At age 54, Lisa Smith-Batchen is one of the most prolific and famous athletes in the world. In 2016,
she will do the Trans Con Run across America with a goal of running 50 miles a day from Los
Angeles, CA to New York City, NY. Smith-Batchen has numerous first place female wins, including
being the first and only American female to win the event in its 18-year history.

By Alix Shutello

Lisa Smith-Batchen hit the endurance scene back in 1995 during the Eco Challenge days, when Mark Burnett was getting his feet wet in the world of televised adventure racing. Meanwhile, some of the most well-known athletes of the world – folks like Marshall Ulrich and Mark Macy, among others – were toeing the line with Smith and other amazing athletes who were forming teams and competing in Burnett’s first race, the Utah Eco Challenge, in April 1995. While competing in the Utah Eco Challenge, Smith-Batchen met Matt Fredrick, then owner of the Badwater 135. Smith had no idea people ran distances beyond the marathon; but just two and a half months after competing in her first Eco Challenge, she ran the

Badwater 135 in Death Valley in July 1995.

“Back then, nutrition was all about consuming tons of jelly beans, donuts, Coke and Gatorade,” Smith said. “I was clueless, to say the least.”

Smith-Batchen, who is originally from New Jersey, was mesmerized by the beauty of Death Valley.

“While I was running the race, there were a lot of ‘HOLY SHIT!’ kind of moments, but I fell in lovewith the desert, and the course; and felt like I was home.”

Lisa finished in second place overall and proclaimed that the experience was an amazing journey of self-discovery. Smith-Batchen has gone on to run Badwater 10 times, including last year’s 584-mile race where she ran four times up and back through Death Valley to raise money for her nonprofit, Badwater4Goodwater. “I yearn for and am drawn to the desert,” she said. When it comes to Smith-Batchen’s running career, it’s pretty simple: she started with a 5k, then a 10k, a marathon and then progressed all the way to an ultra without stopping. Between her first marathon and the Badwater 135 was a half Ironman, a full Ironman and the Eco Challenge.

Smith-Batchen has been a coach for over 30 years, as well as a massage therapist, motivational speaker, race director and teacher. She runs Dream Chasers Events with her husband, fellow ultra runner Jay Batchen; together they put on a couple of races each year, including the Jackson Hole Marathon and Yellowstone 100-miler. Smith-Batchen runs each mile for a purpose, running 1 mile for 1,000 children (mostly orphans) who are in need of clean water in Africa.

This article was featured in the July/August Issue of Endurance Racing Magazine, a women-owned company. Please consider a $12 subscription. https://eeendura.myshopify.com/

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I have felt the red Moroccan sun against my skin as I ran through the Sahara desert.  I’ve experienced the deep chill of a wild Himalayan night.  And I’ve felt the harsh, oven-hot headwinds of a Death Valley summer.

I wish I could adequately explain the passion I feel for this sport.  I wish I could find the words to explain to you the excitement and joy of ultrarunning.  It’s a sport that might never be able to gain the same following as other professional sports – basketball, baseball, football, soccer.  There’s not much money involved in ultrarunning.  It’s outside the mainstream.  But it’s pure and accessible, open to allow perfectly ordinary people the chance to do extraordinary things. I‘m grateful to be one of them.

This sport has brought a great deal of adventure to my life.  In a very real sense, running has saved my life.  The pain of drug addiction, eating disorders, and sexual abuse all color my past.  I have used running to confront that pain and move through it.  To grow in spite of it.  For many years, I raced – sometimes two times in the same day – to win, to beat anybody who tried to go up against me.  And very often I was successful.  The whole experience awakened in me a desire to push harder and dig deeper, to get out of life all that I can.  I’ve spent most of my adult life thinking about what it means to endure, and I still don’t have a definite answer.  I think it has something to do with humility so it is definitely connected to God.  Every great endurance athlete I have met seems to possess a certain nobility of the soul.  They conduct themselves with grace and honor.

