Sunday I will arrive at Furnace Creek in Death Valley for the Badwater Ultramarathon. For those unfamiliar with Death Valley, it is a beautiful place. And, contrary to most people’s imagination, it is not flat.
My role is to serve on the medical team and assit the 80+ runners as they start in three waves Monday morning: 6:00, 8:00 and 10:00 AM. The route is 135 miles through the National park and into Lone Pine, before starting the long road up to the Whitney Portal. This is a very extreme event and all runners and crews have my support. They are allowed 60 hours to finish.
Here is the link to view the webcast: http://www.badwater.com/2010web/index.php
And the link for Twitter updates: http://twitter.com/adventurecorps
Catch the webcast if you can. Maybe you’ll see me. I expect to patch quite a few feet and many of my best patching jobs and the worst feet I have seen, have been at Badwater.
When I return, I will share what happened and what I learned about feet. I wish all the runners and crews a good and safe experience.
To tide you over until my next post, here’s a photo that I shot at Western States two weeks ago. The runner came in for a bit of foot care and his, yes, his, toenails surprised me. I complemented him on his colors.
