Badwater Ultramarathon

[HUSKER 37]

Phoenix man completes Badwater Ultramarathon

 

 

Perry Edinger said the Badwater Ultramarathon would be the last big adventure of his life

by Bob Young - Aug. 9, 2009 12:00 AM

The Arizona Republic .

 

 

DEATH VALLEY, Calif. - It is nearly 10 a.m. in the arid wasteland known as Badwater Basin, and already the temperature has soared to 105 degrees as the final and fastest wave of runners approaches the start line.

 

The setting is as brutal as it is beautiful: a salt-encrusted dead sea in the middle of Death Valley.

 

Perry Edinger waits quietly for the start. He has 135 miles ahead of him in the race known as the Badwater Ultramarathon.

He'll pass through temperatures exceeding 120 degrees, hot even for a guy used to running in Phoenix in the summer. There are two mountain passes ahead, then a final, tortuous climb to the trailhead of Mount Whitney, the highest mountain in the contiguous United States. This is "the world's toughest footrace."

 

Like many races, getting to the starting line was a contest of its own, a journey that came with glorious high points and its own night of darkness. It meant leaving things behind. It saw a friend killed and a true love lost.

 

And like Badwater itself, the real victory was in deciding to keep running when the darkness was all around.

 

The journey brought him here, on July 13, to a white stripe on the melting asphalt of Badwater Road.

 

This, the 48-year-old insists, will be the last big adventure of his life.

 

 

 

The toughest race

 

Desert is not the only challenge of Badwater. Fate has placed the lowest and highest spots in the contiguous U.S. 135 miles apart. The start is 282 feet below sea level; the finish line lies at Whitney Portal, 8,360 feet above sea level.

 

In between are two other mountain ranges, meaning Badwater runners face total climbing of more than 13,000 feet.

 

The 86 runners entered are among the best ultramarathoners in the world. Contestants must apply for admission, submitting a detailed resume. Even past champions are not guaranteed a spot.

 

This race is about personal reward. Nobody receives prize money. Those who finish in less than 48 hours get a belt buckle. Everybody who beats the 60-hour cutoff time gets a T-shirt.

 

 

The field goes off in three waves spaced two hours apart with the slowest departing in the relative cool of 6 a.m. The most fleet-footed runners go last because race organizers want everybody to experience the full brunt of Death Valley's afternoon heat. Fair is fair.

 

At 10, the fastest runners gather at the line. Most are draped in sun-deflecting white, some from head to toe.

 

One stands out in his black hat, gray long-sleeved shirt, charcoal shorts, black socks.

 

It is Edinger's way of snubbing his nose at the ball of fire that already has cleared the bluff above the starting line.

 

"Maybe it's a statement more to myself, 'Yeah, this is tough, but hey, I'm OK,' " said Edinger, who is hoping to complete the race in 30 hours or less. "It's like going out in the cold. You can bundle up and dread it, or you can go out and face it. 'Bring it on. If you've got it, see if you can beat me.' "

 

Race director Chris Kostman leads a quick countdown "three, two, one" and the runners are off.

 

 

A life's journey

 

The run to here started somewhere on a country road outside Mattoon, Ill.

 

Perry's mom, Jan Edinger of Mesa, remembers Perry wearing the rubber tires off the wheels of his toy trucks. When he started running competitively at 13, it was the rubber on his shoes that took a beating.

 

"Everybody else would wear out and quit, but Perry would just keep going," Jan recalls.

 

Running became his obsession.

 

"We built a house about 12 miles out in the country," Jan said. "When we would come home from school, Perry would say, 'Mom, stop the car.'

 

"I would stop, and he'd run the rest of the way home whether it was 2 miles, 5 miles, 7, whatever. He would say, 'Mom, I'm going to run the rest of the way.' "

 

 

A plan unfolds

 

Edinger has an aggressive approach in mind for the first 42 miles.

 

A plan is important in this race, in which even the names of the landmarks sound scorching. He'll start from Badwater, pass through Furnace Creek, cross Death Valley and arrive at a wide spot in the road called Stovepipe Wells.

 

There are no aid stations on the course, only time-check stations. Runners must depend on their own support crew of up to six people in two vehicles that leap-frog through the desert ahead of their runner.

 

He'll shoot for an ambitious pace of 8-minute miles.

 

Running through the heat is a delicate contest with the body. Edinger uses two water bottles at a time. One is for drinking. The other is to pour cold water on his head. Edinger replaces both at the end of each mile as he crosses Death Valley.

 

Keeping his shoes cool and feet dry is a challenge for his crew. The plan calls for a shoe change every 6-8 miles if his feet are cooking on the asphalt, which can reach near 200 degrees. He has three sizes available to compensate as his feet swell.

