miles.