Training

Note: This is not a training plan for everyone. It is my training plan, and it does not contain complete details. If you follow this and end up dead, I take no responsibility! Did you get that? I take no, as in none, responsibility.

How does one train for a Death Valley to Mt. Whitney crossing? Last year, my friend was asked that question. Her answer, "You train for it all your life." When it comes to distance running, George Sheehan wrote that we are all an experiment of one. Both answers are correct. For an extreme endeavor such as the Death Valley Express II, the conditions of the experiment change from year to year, from month to month, and might not even be known until well into the event. What about time to do it? Can you have a full time job and train? For this last question, it depends on how much you are willing to give up to reach for a dream.

"Training all of your life" is largely preparation for the mental aspect of putting one's self through an extreme ordeal. You cannot one day decide to take on Death Valley. Your chances of success, even with good physical training, are likely not very good. Here I am talking more specifically about a solo, with crew support, crossing. Racing conditions are very different mentally. Doing such a crossing for nothing more than personal reasons, whatever they are, can be very difficult when the going gets hard. And it will get hard - very, very hard.

So, still you ask, "If what you say is true, how can you train?" You train for the course and the most likely conditions. Training to go long distances involves going long distances. That much is simple. Simple to say, at least. The course is largely asphalt, so training on a hard surface is good. There are climbs -- some steep and long, some very steep and shorter. The descents can be very severe. So, one needs to train on hills, going both up and down, for extended periods.

I am now in my mid-50s. While not a limitation, I do have to accept that my body will not take the pounding it once so enjoyed. I have made adjustments, mostly in how I approach speed in my training. Also, my bad back has to be taken into some account. Stressing it with hard pounding, especially fast running, might end the entire thing in a day. I have learned through a lifetime of running what my body can take and what it needs to get the job done. The need for such experience is one of the reasons there are few "youngsters" doing Death Valley solos.

My personal training style for Death Valley involves shorter efforts during the week. Usually Monday - Friday will have four or five 5 to 6 mile sessions on a hilly course. When I say hills, I mean climbs that might be 1000 ft or more in the course of a couple of miles. Steep, but not crazy steep. I usually take a day off a week, sometimes two. In the last two months of training, I will add a mid-week 10 - 15 mile session on hills. Sometimes I will do two of these, typically doing this as my commute home from work. To supplement the hill work, I will go to Lone Pine and climb the road to the Whitney Portals. This is the finish of the crossing, and the hardest climb on the route.

Weekends are when things get serious in terms of mileage. Saturday will be 10 to 15 miles. Sunday 20 to 25 miles. This will build through the last two months toward 20 on Saturday and 30 on Sunday. These workouts are the key. Going long for many hours at the pace I expect to do during the event are difficult physically and mentally. Most of the weekend is taken up in training or recovering from training. Not a lot else can fit into the time available. My wife, Deborah, and I have turned many of these long efforts into a journey to a new or favorite restaurant some 20 or 30 miles from home. I go there and give her a call on my cell phone when I am close. She comes out and we eat before going home. Sometimes I might be so "done" that my food just runs down my chin and my conversation is little more than guttural ughs. But, we have fun.

I don't worry too much about total mileage, other than to make sure I am getting the long stuff in and keep it up by doing something during the week. I rest when my body tells me that is what I need. That might mean 50 miles in a week, or it might mean 100 miles.

The bottom line is miles. Lots of hard miles, with plenty of ups and downs, is the bulk of my training on the road.

But a Death Valley crossing in August has other complications that must be taken into account. That is heat - dry hot, heat. That much is certain. Wind, sand storms, rain, relatively high humidity all can be factors, but the one thing that has to be included in the training is surviving the heat. Everyone who does this thing in Death Valley suffers from dehydration and heat exhaustion to one degree or another. You must train to minimize those impacts. First, you have to train in heat. Second, you have to train to drink vast quantities in relatively short periods. There are physiological changes that can be brought on by training in heat, besides just getting used to the environment. Your body will learn to retain electrolytes, in particular sodium. Normally, if you lick the sweat off your arm, you will taste lots of salt. Do that to a properly heat trained person and you will taste only water. Drinking lots of fluids is necessary because, whether you know it or not, you are sweating like crazy in the heat. You must replace those fluids as fast as you lose them. That can be a gallon or even two gallons an hour. Normally, you will not process than much fluid out of your stomach in the time needed to get it into your bloodstream. Training in heat and drinking large volumes teaches your body to do what it needs to survive.

