07/24/1991 to 07/27/1991HI TEC BADWATER 146 1991IF I CAN DO IT, YOU CAN DO IT!My firstexperience in the Mt. Whitney area was in 1951 when I made aback packing/camping trip out of Whitney Portals (135 mile mark) and coveredabout a tenth of the John Muir Trail at the south end. After my InternalMedicine training, I moved to Lone Pine (122 mile mark), where I havepracticed to the present. In 1964 I climbed Mt. Whitney (146 mile mark). Inthe same year, I opened a satellite office near the Furnace Creek Inn (17mile mark) in Death Valley. I have made about 16 driving or flying trips ayear between here and there during the tourist season between late Octoberand early May. Over the decades, I have become familiar with taking care ofpatients experiencing hyperthermia (heat stroke and heat exhaustion) in thedesert as well as hypothermia, trauma and altitude sickness in themountains.I haveparticipated in the entire 13 Wild, Wild West Marathons here in the Sierrafoothills. I have run the Titus Canyon/Death Valley Marathon since DaveHorning of Enviro Sports started it in 1990. For the last seven years Ipedaled the Death Valley to Whitney Portals 100 mile two day Bike Race nowin its 16th year.In July 1990 Icovered the 3rd annual Hi Tec Badwater 146 event as a spectator. As I headedout on the course, I met the first runner, Marshall Ulrich. That was at the75 mile mark on the Panamint grade, when he was 15 hours into the event andat least 3 miles ahead of the nearest competitor. I swept back and forth onthe course and took pictures and visited with many of the runners and crewmembers. I am a back of the pack runner and my training base is about anhour of exercise a day. I began thinking that if I kicked my mileage up andexercised in the dry heat I could handle the course physically. I had neverrun further than 52.4 miles and that was the Nanisivik Midnight Sun Run(84K) on Baffin Island in the Northwest Territories of Canada on 07 01 90.That was accomplished in just under 12 hours. Now, I had to do an eventthree times the distance and five times the duration to the Portals and sixtimes the duration to the top of Mt. Whitney and seven times the durationback to the Portals! The event should either be called "the 135"or "the157!" I began preparing myself mentally over the year and began to feelthatI could handle this also.My next obstaclewas to obtain an invitation from Hi Tec Sports, USA, Inc., since I wanted todo it with a group rather than as an individual. This proved to be anendurance event in itself as the Race Director, Dave Pompel, is a very busyyoung man. I received a tentative invitation in May and an officialinvitation on 06 13 1991. I entered a few more races than usual: Shadow ofthe Giants 50K on 06 01 1991; Palos Verdes Marathon on 06 08 1991; LompocValley of the flowers Marathon on 06 16 1991; San Francisco Marathon on06 23 1991. I met Badwater Bart Yasso at the Runners World Expo booth at theSan Francisco Marathon. He participated for Runners World in the 1989 Hi TecBadwater 146 and said he had "fun" doing it. We had a nice visitand I wasfurther encouraged to do the event. I also did about one third of theMarkleeville Tour of the California Alps ("Death Ride"). It was onamountain bike covering 54 miles of the 129 miles and 6,000 of the 15,000 ft.

of elevation gain in order to get some good aerobic cross training ataltitudes up to 8,700 ft. During the month before this year's HiTec Badwater146, I increased my daily mileage up to 10 miles a day at 4 mph walkingspeed. It was in 90 100 degree temperatures and 5% humidity, which is usualfor this area. My wife, Denise, would drive me out to various 10 milesections of the course and drop me off and crew me for 2 1/2 hours, as Iwould physically and psychologically get used to heading westward into theglare of the sun and watch the terrain slowly pass. I had the great fortuneof meeting Tom Crawford and Richard Benyo near Keeler (107 mile mark) asthey were heading out into the desert to do some heat training for theirup and coming repeat efforts in covering the course. They were the firstones to do the out and back "fire and ice" between Badwater andMt. Whitneyin 1989. I bought a copy of Richard Benyo's book "Death Valley300" with hisautograph and inscription "make haste slowly!" I learned much fromthis bookand got to know them better on a work out between Badwater and Furnace Creekon 07 06 1991 when the temperature was 110 and the humidity 30%. Tom told methat "if you can walk like that you'll do fine!" I continued to befurtherencouraged. I vowed to employ my plan of not covering any mile faster than15 minutes on the 67 miles of the flats and 25 miles of down hill. I alsoplanned to slow to 20 minute miles on the first 30 miles of up hill gettingme to Lone Pine (122 miles). I would probably do 30 minute miles up the roadto the Portals (135 miles) and 60 minute miles the last 11 miles to thesummit (146 miles). There are about 20,000 ft. of ascent and 12,200 feet ofdescent getting from Badwater to the top of Mt. Whitney and back to thePortals.Last year's eventalmost didn't get started as there were flash floods limiting access toBadwater which is 282 ft. below sea level and is the lowest point in theU.S. Also, a hiker had just been electrocuted in a lightning storm on thetop of Mt. Whitney, which is the highest point in the Continental U.S. at14,495 ft. This year, as our event was about to start, search and rescueefforts were being made to find a hiker missing since 07 20 1991. He hadparked his vehicle the previous day at Badwater. His body was found 200yards from the highway just south of Badwater at 9:00 A.M. on 07 26 1991, asour event was still happening. He had video taped his 10 mile trek westwardacross the salt pan and brine slush in the heat of the day. During thattime, he lost his dark glasses and consumed the three quarts of fluid he hadwith him. The batteries in his camera gave out and so did he before healmost got back across the Valley. Insects, ravens and coyotes had nointerest in his body during the five days he baked in the 190 degreetemperatures on the floor of Death Valley.We had a pre racemeeting in the cafeteria at Furnace Creek Ranch. Dave Pompel, Race Director,opened the activities and introduced his staff. Each runner introducedhimself or herself and the pacers and crew members. We got our Hi Tecshirts, water bottles, shoes, caps and race numbers, all for a $25.00 entryfee! Eighteen people were invited, but two dropped out due to injuries andtwo did not show. This left 14 runners plus one bicyclist who was invited toride the course to the Portals. We traveled 17 miles south to the race startarea at Badwater and posed for pictures.The bang happened promptly at 6:00 P.M. on 07/24/1991, at which timethe temperature, according to my Casio Thermometer Watch, was 122degrees.

