I got the privilege to go back to compete in the 217km Death Valley, Badwater, Ultra Marathon in July of this year. I say privilege because it is a great honour to be invited to compete in this race that many view as the world cup of Ultra Marathons with an outstanding group of Ultra distance athletes from all around the world. Numbers get tossed around about how many are turned down each year for this race, but with only 90 odd starting you can bet hundreds are disappointed at not making the starting field, either through not meeting the criteria or simple bad luck.
This year 94 started, from 17 nationalities. There has been someone from New Zealand for the last 4 years, Lisa Tamati in 2008-09 and myself in 2010-11. Prior to this, Kiwis were represented by Max Telford in the 1982 and Kim McConnell in the late 90’s
With last year’s successful finish and ‘buckle’, ( a sub 48 hour finish ) behind me I went into the event with a level of confidence that I felt I could do this event, and possibly improve on my time. I also sought to become the second Kiwi to complete the race at the 8300ft finish line on Mt Whitney and then go on and summit the mountain to its peak of 14,400 ft, something that Max Telford did in setting his record in 1982 of 56 hours.
It was not to be though. At 200km’s, only 17 km’s short of the finish line, I made the decision to withdraw. I owe it to all of my followers online at www.manonfire.co.nz that supported me in raising money for The National Burn Centre, my charity of choice, an explanation of what went wrong. So here is my race report.
I write now with some 6 weeks of thought process and acceptance of the result under my belt, and still feelings of disappointment pervade my thoughts. In saying that though I still feel satisfied that everything got left out there!
Race day dawned and I felt quietly confident at what lay ahead of me. Some butterflies of course but I knew what was in store. I was confident because I had done the miles in training, running further and more frequently than I had the previous year, I had nursed the injuries I had gained over the course of a North Island traverse, ‘The Cape2Cape Challenge’, I had done in January, and had got on top of them, and I had planned all that I would need in my mind to complete this race again; equipment, food, crew.
The countdown for the last 10 seconds, a Badwater tradition, got called out at 6.00am at the Badwater race start and off we set. A spontaneous Haka worked its way out of me, as I strode up the road, no thought to how it would go and certainly no planning in it; and it showed! But it was heartfelt and it expressed my pride at once again just being there at this great race.
I felt good all the way to the first check point, Furnace Creek, 28km. I believe I was about 35 min’s up on last years’ time at the same place. I had walked a little, and jogged a little the whole way, resting and running and feeling really good. I spent some time running with the great Marshall Ulrich, a man who has done it all in terms of endurance, climbed the tallest peaks in all 7 continents, including Everest, all on his first attempt, and raced Badwater 16 times, and who currently holds the third best time for running across America, in 52 days. A true inspiration to run with and just idly chat with as we ate up some km’s.
From Furnace Creek you enter into the hottest part of the event, and the part that can potentially get you if you are not really careful. This years’ temperatures were not as hot as last year, but still in the very high 40’s, 48-50C most of the way. We had purchased an ‘Eddie the Eagle’ type head and shoulders piece of gear that I was wearing and were icing it in our chilly bin every km and this kept me cool and was much easier to wear than last year’s wrap which had to be clung onto, to stay on my back. I walked more through this section but still managed a great time, arriving at the second check point, Stove Pipe Wells, 68km’s, at 9 hours 30 min’s. Last year I was there in 11 hours 22 min’s and I didn’t feel like I had tried any harder to make up this near 2 hour improvement. I felt good as we set off from Stove Pipe.
I’m reminded of an old saying we used in training for Ironman that many of us who have done it a few times will attest to. If you are feeling great, don’t worry about it, you’ll get over it! How appropriate that was from this point of the race onwards.
Out of Stove Pipe you start to climb a very long 30km road to 5000ft, before you descend once again into the Panamint Valley and check into the third check point, Panamint Springs, about a 50km section. This was really tough this year, with a fierce head wind into us all the way up the road. My legs began to feel heavy very quickly and my left quad started to tighten considerably. Joselyn, my massage specialist on crew, was able to massage this out but no sooner did she do this but I noticed a corresponding tightness creep into my right calf, which had obviously been countering the load. We also managed to massage this out, but both of these two issues slowed me down and caused more stops than normal. Into the bargain my feet were beginning to feel the effect of a double marathon in distance in scorching temperatures and were needing ongoing massage.