I strive to live up to this standard every day of my life.  In 2010, I became the first person to run 50 miles in 50 states in 62 days to raise money for AIDS orphans in India and Africa.  It was one of the greatest challenges of my life.  During my 50 mile run in Texas, state 26 of the project, I stepped into a pothole and broke the bones in my feet.  I finished the 2,500 mile run with a broken foot.  The project was called Running Hope Through America (www.runhope.com).

You could say I am driven.  Motivated.  What motivates me?  Over the years, I have worked with Sister Marybeth Lloyd, a member of the order of the Religious Teachers Fillipini, known affectionately in the ultrarunning community as “the running nun,” to raise funds for AIDS orphans. We have many missions full of children that need our help. According to Sister Marybeth over the course of 26 years, I have raised $7.5 million to help these children around the world.  I have adopted the philosophy of running for a purpose: I believe in using one’s gifts for athletic endurance to benefit the less fortunate.  Raising money for orphans is one of the defining passions of my daily life.

As a coach, I believe in leading by example, and I thoroughly believe in using one’s own story to inspire others to make positive changes in their own lives. I have started writing a book to tell my story but it keeps getting put on the back burner because I feel the strong need and desire to continue running to raise money.

In the past few years I have become aware that my next running project needed to focus on helping so many who are without WATER! Currently a billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and 2.6 billion lack access to basic sanitation. According to World Health Organization(WHO), the contaminated and infectious bacteria that cause diarrhea account for 4.1 percent of the global disease burden killing 1.8 million children a year. Right now more folks have access to a cell phone than a toilet! I want and need to help solve our water worries. When God calls I have learned to sit still and listen. He talks about water a lot. With water we can alleviate world hunger, lower global disease and show the needy that we care about them.

Sister Marybeth, my inspiration, has started many missions where we have hundreds of children with little or NO water. Please see the attachment, Mission Info, to learn where they are and how many people live without safe, clean water. For many years I have run to help feed the children and build schools but now I see the progress that could be made with GOOD water. Less sickness, less death, more health, time and energy to grow food and even prosper!

Everyone deserves a life of dignity and grace; everyone deserves good water!

On July 15th I will start my next running project called ‘Running From Badwater 4 Good Water’.

I will stand at the starting line of the Badwater 135 mile endurance race with 99 other athletes from around the World who have been chosen to participate in this race. This will be my attempt to become the first women to complete the ‘BW 135’ ten times.

The race starts at Badwater in Death Valley which is the lowest point in the USA, -282 feet below Sea Level and finishes 135 miles later at the Portals of Mt. Whitney which is just over 8,000 feet. The race is hot, hilly and hard! God willing I will continue on to summit Mt. Whitney which is considered the highest point in the Continental USA, 14,876 feet. I will then make my way back to Badwater for a total of 292 miles and then start all over again, Badwater to the summit of Mt. Whitney and back to Badwater to finish with a total of 594 miles. The goal is to cover the Badwater course 4 times coming up with the project name Badwater 4 Good Water.

My longtime friend and mentor Marshall Ulrich who will be running his 19th Badwater race will join me during this project. I am honored and blessed to have Marshall along because he is has already accomplished the Quad. (4 times Badwater)I was on Marshalls crew when he completed the Quad and he continues to always inspire me. I will be the first women to attempt the Quad and I feel confident in my ability to accomplish this goal. There are very few things in my life that I have started and have not finished, especially when it involves a commitment to helping others in need.

Here is the link to the Badwater race http://www.badwater.com/

You may wonder why you are getting this very long letter from meJ You are getting this letter because I need your help. As you can imagine doing these projects can’t happen without the love and finical support of others, organizations and companies that believe in what and why you are doing it. In 2008 I started the Dreamchasers Foundation with Sister Marybeth so that money raised we knew was going to go directly to where we wanted it to go and where those who made donations would feel good about and know exactly what there donation was helping. At this time we still don’t have an “official web site for the DC foundation” and we are seeking someone who would volunteer their time and service to do this for us. We have several people who are on the board who have helped for years with getting donations. An example, last year Alexa ran the Badwater race and raised over $6,000 for our mission in Brazil.  www.dreamchasersfoundation.com

In order to complete this project I have estimated the cost would be $12,000. This would cover airfare, hotels, van rentals, gas, food and supplies for a total of 11-13 days. I have a crew of 6-8 people that will donate their time and energy to helping me accomplish this project with the hopes of raising a great deal of money and awareness for Water!