At no time during training or the event can you let yourself get behind on drinking. I know this well. Dehydration will hit you fast and hard. One of the worst aspects in this situation is that you can get very disoriented. If you are a long way from your crew when that happens, things can get dangerous in no time. That I know well, too.

For heat training, I have made a hot box out of a storage shed. I use heaters to bring the temperature inside to at least 130 degrees F. In the hot box I will ride a stationary bike for a half hour to an hour a day. As I get more heat trained I will push the temperature to as high as I can stand for 20 minutes. At my best, that might be 160 degrees F. Usually, I can handle 145 degrees F for a half hour. This varies with how much other training I have done that day and how much heat I have taken in general. All the while I will be pounding down fluids, making it so that by the time I get out of the hot box I am having to run to the bathroom asap.

When not in the hot box, I try to train as much as possible in the heat of the day. I keep my office on the warm side and sometimes blow a little heater on me. This is not so much heat training as making myself comfortable in a hot environment.

Everything builds until two weeks from the event start. At that time, I head to the Valley of Death for four days of 20 miles each in the heat of the day. This will tell me if all systems are in order and ready. Deborah will crew for me as will be done during the event, stopping every mile, providing me with copious amounts to drink and something to eat. Last year, I did a similar training session. The heat was especially extreme during that time, making the road surface especially hot. My feet blistered (a problem I had not been having during training) and were not healed before I had to start the event two weeks later. Not a good situation that I will attempt to prevent this year, somehow. After this little training session, I will rest - training occasionally but not intensely, until August 8th and the start. I will continue to keep the heat training up, however.

If I have done everything right, did not get sick, timed the training correctly, on the morning of August 8th there will be nothing more to do than head down the road.

Onward.

"Badwater" Bill
Tujunga, CA

Goin' Campin'

I am happy to report that I have had lumbar injections of steroids to get the inflammation in my back under control so that I can train. Seven injections in L2-3, L3-4, L4-5, and L5-S1. with X-Ray guidance. I was asleep for the whole thing, but I sure was aware it was done the next day. Ugh. Got better! My back now feels ready and willing to go the distance. The amazing thing to me is that my doctor and surgeon know what I am trying to do, and they are helping me to do it. How many doctors, really, would do that? Every doctor I have ever known before this would just make me rest and tell me to just cut out the running. A Death Valley run would be beyond conception. Well, these guys know I won't rest or stop what I am doing, so they might as well help. When it comes to doctors, to quote Jimmy Buffett, "I have found myself a home."

What is clear from my new X-rays is that my problem is getting worse, a lot worse. The space between vertebrae at the problem disk is nearly gone. For the first time, my surgeon is talking surgery, maybe in the Fall. There likely are options and I need to weigh risks, but if I can run without pain, even live without pain, then I likely will be ready. Right now, I need to think about Death Valley and getting ready for that.

During the lead up and recovery from the procedure, I could not help thinking about how much this back problem has impacted my life over the past five years. It all really came to a head when running the Angeles Crest 100 Mile Endurance Run. I found myself in tremendous pain and could not make the cutoff times. I was out after climbing Mt. Baden-Powell at 26 miles - a lot done, but a long way from the finish. Something happened on that day to aggravate the injury, and it was a fast, painful spiral down from there. I couldn't run. Hell, I couldn't tie my own shoes.

Several years prior to that, I had started attending the Dick Beardsley Marathon Running Camp every September in Minnesota. It has become my home away from home for a week every year. There I made friends, learned things, and was a runner with other runners. I believe now that if it had not been for the coaches and campers of the Beardsley Camp I would be a very different runner today, perhaps not one at all. When my back injury started to dominate my life, literally, I could talk to those people, keeping myself looking forward, and get all the support I could have ever wanted or needed.

