The G Running Diary

So Shoot Me: 1/5/03

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I'm thinking about running Badwater. Seriously. Well, not seriously running it--I hope I would have some fun, but it looks like it might just be in the plans for this summer. While I was crewing last year, and after I was done crewing I told lots of people that there is no way I would run that thing. But now I'm not sure why I said that.

It took a hold of me when I was flying back to San Jose from Las Vegas. I haven't been on a flight recently where the captain noted points of interest. I thought those days were gone, particularly on a flight that is only an hour. But he took the trouble to mention Death Valley below us, and Badwater being the lowest place in the US at 282 feet below sea level, and just coming up is the highest place in the contiguous US, Mount Whitney. And I wanted to say to someone, yeah, and I ran that. But I haven't done that yet. It didn't look so bad looking down on it from an airplane. Oh, and as fate would have it, I was sitting on the side of the plane with the view, and, unusual for me, I had a window seat. Why was I in the window seat? I always ask for aisle. Just seeing it from above, being able to imagine the whole course, draws me in. I realized it then.

The part that sort of nags at me about Badwater is that you have to provide your own crew. You have to convince perfectly sane people that it would be fun for them to help you run 135 miles through Death Valley in July. They have to give up a whole week of work, since the race is from Tuesday to Thursday. They do it because they want to, because they love you, or because you bribe them. The whole production is pretty expensive even without the bribes. And even if they love you, they might not want to see their loved one in that condition. Things get freaky. And the feet, oh the feet. They can get so ugly.

It's time for me to watch "Running on the Sun" again. That's the movie that was made of the 1999 race. The first time I saw it, I was convinced that I would never run it. Somehow it stuck with me though, and I wanted to see it again. Well, at that point I had to see it again, because Don was already planning on running it. And I thought he was crazy. Now I will go buy my own copy of it. For information: http://www.badwaterultra.com/1999/sun/