Please sit back and take a few moments to pray and mediate on this project. Think about where and how you can help either with press release, setting up FB page and all social media, or connect me to a corporation that believes in this project as it is a tax write off and will gain National attention.

Sassi…800 children

Zalambessa..900 children..

Adigrat  900 children..

These are in Ethiopia and most needed Munagallapalli, India  300 families…about 1200 children plus adults all in the village would use the well.

For more information: http://www.dreamchaserevents.com/About-Us/Lisa-Smith-Batchen/

Face Book Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Badwater-4-Good-Water/507957382596658?ref=hl

Thank you for your time to read this and any efforts you may be able to offer.

I am forever grateful.

Lisa Smith-Batchen
Dreamchasers Outdoor Adventures
Victor, Idaho
www.dreamchaserevents.com

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Photo Credit: Brenda Carawan @UltraRunnerBren

Today, Mike Morton did something he alluded to over the phone a few months ago (see article). He told me he planned to do well at the Badwater Ultramarathon. His friends, who I interviewed for the May/June issue of Endurance Racing Magazine, believed he’d take the first place prize. He did not dissapoint.

And not only did Morton win, he almost updset the course record which meant that this first timer broke the coveted 24 hour mark on his first attempt at this race.

There were so many other epic athletes who came to race at Badwater this year. Veteran runner, Alan Webb (70) actually BROKE his record at Badwater by 51 amazing minutes.

World renown ultramarathoner, Dean Karnazes, finished 12th.

During the day I followed Adventure Corps’ twitter feed, checking who was where and how they were doing. Unfortunately, there were some DNFs, but that happens. It’s part of racing. Today’s is Mike’s day to bask in the glory of his win – and for that, we celebrate with him.

To see Race Director Chris Kostman’s photos go to Flickr.

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In four years, Ferg Hawke went from fat to fit to famous. He’s renown for his epic 2nd place finishes at Badwater, a record-breaking finish at the Marathon De Sables and has competed in hundreds of races including Western States and other international races. Now, after a few years off, he’s coming back better than before.

In 1987 Ferg Hawke was 30, overweight and according to his doctor, on the road to destruction with “dangerously high blood pressure.” He was prescribed blood pressure medication and informed that he was at high risk for heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Hawke threw the prescription out and started running to bring his weight down.

To say that Hawke jumped into an exercise program is an understatement. Two years later and 40 pounds lighter, Hawke ran the Vancouver Sun Run 10K in April of 1989 and then completed his first marathon and sprint triathlon in May and June respectively before competing in his first Olympic distance triathlon in July and then the Ironman Canada in August.

“After finishing Ironman Canada and swore I’d never do another Ironman but my time was good enough to qualify for the Hawaii Ironman in Kona,” Hawke said.

It took a few friends and a few beers to convince him to go to Kona which ultimately kick-started a career in Ironman races.  Hawke went on to complete in six Ironman races including a personal best—a 27^th place finish at IMC in a time of 9:27 with a 3:01 marathon. Other triathlon highlights during this time included competing at the Triathlon World Championships in Surfers Paradise Australia as a member of the Canadian national team and a 3^rd place finish at the Ultraman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii.

Today, however, Hawke is known more as an ultra runner than a triathlete. Before his two children were school age, Hawke was working for Air Canada and this shift prevented him from training appropriately for triathlons. He decided to focus on running because he could always squeeze in a run at night or with the kids piled into the double baby jogger.

Fate Becomes an Ultra Runner

In March 1995, a friend invited him to run a 50K, but the race was only a week away.  “Well once I finished laughing I gratefully declined his kind offer and wished him luck,” Hawke said.

Something about running 50K in the mountains sounded intriguing, however, and although he wasn’t prepared for race that long Hawke called his friend back, accepted his offer, and went with him to the Chuckanut Mountain 50K about an hour’s drive south in Washington state.