Coupled with this I began to get nauseous and food I was drinking was starting to go through me. I had three toilet stops in a short space of time to accommodate this and all in all made very slow progress to the top of Towns Pass, where I had to take a further rest, only just getting through a bad dose of nausea and holding off throwing up. I didn’t want to start throwing up as I tend not to be able to stop once I start and this can become a game breaker. My experiences in Brazil in 2010 had shown me that.
We set off down the other side of this mountain range to Panamint. With my shin splints only just getting right before I departed New Zealand, I walked this downhill section, not wanting to stress the shin at all with the downhill slap of the foot that caused this injury in the first place. This next 20km’s were truly testing and went on for what seemed forever once again. If I remember back to last year, this was exactly the same and is probably the toughest two sections of the first day in my opinion. The lights of Panamint Springs hang there so tantalisingly close for mile after mile with the distance not being able to be truly assessed due to nothing around you to fix on. A very emotionally challenging section!
116km’s and Panamint Springs arrived and I was in a lot of pain. I’d had 3-4 more toilet stops in 20’kms and my feet were on fire, truly a man on fire in more than one way! However I was there in just under 22 hours, about an hour up on last year, about 4.00am in the morning. The conservative approach had lost me an hour down the mountain and I didn’t really have a lot of benefit to show for it other than shins that were still ok. Everything else though hurt like a hurt thing! I slept for about 50 minutes and got going with a cup of the worst tea I’d ever tasted but it was hot and we were all cold as it had dropped to 85F, 30C.
In retrospect I should have completely lain down on a bed and stretched out, but I slept on a fold down chair we had been using for shoe and sock changes. It had been awesome for that but had not given me a deep sleep I had needed to rest. I cat napped for only 5 minute intervals at a time. When I got up to get going I noticed that there was no feeling of rest I had experienced last year, no small spring in my legs, in fact my legs felt dead. This may have been added to by the loss of body fluids due to the many toilet stops as well. The morning climb was a slow and laborious walk with no running like last year. In fact I only started running again at the top, Father Crowley’s Point, where it flattened out a little and became a plateau to Darwin, the 4th check point at 145km.
I got to Darwin at 29 hours, and some change and was about 30 minutes up on last year. But in no way was I in the same condition. There is video footage of me on my website, and I have a sizable limp and lean and I’m in a world of pain. What’s worse is over the course of the plateau it had really started to heat up again, I was still feeling nauseous and my feet were beginning to balloon. The swelling was making running really difficult. All the fluid in my body seemed to be heading south down my legs and accumulating in my ankles and feet. I had at this stage stopped any liquid food and was increasing electrolyte replacement hugely, and as a consequence was peeing constantly, every 2-3 km’s.
MY pace now had slowed considerably due to the walking and the crew informed me of the maths equation, to meet this years’ 48 hour deadline. Last year we always knew there was the buffer of a 60 hour window, but race organisers had removed that buffer and a dq would ensue if I didn’t make it within 48 hours. The maths wasn’t looking flash at my present pace and so we had to increase it for about 25km’s to Lone Pine, to give myself a fair chance of getting to the finish line up Mt Whitney, when pace would really slow.
I’m most proud of this section of my race, the last section as it turned out. I’ve never been in so much pain as I was into Lone Pine. I know back home you could see steady progress into Lone Pine on the website but unfortunately what people couldn’t see was the effort going into achieving this. I was hallucinatory for large sections, just in a dream putting one foot in front of the other. I must have seen that junction at the end of Owens Lake Road, leading into Lone Pine, for what seemed liked hours, off in the distance just hanging there, a T intersection never seeming to get any closer. I would often just ‘wake up’ like you do sometimes when you are driving and wonder to yourself; ‘I can’t remember the last section of road’ except I was walking it, just putting one foot in front of the other.
When I eventually made the city area of Lone Pine I was truly beside myself with pain and in a whole lot of misery. I saw a piece of grass outside a motel, the first piece I’d seen since Furnace Creek and I fell on it like it was a bed. I lay there just trying to breathe straight. My breathing was all over the show, I was finding it hard to talk, my voice had gone, I could hardly hold myself up and I was getting very cold. I was shivering and completely dazed. My crew eventually stood me up and spurred me onto continuing up Mt Whitney road. I don’t know how far up this road I made it, maybe 2-3 km’s, but at the pace I was walking it was patently obvious I was not going to make the finish line in time. I was getting colder now too, convulsing and shivering, the body beginning to shut down, unable to control my body temperature. I was still struggling to breathe properly as well, something that lasted for a day afterwards as well.