Truth be told, for the past four years at camp, I have spent more time smoking cigars with Rich Benyo than actually running. Happily, this last year that was only because I was recovering and still basking in my Death Valley effort of just a couple weeks prior. 

Rich Benyo, a coach at the Dick Beardsley Marathon Running Camp, editor of Marathon & Beyond, former editor of Runner's World, runner, writer, and oh so much more. It is not an accident that Rich looks a lot like Mark Twain (ne. Samuel Clemens). In fact, during some parts of the year, the resemblance is uncanny. Rich is the camp curmudgeon, a character he plays well. Laughter is the order of the day when Rich is on stage. He is not the oldest coach, but he would not mind if you treated him that way. This man has lived the life I might have laid out for myself, in some ways at least. Rich toured the southern stock car circuit, NASCAR, as a writer covering the racing and the racers. This was during what was the golden age of stock cars--when Petty, Allison, The Silver Fox, and other hard racing, hard talking, hard living drivers battled with guts and no fear. Having traveled the south and eating its greasy delicacies for years, Rich was not exactly the paragon of fitness when the then editor of Runner's World, Joe Henderson, left his spot and Rich became his successor there. Writing and running have been Rich's passion since, having produced numerous books and starting, with Jan Seeley, his own running publication, Marathon & Beyond. Rich's running achievements did not stop at the marathon. He and his friend, Tom Crawford, trained for and became the first humans to run from Badwater in Death Valley to the summit of Mt. Whitney and back again, a distance of 300 miles during the month of July. Not feeling like he gave it his all, Rich went back, twice, to do it again. Rich will not admit to making this remarkable run three times, because once he came up short by about 20 miles. He will accept 2.9 times. Well, those of us who know about this course know full well that Rich did it a full three times. 

Rich helped me to see that I could try what he did. I was older (a lot older) than when he did it the first time. I had a bad back. But, I had a brain, and I trained to walk the distance, just as he had done. My back made that a requirement. We have become very good friends. We do not talk politics. I am not really sure where Rich stands, but I am certain it is not to my left.

As I write this, I see that I cannot bring up Rich and the Dick Beardsley Marathon Running Camp without talking about the rest of the coaches and staff. It is they who make this camp so special and important to me. Each one brings something different to camp, something important.

Rich's wife, Rhonda Provost, is also a coach at the Beardsley Camp. She too was on my crew for the Death Valley Express 2010. Rhonda talks about running from the soul. She is the heart of the camp. A nurse anesthetist by day (and night), but she is a highly accomplished marathon and ultradistance runner. Rhonda routinely runs the Boston Marathon each year. As an ultradistance runner, Rhonda took to Death Valley as well, and became the first woman to run the Badwater to Mt. Whitney summit course and back again. She did this so quietly and without fanfare, that many years later only a few ultrarunning insiders are even aware the event happened, to the point that others have been able to take credit for being the first. Rhonda excels at camp through helping others to see their dreams and to make those dreams possible.

Mike Dunlap is the camp's cardiac expert. Currently, he is an elite masters cyclist. In a previous life, Mike was an elite marathoner. Having met Dick Beardsley in college, Mike has been Dick's best friend ever since. They ran together and competed against each other. He never speaks about it, but it could not have been easy for Mike to watch Dick move from very good to world class-- a step Mike's genes just would not let him make. Close. So very close, yet the gold ring was out of reach. Sill, Mike looks back on his running days with a certain joy that is rare and appreciated by the campers. Knee problems sent Mike onto the seat of a bike. He has taken that to very high levels, recently competing in the Race Across America and other endurance cycling events. Running a marathon camp with Dick had been one of Mike and Dick's plans together. The DBMRC surely has exceeded both of their dreams for such a camp. Mike brings a unique combination of experience, intelligence, and knowledge to his coaching. 