To Hawke’s amazement, he won the race.

“Let me be clear, this wasn’t the star studded track meet like today’s Chuckanut Mountain 50K with the likes of Geoff Roes, Hal Koerner, Scott Jurek, etc., but hey I won!” Hawke explained.

It was a miserable day with snow on the higher elevations of the race and pouring rain at sea level. Hawke arrived back to where the race started and just stopped at what he thought was the finish line. There wasn’t a person in site until a guy opened a car door yelled, “What’s your name?”  The man wrote something on his clipboard, said, “Good job,” and slammed the car door.

So while that wasn’t the typical finish with race tape and cheering fans, Hawke still thought “how exciting!” He fell in love with the sport of trail running and entered another 50K and a 50-miler that summer. Within a few years he ran a couple of 100-milers including Western States and traveled to the Netherlands for the 100K World Championships.

Going Further: The Marathon de Sables

“I read an article about this crazy run in the Sahara called The Marathon de Sables (MDS) in Morocco and thought that would be such an incredible adventure.”

What Hawke discovered about himself was that the longer, hotter, and tougher the race was, the better he performed. What better place to test this theory, he thought. He gathered a bunch of his running buddies together at the local coffee shop and pitched his idea to run the MDS. “I actually managed to convince two of them that running 150 miles across the Sahara Desert with a week’s worth of food and gear on our backs was a good idea and the three of us entered as a team,” he said.

Hawke ran through the first four stages of the MDS in incredibly tough conditions with high winds causing blinding sand storms. When Hawke began the 50-mile ultra stage he was in 12^th place but things were only about to worse as athletes fought through the worst sand storms in the event’s 17-year history with winds gusting to 50 mph and almost zero visibility. The Moroccan sand dunes, which athletes had to traverse after the 50-mile ultra stage were 20 miles across with a checkpoint half way at mile 10 and another at the far side. As he was running, Hawke couldn’t see anyone ahead or behind him. The blowing sand covered footprints within seconds making navigation very difficult. Relying on his compass, Hawke made it to the first checkpoint but when he made it to what he thought was the other side of the dunes, there was no checkpoint.

Hawke wandered around in all directions searching for the checkpoint for what seemed like an hour.  He was down to his last water ration when he heard the race helicopter hovering off to his left and ran in that direction straight to the final checkpoint before the finish of the second stage. He continued on to stages three and four, and ran hard the last eight miles of stage four on a dry lake bed. It was getting dark and he removed his sunglasses so he could see the course markers, but the winds were blowing sands that ultimately got lodged in Hawke’s eyes.  When he crossed the finish  line at this stage he was in 7^th place but was practically blinded and had to be escorted to the medic’s tent where medical personnel took over an hour to rinse the sand out of his eyes. The doctors told him he had lacerated his corneas. “The doctors taped gauze over his eyes and instructed me to leave it on until the marathon stage in two days time,” Hawke said.

Fortunately, Hawke’s eyes healed enough for him to run the final two stages finishing in 8^th overall, which was not only the first time a North American athlete had finished in the top ten at the Marathon de Sables but it was also the highest placing by a North American in the 26-year history of the race until Mike Wardian’s incredible 3^th finish in 2011.

Badwater

In 2004 Hawke entered Badwater, and while it was on his “to do list” he had trepidations about doing it. The Sahara was hot, but the Marathon de Sable is held in April so it never really got hotter than 100°F. At Badwater, temperatures in the summer heat in Death Valley in July could range anywhere from 120°F to 130°F.

Ferg Finishes Badwater

“I knew that even more than focusing on hill training to prepare for the more than 13,000 feet of elevation gain I would need to come up with a plan to ready myself for the heat,” he said.  To do this Hawke developed a two-pronged heat training strategy. First, he built a sauna big enough to fit his treadmill inside. Second he travelled from his home in the Pacific Northwest to Death Valley to train on the course in the heat.

