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| Moments after my finish of the 2014 Badwater Ultramarathon. (Kathy Youngren) |
Summary:
Thanks to my wonderful crew, wife Kathy Youngren and Bryce
Carlson, I finished my second Badwater 135 in 28:03:35. Good enough for 7th
overall and 6th master. For the Badwater event this was also a 3:10 personal best. Took the first half fairly conservatively
and still struggled in the heat a bit on the stretch from Lone Pine to Keeler.
Once night fell though I was ready to roll and covered the second half of the
course much, much faster. While this
year’s course didn’t pass through Death Valley I strongly believe that the overall difficulty of the route is roughly time equivalent to
the traditional route. In short, the huge increase of climb (17,000’ up from
12,000’) AND descent (12,700’ way up from ~4000’), the crew-less 16 mile gravel
road climb/descent of Cerro Gordo and still impressive triple digit heat pretty much made up for the lack of
wicked Death Valley heat. At least that’s my take.