I stopped on the side of the road and sat down and Jay, my head of crew looked at me and asked the question, “what do you think Dave” After only a small time to think it through I answered I had come to the end of my race. I knew I didn’t have anything left to climb the rest of the mountain. Not only was I running out of time at my present pace but I was putting myself into danger I felt. So we pulled it there on the side of the road and I lay there for a few minutes, trying to understand the reality of this. It was 41.5 hours into the race and I still had 6 and a half hours to make it but it could have been 10-12 hours and I probably wouldn’t have been able to do it. If the 60 hour window had of still been there I might have been able to have rested up and started up again but this was not to be. I remember an official pulling up and checking us and someone in my crew telling him I’d withdrawn. I lay there hearing that with a hugely sinking heart.
We hear it often from athletes and commentators, “he gave it his all” Believe you, I’ve analysed this statement significantly over the last 6 weeks, self analysing if I could make such a claim, and especially so for the first 2-3 weeks post the event. It was the only thing I could think about, day and night. Thankfully I still had two weeks off work otherwise I’d have found it very difficult going back so soon, contending as you do with all the interest in how you went.
I can say with hand on heart I didn’t have anything more to give than I gave. To have got so close though is still gut wrenching to this day and as I sit here and type this up many of these thoughts chase me back down those roads. But such is sport. It comes with the elation of victory or completion of a goal, as it did last year for me, or it comes with the true heart ache of defeat and dejection at not achieving a goal and of feeling like you have let others down. These raw emotions are what bring us back, and are what make us who we are. Many say to me, oh but Dave, what an achievement, 200km’s. If I’m honest though, that kind of sentiment to me is a little like the Tui add; “Yeah right!”
Many have also asked is there another one in there somewhere. Too early to say at this stage, the expense of these events are considerable, and I have to consider others in my family who have goals they want to achieve.
These events are only achieved through family support and as a result it’s incredibly important that a balance is achieved in your home and family life to allow that to happen. Running Ultras or doing Ironman is worse for wives it is said than golf! There is probably an element of truth in that!!
I would like to thank some people who made the event possible for me. I’d like to thank Southern Cross Health Society who supported me this year, Horley’s Replace Electrolyte drink and Smith Sports Shoes were also great. Without them all it would have been much tougher. I would also like to thank Gareth and all the crew at The NZ Air force for their help with training.
And it goes without question that I would especially like to thank my race crew of Jay (Chief organiser and motivator), Luca, (Pacing, Music and laughs), Lindsey, ( Positiveness, gear, socks, shoes and patch ups) and Joselyn, (Massage and honesty) for their outstanding help. And Gary, back home on the website, updating regularly and Lisa my wife for her belief in me. You guys are awesome. I would also like to thank everyone who gave again to The National Burn Centre. I’m so pleased we have been able to further assist their surgical needs and assist New Zealand burns victims in their care.
So what now?
I am currently working on a trial Auckland Ultra Marathon road race that has been accepted for trial by The Auckland Marathon committee. Ten runners will do 85km’s on the 30th October with the many other marathon runners. They will start running in Devonport as early as 1.00am and then joining the marathon at the start of their race. Hopefully we get full sign off by AKL Marathon for this distance as an official option in 2012 and for this event to become an official race on the NZ Ultra Marathon event calendar. I’ve decided not to join them as I need a rest from running to recharge the battery and will reassess in 6 months. I guess having run 12x 100km plus races in the last 3 and half years, 5 of them 200km plus and running just under 500km in January, I’m due one. Certainly the body is telling me so anyway!!
So, there you go, I hope I have inspired some to take up the Ultra Marathon and Badwater challenge. This sport continues to inspire and challenge me and bring out the best of me I feel, both in terms of an appreciation of how far we can push ourselves and why goals and challenges in life are so important. It would be a bloody shame if there was no Kiwi on that start line next year, so the gauntlet has been thrown!
See you out there.
Dave Walker