 

"I have tremendous blister problems," he said in the days leading up to the race. "I will get blisters early in the race on my forefeet and they'll become blood blisters, and I'll have to deal with them the rest of the way."

 

At 18 miles, crew chief Amy Erlenbusch is worried Edinger isn't drinking enough water as he uses both bottles to soak himself. He takes in part of a chicken sandwich, some electrolyte tablets and rock salt, and promptly vomits.

 

Losing salt and electrolytes is as big a worry as the water. Without salt, water will go right through him. Edinger, "feeling down," pushes on to mile 33, through rolling hills that sap his strength.

 

Mile 35 brings a break, a flat section. His pace and spirits lift.

 

He reaches Stovepipe Wells, still only at sea level, in 6 hours 44 minutes. From there the race begins a relentless climb for more than 16 miles to Townes Pass summit at an elevation of nearly 5,000 feet.

 

Edinger is near his goal pace. But between the constant dousing from his bottle and ice-cold wet towels that his crew drapes over him at the end of each mile, his shoes and feet soon are soaked. It is an invitation to blisters.

 

 

Bad feet for Badwater

 

In many ways, Edinger isn't built for ultramarathons. He has difficulty taking in food. And he has the bad feet.

 

"In junior high, I went to a track meet, and he was running and his coach was yelling at him, 'Edinger, get your ass off the track,' " his mom remembers. "The blood was just squishing up out of his shoes. He had blisters all over his feet.

 

"I used to take him to the podiatrist so he could get shots in his feet so he could run. When he was in high school, his feet were like 70 years old."

 

Then there is his running style.

 

Unlike ultramarathon stars such as Tucson's two-time Badwater overall winner Pam Reed, who shuffle efficiently along with their feet gliding fractions of an inch above the ground, Edinger springs along like the racer he was at Eastern Illinois University, where his name still dots the record book 26 years after running track and cross country there.

 

He is designed to go fast. In 1984, he was quick enough to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Trials at 5,000 meters, though an injury ultimately prevented him from competing at the trials.

 

At Eastern Illinois, a cross-country coach brought in a film about a fellow named Al Arnold, who had the crazy idea that someone ought to try running from the lowest point in the 48 states to the highest point.

 

In 1977, on his third attempt, Arnold made it from Badwater Basin to the Mount Whitney summit in 84 hours. Edinger was transfixed by the story and intrigued by the challenge.

 

"That would be cool to do someday," he thought.

 

Sure, there were those bad feet, but Edinger is not easily dissuaded.

 

Just 12 years ago, he had to have bones in his left foot fused by Dr. Gus Armendariz, a surgeon at the Orthopedic Clinic in Phoenix where Edinger is now research director, to correct damage that was probably done years ago when Edinger competed in the steeplechase.

 

Armendariz told him that the surgery would allow him to keep running "but not fast."

 

"After I was cleared, I entered a 5K," Edinger recalls with a smile. "I took Dr. Armendariz the trophy."

 

 

More pain

 

Just below Townes Pass at about 55 miles, the blisters come.

 

The huge bubble on Edinger's left foot has to be drained and cleaned. Erlenbusch reattaches the flap of skin using surgical "super glue."

 

Ten miles later, there's another stop. Now the right foot is disfigured with a similar damage, plus a blood blister that encircles most of one toe. Erlenbusch lances it, drains it and glues the blisters closed.

 

"When I saw that his feet looked like pastrami, I thought, 'Man alive, are you kidding me?' " said crewmember Mark Zimmer, ASU's athletic-equipment manager and a longtime friend.

 

Edinger switches to a heavier but more stable trail-running shoe, then returns to the task. As he walks back onto the endless ribbon, he stomps his right foot on the pavement.

 

"I just have to get it numb," he explains.

 

With that, he jogs into the darkness. He won't change shoes again, fearing he will not be able to get his feet into the next pair.

 

Of the 86 Badwater starters, 11 will not finish the race. Three won't even make it through Death Valley.

 

But Edinger is flying, his headlamp bobbing through the night, as he heads down the pass at nearly a 7:30-minute-per-mile clip toward the third time station at Panamint Springs, 72 miles into the race.

 

 

A kindred spirit

 

Ultimately, every runner at Badwater will ask: Why not quit? Why keep going? The answer always comes from within, but inspiration can come from those who believe in them.

 

For Edinger, inspiration came from a freshman linebacker he noticed favoring his shoulder during an Arizona State football practice in 1994 when Edinger was the team's head athletic trainer.