It is said, "Once a Marine, always a Marine." Bill Wenmark lives that life. Bill was a Marine medic in Viet Nam. He lived the Marine life then, and he lives it now. You cannot help but respect Bill, even when he might be driving you nuts. He is what he is, and he is very happy to be that. Bill is the "coach" at the camp. The one who brings hard physicality to the mix that is marathon training. With Bill, we do hill repeats (the right way), work on form, stretch like rubber bands, and get our heads around making our bodies just go. Through a marathon running team he started, Bill has trained more runners to marathon finishes than anyone else on the planet. A lot can be said about Bill, but the one that most aptly describes how he has lived his life and every day is passion. I have learned much from Bill. 

Mary Coordt is the camp nutritionist, and the current marathon "hot shot." A frequent winner at the Napa Valley Marathon, Mary has also qualified for the Olympic marathon trials four times. Always smiling, Mary came to be part of the camp staff several years after I started going. Mary quickly "got" what is special about this camp and fit in as if she had always been there. The camp feels more complete somehow because of what Mary has brought both in terms of knowledge that is useful, but also because she is still competitive and very fast.

When I think about Joe Henderson, I see a teacher, a man who taught me all about running and a bit about living. Joe is the dean of the coaches, but also perennially youthful. Joe runs nearly every day, and has since high school. Joe has a passion for running and running history such that when he talks at camp, there is a hush as we all work to glean every word, every nuance of his tale. Joe was ideal for the job of founding editor of Runner's World. He was the right person at the right time, and is no doubt a major reason for the start of the first running boom in America, and the continued success of running in this country. He has also been vilified for all the wrong reasons, for once writing about long slow distance. "Long slow distance only makes long slow runners," it was said. It was only those who did not stop to read what Joe had written that said those things. Ignorance of the worst kind. Hard work and fast running had to be there, too. Joe made that clear. But, much more important than the petty arguments of small minds, Joe opened up long distance running to everyone. Joe told us we could do it. We could do it fast, or we could do it slow. If we wanted it enough, we could. As editor of Runner's World, Joe also brought us George Sheehan. George became the philosophical leader of distance running. A guru of the best kind. George became one of Joe's greatest friends. Sadly, we all lost George far too soon to prostate cancer. That loss was particularly hard on Joe, but through that, George left Joe a great gift. George, an MD himself, instructed Joe to have periodic and regular prostrate screenings, something generally not done at the time. Today, we still have Joe Henderson with us, and Joe says that is in no small part to George's request for screenings. When I first came to camp, I looked up to Joe, even idolized him for what he had contributed to the world and to me, personally. I still look up to him, but it is hard to be close friends with an idol. I choose to be his friend. I am still learning from Joe, how to run, how to speak, and how to be an example to others. Today, Joe has found a role that he truly loves. He is giving back through coaching in Eugene, OR. He teaches running and is helping a new generation find the joy he has known all his life. He runs less today, and slower than in decades past, but Joe remains joyful in what he has had and what he can give to others. His is a good life. I am glad to be able to share it with him from time to time.

Jenny Stinson started out as a camper and is now a coach and deputy to the camp director. Unable to be in the Valley with me, Jenny supported the Death Valley Express 2010 from afar thorough blogging about the event. Jenny really gets it. She understands what doing the Death Valley course is all about. When asked by a friend, "How does one prepare for such an event?" Jenny responded with, "You spend a lifetime preparing." During the years I have known her, Jenny has started a successful business, participates in numerous running related activities such as being a leader for Joints in Motion, has crewed a rider in the Race Across American (Mike Dunlap), and has become an accomplished ultrarunner. Without a doubt, Jenny is the camp teacher of self support, with mantras, life lessons, and an outstanding "can do" attitude that can only bring you up. She brings an unbelievably good nature and a view of life that is contagious and wonderful. No matter what might be bothering you, all Jenny has to do is smile and speak with her fabulous southern accent and all that melts away, at least for a while. Jenny is the "happy" in the Beardsley Camp.