Hawke began his sauna training at the beginning of May, 10 weeks before the race, starting with daily one hour sessions with the temperature at 110°F. Over time, he increased his sauna runs to two hours at temperatures up to 140°F. At the end of May, Hawke drove to Death Valley and spent a week completing two or three training sessions each day in the heat. The temperature reached 118°F during the day and dropped to the low 90s at night. He purposely left the air conditioning off in his car and slept on an air mattress in the desert for seven days. During that week he logged over 140 miles including a 50-mile run through Death Valley in the heat of the day finishing with a 5,000-foot climb up to Towns Pass.

After his week at Death Valley he drove to the Grand Canyon and ran 48 miles rim to rim in the heat. “I felt that ‘Death Camp,’ as I aptly named it, was a huge success. Not only from a conditioning and heat training aspect, but I was unquestionably better prepared psychologically as my confidence grew after surviving the heat of Death Valley on the very same roads that I would be suffering on a during Badwater,” he added.

Badwater has three start times. This spreads the athlete’s and crew out on the course so the public highway is not too congested. The 6:00 a.m. group is reserved for what the race director, Chris

Kostman, would consider to be the slowest group. Hawke was in the 8:00 a.m. for the middle of the pack runners and his pre-race strategy was to push the pace early while it was a relatively cool 100°F, then ease off and try to survive the hottest part of the day from Furnace Creek to Stove Pipe Wells. He hoped his months of 100-plus mile training weeks and mega hours running in the sauna was enough to get him to the finish. His strategy worked well, and he passed everyone from the 6:00 a.m. group by the 40-mile mark and held off all the 10:00 a.m. elite starters all the way through the race to the finish line. It was an amazing feeling to be the first athlete to cross the finish line but this didn’t mean he won the race. He now had to wait to see how many of the 10:00 a.m. starters would cross the line within the two hour time difference. Dean Karnazes crossed the line to claim the overall victory and Hawke’s time of 27:30 was good enough for 2nd place. “Going into the race I felt if everything went well I had a shot at a top 10 finish. Second place, and only seven and a half minutes slower than ultra-marathon legend Dean Karnazes was the closest finish in the history of the race and beyond my wildest dreams,” he said.

But that seven and a half minutes needled at Hawke to the point where he signed up to do the race again in 2005.

In his second attempt to finish Badwater, documented in the film, The Distance of Truth, Hawke shaved a whopping 57 minutes off his 2004 time finishing in 26:33, but the win still evaded him. Scott Jurek, who had been having severe complications in the heat fought hard and caught Hawke on the mountain. The two would pass each other twice during the night and ultimately Scott won the race knocking 33 minutes off the course record finishing in under 25 hours.

Hawke ran Badwater again in 2006 finishing in 4^th place and then went on a hiatus to renovate his home. He put some of the weight back over a couple of years but then started to regain his fitness. In 2011, Hawke joined Canadian ultra marathoner Ray Zahab in Bolivia and ran over 200 kilometers as a guide on one of Zahab’s youth expeditions. Hawke enjoyed the experience so much he joined Ray in  India where they ran 280 kilometers across the Thar Desert.

For more information on Ray Zahab’s running expeditions, visit www.impossible2possible.com.

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By Alix J. Shutello

Back in 1995, Lisa Smith-Batchen (she was Lisa Smith at the time) already had an impressive competitor’s resume. She’d completed over 100 marathons, numerous Iron-distances races and even a few adventure races. In April of 1995, Lisa was invited to compete in an inaugural ecochallenge race in Utah and was put on a team with Marshall Ulrich.

“At the end of the race, Marshall said to me, ‘Lisa, you should run Badwater, you’re really a good runner in the heat and desert,’” Batchen said. “I asked him what Badwater was and he told me it was a 135-mile race in Death Valley.”

Not only was the thought of running farther than a marathon distance not on her radar, Badwater was in July, only three months away.

“I about fell on the floor.  I had no idea anyone did races where the running portion was over a marathon. I had never heard of ultra marathons,” Batchen said.

Ulrich introduced Batchen to Badwater race director at the time, Matt Fredrick. Fredrick said that if Ulrich believed she could do the race, then she was in.

And the rest, they say is history.