 

The player would eventually need surgery but took his sling off after one day and ignored the pain. He was still having problems the next season.

 

Finally, Edinger eased up to him on the sideline and said, "When you're ready to make that shoulder stronger so you can actually start being effective out here, just come in and we'll rehab it."

 

"I knew that would piss him off," Edinger said.

 

Soon, the linebacker showed up and told Edinger, "I think I need to get my shoulder stronger," as if it had been his idea all along.

 

That linebacker was Pat Tillman. Before the NFL, before the Army Rangers, Tillman became a kindred spirit and close friend.

 

Later, when Tillman was playing for the Arizona Cardinals and decided he wanted to run a marathon, he asked Edinger to train him for it. Tillman finished in less than four hours.

 

Soon, they both decided they wanted something more.

 

As he prepared for his first 50-mile race, he told Tillman what he was up to. I want to do ultramarathons, 100 miles or more, he said. And someday, maybe, that crazy race across Death Valley.

 

About that time, of course, Tillman had decided to give up his NFL career to join the Army's elite.

 

If I can be there, Tillman replied, I'll be there to watch you finish.

 

Two days after Tillman was killed in Afghanistan, Edinger ran that first 50-mile race, the Zane Grey Highline trail run, not far from ASU's Camp Tontozona.

 

After Tillman's death, Edinger and some of Tillman's other friends came up with the concept for Pat's Run to carry on his legacy and raise funds for his foundation. Edinger served as the first Pat's Run race director.

 

 

 

When Edinger runs, he carries that freshman linebacker's same stubbornness.

 

"If he was still here, he definitely would have been on my crew because, first of all, I would need a time in the thing where I'm laughing my ass off. But also, he'd be somebody who would pick me up and slam me against a car if I wanted to quit, to get me out of it.

 

"And I may need that."

 

 

A dark time

 

At some point at Badwater, every runner needs to laugh and wants to cry.

 

Edinger has prepared by stringing together 14 consecutive weeks in which he put in at least 120 training miles. One training run was crossing the Grand Canyon - South Rim to North Rim and back - in just more than 10 hours.

 

In another week he ran 150 training miles and then competed in a 50-mile race with 13,000 feet of climbing. He placed second.

 

Edinger ran in the Valley's extreme afternoon sun. He slept on his back porch to teach his body to cope with the relentless heat.

 

But nothing can prepare runners for all that they will encounter at Badwater. It is renowned for its toll on the body and on the mind. Hallucinations are the norm.

 

"There's a story about one guy who thought he was running into a little town," Edinger said. "He could see the buildings up ahead, stop signs, cars. But there was no town."

 

Edinger has covered 72 miles as he leaves Panamint Springs - yes, the town was there - and it is five minutes past midnight. He still faces a long night of climbing as the course rises 3,380 feet over the next 18 miles, topping out at 5,300 feet when it crests at Panamint Pass.

 

Before the race, Edinger joked to his crew, "Remember, what's said on the course stays on the course."

 

Runners can meltdown when the night obscures the road ahead and the course seems endless. Vianne Kucera, a member of Edinger's crew, encounters a pacer trying to stay out of sight of his runner, who has lost it and told his crew he doesn't want them around.

 

Edinger isn't melting down, but he is getting frustrated. He wants to know when the endless climbing will end. And he wonders if the sun will ever come up again.

 

In every sense, it is a dark time.

 

"During the second climb, in the night, my feet hurt so badly, and that climb went for miles," Edinger recalled later. "That was probably where I had my biggest doubts."

 

 

Running away

 

After more than 20 years as an athletic trainer, Edinger resigned from ASU in 2003 to work as a physical therapist and personal trainer.

 

"I went out there and worked hard and climbed the ladder of success and looked around and thought, 'Maybe I'm on the wrong ladder,' " he said.

 

But then in 2005, Samantha Edinger, his wife of 13 years, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

 

"When that happened, it was like an earthquake," Jan Edinger recalled.

 

The couple upended everything - their Valley home, their rescued dogs - and moved to the East Coast to be near her family.

 

Sam fought the cancer for two years. Perry kept vigil at her bedside in the final months, leaving only to care for the dogs and go running.

 

In April 2007, Sam lost her fight.

 

And Perry ran.

 

He packed his two Newfoundlands into an RV and headed for the West Coast.

 

"I'm a health-care provider, and I like to think of myself being pretty good at researching things and knowing how to take care of things," Edinger said. "For a long time, I looked at it as, I failed. I couldn't fix that problem."

Friends told him he probably ought to seek professional help. He told them he wasn't a "counseling guy."

 

"I didn't want to be around people, didn't want to answer questions," he said. "I wanted to meet new people who didn't know who I was."