The director of the camp, and the only one that really makes things happen, is Jan Seeley. With Rich, Jan started and publishes Marathon & Beyond Magazine--the most unique and finest of the running periodicals. Though not a runner all of her life, there is no question about Jan's athletic qualifications, having been a world class field hockey player. Built more for field hockey, Jan does not match the "standard" portrait of a distance runner. But, make no mistake, she is a distance runner, having completed numerous marathons, the Pikes Peak Ascent, done a Grand Canyon rim to rim run, and many other races of significance. Jan is the camp organizer, the one we gladly let give us instructions for the week. She makes camp happen. This is no small task. When it comes to this group of coaches and campers coming from all places and having all backgrounds, herding a large group of cats might be easier and sometimes more satisfying. We cannot help but love Jan. Through all her intensity and drive to make camp the perfect experience, she does find time to be with the campers and enjoy the fact that we are enjoying ourselves.

I am not going to write anything lengthy here about the Head Coach, Dick Beardsley. Books have literally been written about him, including his own book. Dick's life in running was the stuff of dreams and legend. How could this kid from Minnesota possibly have risen to the level of being able to run side by side with world record holder and elite, big city educated and trained Alberto Salazar during a brutally hot Boston Marathon? How could he crush the likes of Bill Rodgers to be alone at the lead with Salazar? What was it that made him and Salazar push each other beyond the breaking point, only to keep going? Dick is made of something special. So is Alberto. On that day in Boston, Dick wanted to win that marathon more than anything life ever presented to him before. He needed it. Salazar had to defeat Beardsley. Maybe it was twisted pride, or just pure competitiveness, Alberto took both of them into the history books. If everything had gone just right--no cramps, no motorcycle getting in the way--could Dick have won in those last few steps? Not likely. Alberto was just too good and at the top of his game. But, what did happen was the greatest marathon race of all time. Dick might not have won, but he came away with something better--a story. A story that only he can tell. And tell it he does, with a talent for speaking few people have. But this is, of course, not Dick's whole story. Life-threatening injuries leading to narcotic drug addiction have given Dick even more tales far more important than a marathon run. Dick has taken his success and tragedies in stride and has created a life of storytelling and giving. The recently founded Dick Beardsley Foundation is one of the two charities I am running in Death Valley this summer to support. It is an honor to be on the Board of Directors for Dick's foundation, and it is an honor to call Dick my friend. There is no question, I both idolize and idealize Dick Beardsley. Yet, he is still just a man. But, he is a unique man. I treasure my friendship with him.

When I am in Death Valley this summer, suffering and thinking, I will think about the Dick Beardsley Marathon Running Camp and what it has brought into my life. The people. The stories. The coaching. Most importantly, it gave me hope and identity as a runner when I needed it most. Thank you, Jan, Jenny, Mary, Rich, Rhonda, Mike, Bill, and Dick. Each of you has given me something special. Each of you is special. 

"Badwater" Bill Latter

Tujunga, CA

Some Relief

It is with some relief I can report that the round of steroids helped. They did not do as well as in the past, so I have to take care to be easy on my back until things settle down.

I had good training efforts over the weekend. Broke up longer workouts into two each day, and stuck to the treadmill most of the time -- both to protect my back. That worked out well. Watched some classic westerns while treading away, so had some fun. If course, the movies were in part filmed in the Alabama Hills!

I will continue to work hard, go long, but go easily. This week the weather is warming again, so I am looking forward to some long and warm efforts outside.

As an aside, I have been asked to post more of my workouts, especially in terms of Death Valley preparation. I will do that. It might even be entertaining to read about. Right now, I am not doing anything particularly special or unusual. Building miles into longer and longer efforts while working in long climbs and descents mostly on roads.

What I do differently from most, is I stay focused on just two things - Death Valley and taking care of my back. They are almost mutually exclusive, but not totally. It is a fine line I walk.

Onward.

"Badwater" Bill
Tujunga, CA

What a Pain in the Back!

Well, I set up this blog, so I might as well use it....

I've been feeling a bit frustrated and not entirely in control of my progress toward Death Valley right now. My bad back has flared up. It impacts everything.