Badwater Changes a Person

To help her prepare for Badwater, Ulrich was coaching Batchen to run some extra miles on her long runs with extra clothes on to get used to the heat. But back then, that was about all one did to prepare for this race.

“Back then, that was heat training,” Batchen said.

But on the day of the race, thoughts of what she was about to do were overwhelming and terrifying.

“If I had any sense I would have turned around and gone home. I had no idea what I was doing,” Batchen reminisced.

Batchen explained that during the race athletes drank either Coke or Gatorade. There were no salt pills or special products.

“Your mouth would hurt from all the sugar,” Batchen said.

As Batchen made her way through the race, the experience was tough. It was hot and the terrain was hard. For someone one from New Jersey, the enormous mountains of Death Valley that went on for miles and miles were daunting physically and emotionally.

“I pulled up to Stove Pipe Wells at mile 42 and got out of the van. The heat and wind were enough to make me want to go home. It was truly a ‘holy shit’ moment,” Batchen commented.

Batchen learned to power walk that day, and has used power walking both in training and competing at Badwater ever since.

“I had no idea what to eat or drink, but I kept moving on and on to the finish line,” Batchen said. “I can still feel those last thriteen miles climbing up Mount Whitney. I was in tears, but I was also thankful and shocked I did it.”

Batchen crossed the finish line sunburned, with trashed feet, completely dehydrated but absolutely elated.  She said that feeling of completion and the fact that she had spent so many hours at the mercy of nature made her thankful for so much. That feeling changed her life, and she returned for 10 consecutive years thereafter. After taking a few years off to pursue other endurance racing interests, she is pacing for Sergio Radovcic this summer.

This is part 1 of a 2-part series on Lisa Smith-Batchen.

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Badwater. If you are unfamiliar with this 135-mile race through Death Valley, you won’t be by the time you are done with this issue.
I had the extreme pleasure of working with some very big celebrities in the ultra running community to get this issue completed. Let’s see, I interviewed Frank McKinney over the phone in my office, David Carver over the phone while I was in the Jacksonville airport, David Green over Skype, Scott D’Angelo via phone while I was running around doing errands and Chris Roman over the phone over several phone calls. I even caught Chris and Dave Green’s coach, Ray Zahab while he was sitting in a plane at Washington Dulles Airport on the way to see Ferg Hawke, who has been joining Ray recently on some of his global expeditions. I must say, working with Ferg was an unintended surprise, for his story is the main feature in this issue. Mike Morton, Sergio Radovcic, and Brad Lombardi also provided me excellent content by email and I am forever thankful to them for their attention to detail.
I do owe a special thanks to Chris, who I met via Facebook last year. At the time I interviewed him for a story in Runners Illustrated where I reported on his run along the Caminho Da Fe which he completed after his first time crewing for Badwater. Since then we’ve talked numerous times, including for about an hour as a I sat in a Whole Foods parking lot and he sold me on doing an issue about all the great guys from Florida who are competing in Badwater this year. I really thought Badwater and all the reporting on it had dried up (pun intended), but now I am more
enamored by these athletes than ever before.
This issue would not have been possible without contributions from other athletes/writers as well. I am thrilled to reprint a story on nutrition written by Meredith Terranova, an ultra athlete who wrote great piece on nutrition for Badwater.
The best part about preparing for this issue was meeting Chris Roman and Jennifer Vogel in per-son. On a trip I took to Florida in March, Jennifer and I sat down and talked for an hour about nu-trition and that being a triathlete makes her a better endurance runner. She’s just like Ferg Hawke, Scott D’Angelo and David Green, for example, who where were triathletes before they became ultra runners. That athletic base has been important in their ability to use their over all physical fitness and mental training as assets in endurance races. Both Scott and David will test these assets for the first time this summer, like Jennifer did last year—with MUCH success, I might add. Jennifer came in 8th overall and was the 2nd place female!
I owe a ton of gratitude to Lisa Batchen-Smith. I am extremely fortunate because Lisa provided the Coaches Corner column this issue and her experience I can guarantee, will get any athlete to the finish line at Badwater.
Thank you to everyone and especially my editor, Renee Dexter!

