Feel like your daily gym workout isn’t providing the challenge you need? Why not try beating Badwater?
All you have to do is complete a 135 mile race through Death Valley (you’ve got to break 48 hours if you want the big prize - a belt buckle).
The race starts at 280 feet below sea level and ends up at 8,300 feet above it.
Temperatures are often around 135 degrees.
The pavement often gets over 200 degrees.
You need to bring your own crew to check your vitals.
“To talk about the buckle is to miss the point,” said Marshall Ulrich, a 58-year-old endurance sensei who has done Badwater more than a dozen times and has summited Everest. Notorious for having his toenails surgically removed — toenails fall off anyway when you’re an endurance runner — Marshall is, contrary to what most people assume, not a machine.
He started running when he was 28, after his doctor told him to get off his butt and lower his blood pressure or expect an early grave. See interactive map of route, distance, elevation ยป
“You run Badwater because there’s something in you that wants to get out there, in the middle of nowhere, and think about something. It’s a way of freeing yourself, getting back to what I really believe people are supposed to be doing instead of relying so much on a bunch of material crap that only makes us weaker. We are built to run, to cover great distance, for survival sake.”
