Badwater Ultramarathon

Las Vegas resident, Molly Sheridan, attempts the world's hardest footrace through Death Valley

By JUSTIN YURKANIN

The runner walks north on Highway 395 with a noticeable limp. Semi trucks zoom by - blowing up debris from the road and causing her to pause. Her upper body leans to the left and her arms dangle, appearing lifeless. Mount Whitney looms over the road just to the west. She can't stop until she's halfway up that mountain. Her body looks broken and battered, but the finish line is still nine miles away.

Molly Sheridan has just raced 122 miles over two mountain ranges and through Death Valley to reach Lone Pine, Calif. She is participating in the AdventureCorps Badwater Ultramarathon. The endurance race is widely considered the world's toughest foot race, spanning 135 miles from the lowest point in the western hemisphere to Whitney Portal, halfway up Mount Whitney.

To reach Lone Pine, she endured extreme heat (officially 125 degrees at Furnace Creek), climbed 9,000 feet and ran or walked without sleep for 40 straight hours.

Sheridan, 52, hopes to complete Badwater in less than 48 hours. If she does, she will get a belt buckle, the only prize given out at the race and the endurance athlete's equivalent to a Super Bowl ring.

A mother of three from Las Vegas, Sheridan started running at age 48.

"In the beginning I had no confidence. I went out there, really, just for the adventure of it. I didn't know if I could go 50 and 100 miles until I got out there and did it," Sheridan says.

Most endurance runners spend a decade building up the ability to attempt Badwater. Sheridan will tackle the race with only three years of experience.

"It's the pinnacle or capstone event of an ultrarunning career," says Chris Kostman, director of the Badwater Ultramarathon.

Kostman has been organizing the race for more than a decade. It began in 1977 when a couple of runners ran across Death Valley to the summit of Mount Whitney, but has become much more organized under Kostman's leadership. Hundreds of runners apply for 90 coveted spots at the starting line.

"The fact that its on a road, which not only is harder than a trail, but in Death Valley in July, it's radiating 100 to 200 degrees up onto the legs and lower body of the runners. And so its sort of like being in a slow cooking roaster," Kostmann says.

Sheridan has been training for two years. She tried to enter the race in 2008, but was not accepted. Instead she was part of a crew, the team that feeds, provides water, addresses medical needs and paces the runner throughout the 135-mile test.

Sheridan's six-member crew includes accomplished triathletes, endurance runners and a crew chief - her 18-year-old daughter, Bailey Sheridan.

Sheridan and her crew regularly train at Death Valley, two hours from Las Vegas. She runs 30-40 miles during the weekend.

"What you have to do differently is prepare yourself for the heat. The heat is going to be unrelenting. You don't get a break," Sheridan says.

Even though she lives in Las Vegas and trains in Death Valley, Sheridan has never experienced the kind of extended exposure to intense heat that she will have to endure for Badwater. To acclimate, she drives her car with the windows rolled up and no air conditioning and sits fully-clothed in a sauna at 160 degrees for an hour.

"When you start a race of this magnitude, you're going to learn something about yourself that you would have never learned under any other circumstances," Sheridan says.

As Sheridan and her crew begin to climb Mount Whitney from Lone Pine, they are informed by a race official that a forest fire has caused the race to be shortened to 131 miles. She will now have to finish the race at the new finish line in 46 hours to achieve her goal and get the belt buckle.

Sheridan has six hours to climb nine steep miles, but her pace has suffered as she deals with a bruised Achilles tendon and badly blistered feet. The pain has slowed her pace to one mile every 30 minutes. She will have to pick it up if she wants to finish in less than 46 hours.

"It's psychologically daunting. It's just straight up and you're so tired. It's endless. It just feels endless." Said Sheridan.

The crew decides to allow Sheridan to sleep for ten minutes in an effort to help her across the finish line. Parked along the Whitney Portal Road, Sheridan sleeps under the watchful eyes of the crew. She is in danger of falling into a deep sleep and further disorienting herself.

The crew wakes her promptly ten minutes later to complete the last three miles. Sheridan begins to climb the mountain's 15 percent grade. The rest has worked; she is focused and making steady progress.

There is a small tent set up at the new finish line. Two Inyo County police cruisers sit in front with their lights flashing.

Sheridan can now see the finish line.

"I saw it and it was utter elation, joy. I was really proud of my crew," she says.

Sheridan runs the last hundred feet holding hands with her crew and crosses finish line at three in the morning. She completed the 131-mile race in 45 hours and nine minutes.

As runners slowly trickle up the hill, Sheridan gets in the crew support vehicle to go back to the motel, where she can lay down.

She ran across the hottest desert in North America. She climbed more than 13,000 feet and descended 4,700. She slept a total of ten minutes in 45 hours and nine minutes. Her longest rest break was 46 minutes. She averaged just under three miles an hour for the entire course.

Sheridan reflects on the race during the trip down the mountain.

"The human body is supposed to be moving. It can do so much more than we imagine."