Right now I am going through a course of steroids. This reduces the inflammation and gives me a fighting chance to get back to "normal." Normal for me is a continuous low level of pain. One I can function with, but one I know about all the time. One of these days, the steroids will not work, and I will have to get more spinal injections (a big deal because of where my herniated disk is located) or surgery (a much bigger deal for the same reason).

Chronic pain is, to put it mildly, awful. The constant level of pain I have right now impacts all aspects of my life. Sucking it up and moving on is not really an option. This is not a stubbed toe. It hurts a lot and it hurts all the time. It impacts work because it takes away from focus. It impacts relationships - it is hard to think about someone else when you are distracted by pain. Down time - no position is comfortable.  Training time - my escape, the thing I love to do, my time to fly -- it is hard to fly, or even consider a short run when every step brings more pain. Getting ready for a run, short or long, brings dread and fear, not excitement and expectation. Sometimes I put on all my clothes and shoes, walk around a little and end up saying the risk and pain are not worth it today. I cry inside when that happens. Another potentially fun and joyous adventure gone. Another important day of training lost.

I will not give up. I will persist. My  goal is too important to me, and to others. One day soon, the pain will subside and I will be able to get ready. If it does not, I will find a way to get ready anyway. Though I say I might be ready to throw in the towel, really I am not. It will take a lot for that to happen. A damn lot. My wife, Deborah, said to me the other day that I am not a quitter. That she has never seen me quit anything. I suppose she is correct. I don't think about it. I don't plan it that way. I just do. In life, as in running, I simply take one step, and then another. Sometimes I step too far, but I step again because it is what I do. I guess I only have to look back at what I did in Death Valley last year to know that stopping is just not an option. It might take me a while to get there, but I do get there - somehow, someway.

How can I stop, when others suffer so much and without choice? Cancer. Catastrophic injury. Addiction recovery. I just look to my family too see what cancer can do. My friend Dick Beardsley has been where no person ever wishes to go, has come back smiling and achieving and standing before us all as an example of true greatness. If I do not quit, if I can achieve some slight greatness because of that, it is only because I stand on the shoulders of Dick and all those who suffer and go on because they simply have no choice but to do so. Those are the heroes I lean on when I am down. They are the wind beneath my wings.

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson

Onward.

"Badwater" Bill
Tujunga, CA

Death Valley Express

The Death Valley Express is the name I have given to my attempts at single or multiple crosssings of Death Valley to Mt. Whitney. Death Valley Express II will start on August 8th 2011 at 6:00 PDT.

The name Death Valley Express also comes from the rich history of Death Valley - the famed twenty mule teams that took borax out of the valley to the west. Two wagons, a trailing water-tank, a horse, and twenty mules made up the iconic image of a "Death Valley Express."

 

This journey will be a single crossing from Badwater Basin to Mt. Whitney. It includes the extreme temperatures of this region, arduous climbs out of Death Valley, Panamint Valley, and from Owens Valley. My five person crew will make sure I am safe, watered, and fed - and most of all give me the best possible chance at completing my journey.

Because of a seriously herniated lumbar disk, I will be walking most of the way. But, the very fact that I am making this attempt at all has taught me a valuable lesson -- to never, ever give up because dreams do come true.

I am often asked why a solo effort and not participate in the now famous Badwater Ultramarathon race? Two primary reasons. First and foremost, I enjoy the environment, the challenge, and just being with myself -- hearing nothing but my footsteps and the sound of silence. Last year, I was paced at night for a time by a young fox, a definite high point. That would not have happened on the crowded roads during the race. Also, the Badwater Ultramarathon has become an elite race with high qualifying standards and a recently reduced cut off time. With these changes and my bad bad. I can no longer meet the standards to be in the official race. So, I pit myself against the distance and the environment alone with no pacers and no racers to distract me, only an outstanding and supportive crew to see to my safety and needs.

Follow me and Team Badwater Bill here as we make our way across the desert. Something interesting will surely happen!

An account of my first attempt at a double crossing is here: http://deathvalleybill.blogspot.com/