Jack Denness, a driver for Lloyds of London, England, sprinted intothe lead for several minutes for the benefit of the NBC "TodayShow" film crew and then fell back into his pre planned 59hr59min pace to get to the Portals before the 60 hour cut off. Thiswas my projection also.Robert Tuller, ayoung U.C. Berkeley graduate, who had just done a relay from San Franciscoto Washington, D.C., for the Star Spangled Banner, introduced himself to me.We looked at each other in amazement as we counted 12 runners bouncingbriskly into the distance.I constantlysipped ice water with Carbo Plex from my insulated Camelback pouch andstopped every mile at the tail gate of a U Haul truck to guzzle Gatorade orClassic Coke cut with Club Soda. I also made sure that I drank enough tourinate at least every hour. I carried Zip lock bags filled with food itemssuch as pretzels, fig newtons, gum drops and occasionally had a turkey andjack cheese sandwich. I drank and ate the whole way and never felt thirstyor hungry. I never had a headache or nausea. I also had normal bowelmovements during the event.As the sun wentdown, the moon came up, enhancing the beauty of the environment. I kept aneye out for side winders crossing the highway, but never saw any. Robertdropped back with foot problems. Near dawn, at Stovepipe Wells Village (41miles) I came upon Wayne Baughman, a former four time Olympic wrestler andone time Olympic medalist and present wrestling couch at the Air ForceAcademy at Colorado Springs, Colorado. He was having horrible blisterproblems as we progressed up the 5,000 ft., 18 mile grade to Towne's Pass.He dropped back, but was encouraged to know that I planned a four hoursleep stop in a reserved room at Panamint Springs Resort between 2:00 6:00P.M. This would avoid the hottest part of the day and the most intense glareof the sun, while on a westward course on the 1,600 ft. floor of PanamintValley. I got to Towne's Pass (59 miles) at about 17 1/2 hours and went downto the 2,000 ft. level on the east side of Panamint Valley (66 miles). Then,I got trucked to Panamint Springs for my four hour stop. Having been truckedback to the previous spot, I resumed my pace and got to Panamint Springs (72miles) in 26 hours. Continuing up the Panamint grade to Padre Crowley Point(80 miles), I reached the 5,200 ft. level in the Darwin Flats area and theDarwin turn off (90 miles) pretty much according to schedule. My crewmembers were my wife, Denise, and her daughter, Angie, and her husband, GregNealy. My pacer was my running/walking friend, Dave Thorpe, from Laguna.During the event, Dave went ahead to help pace Marshall Ulrich up the lastfive miles of the Portal road. Marshall hit 100 miles in 17hr 51min; 130miles in 24hrs; 135 miles to Whitney Portals in 26hrs 34min (a courserecord); 146 miles to the summit of Mt. Whitney in 33hrs 54min (also acourse record); in addition he did a start at Badwater at 11:45 A.M. on07 24 1991 so 6hrs 15min can be added to the above times to get into thebooks for an A.M. start (which is a start anytime between 6:00 A.M. 12:00Noon).I got to the 100mile mark after the moon went down again and before the sun came up again in35hrs 16min. In the meantime, I discovered that two more runners, inaddition to the other three, were behind me because of their having sleptand having been dropped back on the course behind me. As the sun came up, Iwould get sprayed from a water bottle or garden type of sprayer or I wouldget into an aluminum casket filled with water. This was furnished by mymortician friend, Van, of Owens Valley Mortuary. I claimed to be the first