 

He had his running, he told them, and he would just pound out more miles.

 

Besides, if he needed somebody to talk to, he had the dogs, J.J. and Sophie.

 

Before Sam died, Perry planned to run the prestigious Western States 100 race.

 

I want you to do it, Sam said, no matter my condition.

 

Two months later, Edinger was at the starting line in Squaw Valley, Calif.

 

He started fast. But at the first-aid station, the inevitable aftershock finally came. Edinger sat down, weeping, Sam's wedding band dangling on a chain around his neck.

 

"All of a sudden it was just like, 'You know what? I've got nobody to take this home to.' " Edinger said. "All of this stuff that I had kept in, at 16½ miles, it decided to come screaming out. . . . I sat at that aid station, sobbing like a baby. I was done. There was no reason to go on."

 

Then a member of his crew uttered a word Edinger had never heard.

 

"He called me a quitter," he said.

 

Edinger had never taken a "DNF" - Did Not Finish - in any race he had started.

 

"I truthfully said, '(expletive) you!' " Edinger says. "I decided I would just walk to the next aid station and stop there. I wasn't going to quit where that guy could see it."

 

When he reached the next station, he found Kirk McCarville, another Valley ultramarathoner. Kirk's wife urged Edinger on. "Just go run with Kirk," she said.

 

Edinger crossed the finish line that day.

 

And he began seriously thinking, "How do I get into that race across Death Valley?"

 

"Sam had helped him at a couple of his earlier races," Zimmer said, "and when that happened at Western States, I think it was because he just really wanted her company. . . . He has never once told me this, but when she passed away, I think he switched his focus to dedicating this to her. Aside from it being a personal goal, I think he really wanted to do it for Sam."

 

First, Edinger had to convince Badwater's organizers that he was worthy.

 

He ran four 100-mile races in 2008, four of the oldest 100-mile trail runs, known as the "Grand Slam" of ultramarathons. He beat the next closest finisher by 16 hours. Badwater's selection committee was convinced. Edinger was in the race.

 

"She would really be happy," Perry said of Samantha. "She believed in me at times when I didn't believe in myself."

 

 

No quitting

 

Finally, the first colors of daylight are painting the mountains as Edinger begins to descend toward the Owens Valley and a white strip across the road. It is the 100-mile marker.

 

Runners have 60 hours to finish Badwater before they're disqualified. And here, less than 21 hours into the race, Edinger has 35 miles to go. If he has to crawl, he can finish. No DNF. No quitting.

 

 

There are moments like this, when you curse the darkness and finally the sun rises.

 

In the last eight years, Edinger has lost his father, his wife and a brother to cancer. He lost Tillman to a war.

 

"I look at these races like life," he says. "You experience all the same things: great euphoria; really drab, boring times; good things happen, you socialize; and, man, some things turn you on end.

 

 

At the 100-mile stripe Edinger is 22 miles from Lone Pine, where runners begin the final 13-mile push to the finish.

 

These final miles might be the cruelest of all.

 

With 122 miles already on their legs, runners face a hellish series of mountain switch-backs on Whitney Portal Road. In that final 13 miles, they must ascend 4,660 feet.

 

Edinger's plan, like most in the race, is to hike the last 13 miles. He has insisted from the start that he's racing the clock and not other runners.

 

At 25 hours and 55 minutes into the race, Edinger notices that 19-year-old Nickademus Hollon, the youngest contestant ever to enter Badwater, is only about five minutes back.

 

About halfway up the climb he can see that young Hollon is closing the gap.

 

"He might catch me, but he's going to have to work for it," he said. "Let's see what the kid's got."

 

With that, Edinger begins running the less severe sections and power walking the really steep stuff. He has run 130 miles, but he attacks one stretch, a 465-foot climb, running a 10 1/2-minute-a-mile pace. Young Hollon soon is out of sight.

 

Only then does one of Edinger's crew members, Karla Knicely, inform him that the kid had started in the 6 a.m. wave the day before. He's actually more than 4 hours behind on the clock!

 

 

 

Edinger reaches the Whitney Portal in 29 hours 19 minutes and 4 seconds to beat his goal time by more than 40 minutes. He finishes ninth.

 

He has lost 19 pounds and five toenails. A sock is still glued to one foot and has to be removed with a scissor. But it got him to the finish.

 

"There is a reason in every race to finish it or to quit early," he said. "It's a matter of what you choose. I believe the choice you take out there is the choice you're going to take in every aspect of life."

 

 

Republic reporter Bob Young was a member of Perry Edinger's race crew.

 

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[HUSKER 37]

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