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“I’m not a runner, I’m an athlete,” Jen told me. “Being a triathlete has helped me be a better ultra runner.”
2011 was a signature year for Jen. She not only placed 2nd place in the Tampa Double Iron, she came in top eight (2nd female overall) at Badwater. She went on to win the Tampa Triathlon, also an Iron distance.
“I’m interested in going fast,” she said. “I have the make up for these races but the multi sports I do help round me.”
Jen does yoga several times a week. The yoga, she says helps balance her. It keeps her core strong while offering a relaxing way to exercise without impact.
When it comes to eating, she’s adamant that she eats whole foods and doesn’t use supplements.
“I don’t get supplements,” she said. “I mean, who is to say that if you eat blueberry extract, that this is better than eating the whole berry, when in that form it’s probably got everything you need.”
This year, Vogel will crew for Scott D’Angelo (she’s also his coach), who crewed for her last year. When I asked about why she’s not competing this year, her answer was simple. “This is my year to support Scott,” she said. “He was there for me last year and I’m going to be there for him this year.”
Read Vogel’s blog post on the 2011 Badwater at http://jenvogel.wordpress.com/category/badwater-crew/.

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D’Angelo is a five-time Ironman finisher who started running ultras in 2009. Since then he has completed over 15 ultras and has crewed for Jennifer Vogel, Lane Vogel and Mimi Anderson.  For D’Angelo, now is the time to do Badwater. He’s ready.

But Death Valley was not always on his bucket list. “Badwater wasn’t even on my radar,” D’Angelo said, “not like Iron distance triathlons were.”

Preparing for Badwater became a matter of experience. In 2011, D’Angelo ran three long endurances races, the 100-mile Canadian Death Race, The Laramie 100, the Palm 100K, and the Peanut Island 24 Hour which is 102 miles.

He also completed one of the Racing the Planet series in Nepal in 2011. The race was a 150-mile stage race much like Marathon de Sables in Morocco. There, he tented with Marshall Ulrich, who has run Badwater 20 times. It was there that D’Angelo learned about Ulrich’s attempt to circumvent Death Valley this summer, and those aspirations were inspiring to D’Angelo.

D’Angelo feels he’s prepared for Badwater and his endurance running general, and his attitude is that he’s naturally built for these types of adventure/endurance races. He recently ran from Boca Raton to Jacksonville, completing did this 300-mile jaunt in six days to prove to himself he could be self-sufficient.

And, with renown endurance athlete Jennifer Vogel as his coach and one his crew, he’ll do just fine.

When D’Angelo is not doing a triathlon, running, rock climbing, surfing, or doing another type of sport, he’s potentially saving lives.  He lives in Delray Beach Florida and has worked for the past 21 years as a firefighter. Scott recently opened The Dog House Performance Cycling Center in Boca Raton, FL.

D’Angelo is also supports MILA, a product he takes in his training. Learn more about MILA and buy a bag for yourself. Click: http://runnersillustrated.fueledbymila.net/

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This year , 99 people from 16 countries, 2 Canadian provinces and 19 American states will line up at the starting line on July 16, 2012.  Competitors range in age from 30 to 70 and half of them are running Badwater for the first time. Of those returning, some are looking to win while others want to improve their time. The thing about Badwater, is that you don’t know what will happen to you during the race, and that is part of the intrigue.

A special thanks goes to Chris Kostman and his tireless race staff for putting on such an epic race.

Commentary

If you woke up this morning and thought you might want to run the Badwater 135 desert this year, think again.

To qualify for Badwater, you need to have three 100-mile races under your belt or a combination of other races and a really convincing race

application.

You also need a plan, a few bucks, and a crew that will support you unconditionally.   You’ll run in temperatures up to 130°F, traverse mountain passes in the middle of the night, hell, you might even hallucinate.  But if you feel the need to run for 24 plus hours straight or until the 60-hour cut off without sleep, don’t mind losing a few toenails or having your feet double in size due to swelling and don’t mind ice baths, then Badwater may be for you!

This year 99 brave souls will stand at the starting line. A whole slew of men from Florida happen to be competing this year, and I’ve covered almost all of them in this issue. All but two of them are first timers, and of the eight I profiled, a couple of them, one veteran and one newbie are looking for top 10 finishes.

Mike Morton, Chris Roman, Scott D’Angelo, Dave Carver, Dave Green, Brad Lombardi, Sergio Radovcic and Frank McKinney you may know because they are well-known either in their profession as athletes or whatever they do outside of running. Some of you may know these guys as successful business tycoons, triathletes, or as regular Joes. What makes them all unique goes down to their DNA. All of them possess the genes for drive, motivation, perseverance, stubbornness, quality, integrity, motivation, and in the words of Frank McKinney, a desire for “relentless forward motion.

What some may see as a selfish endeavor to do something great for their individual selves, these men are loving, kind, and inspirational.  They use ultra running to give back to mankind or their fellow brethren. Some do run to race a good race, but not without wanting to share what they do with others.

Each man, as they say, has a destiny. Badwater, because of the salt and heat, will cleanse you both mentally, spiritually, and physically, while it humbles you. It is that feeling that will motivate these men to go to the desert and strip themselves of everything, because in the end, we all get to see their true selves unveiled in the spirit of long distance running. What they don’t know can affect their race as much as what they do know.

It is through endurance racing that an athlete can try to conquer nature while accepting that they can be defeated by it. And what is more fascinating is the endless, enduring dedication of their support crews, who, for a small period time, give everything of themselves in their devoted desire to get their athlete to the finish line. It actually makes me emotional to write this.

When it comes to Badwater, Frank McKinney sums it up this way:

“Here is this group of very normal people who are part of the Badwater culture. There is a culture that transcends the race, that desire to become primal, to push one’s limits and to test one’s self against the environment,” he said.

This couldn’t be more on point.

Alix Shutello is the publisher of Endurance Racing Magazine.

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Green become an endurance athlete for two reasons. He had significant knee issues after running five marathons after his 20s. In fact, because of his knee issues he became a tri athlete and began competing in sprint triathlons before moving up to Iron distance races.

After graduating from Columbia University with a Computer Science/Economics degree, he worked on Wall Street and then founded GreenTrak which was ultimately acquired by Advent Software in 2001. Subsequently he was a founder of Ironmen LLC, a private equity firm in Jacksonville, Florida.

While he enjoyed success as a triathlete, his business endeavors would change his training schedule.  He launched 110% Play Harder in 2010, which features a line of compression and ice performance apparel. Green’s travel schedule made training for triathlons difficult so he switched to just running.  He trains at the events he goes to in order to get mileage in.

“I typically go work marathon expos for 110%, so to get my weekly mileage in, I’ll run from my hotel to the race, run the marathon, run back to the hotel, and then hop on a plane and fly home,” he said.

Green incorporates his training into his corporate lifestyle; often getting up at 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. to run. Co-workers are invited to these runs, which range between 10 and 50 miles.  And as you would assume, he uses his own 110% compression gear as part of his recover routine.

Green met his Brazilian wife, Monica, on vacation in 1991 and has two boys, 23 and 17.  He describes his life as “way too busy.”  He ran the Brazil 135 in January 2012, was in England to launch the 110% brand  in February and travelled to Israel in March for other business.

In the middle of all the travel, Green who is also a founder of the 110% Give Harder Foundation, lead a group of runners on a 110-mile circuit where they ran 84 miles, including through the night, and finished the final 26.2 miles of their journey along the race course for the 26.2 with Donna, The National Marathon to Finish Breast Cancer.

Green will run Badwater for the first time this summer. He was coached by Ray Zahab and will have his brother and some of his co-workers on his crew. It’s no wonder how 110% got product of the year in Runners World and Gear of the Year in Triathlete Magazine – even in racing – Green may never actually stop working.

And when asked why he’s doing Badwater this year, Green’s answer is simple. “I wanted to see if I could do the two toughest 135s in the world, Brazil and Badwater, in one year.”

To learn more about 110% Play Harder visit www.110playharder.com.

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