"Hi Kenny Ringled, this is Ray Sanchez (multiple Badwater 135 finisher), my buddy Andrew Glaze said your a good runner and mention you were interested in running Badwater someday". That's all it really took for me to agree to joining the shenanigans that is the Badwater Salton Sea, that and the okay from my wife. See I have a slight FOMO issue and I am easily persuaded to do stupid things; this can be good and bad though. Good that I get a chance to experience many thing I would never have if I always said no, but bad in that I end up doing too much sometimes; hence why I have over raced the first half of the year. Hell I cant even keep up with all the race reports..
Badwater Salton Sea takes you 81 miles from the shores of the Salton Sea (-234ft) to Palomar Mountain (5,500ft) for 9000ft total gain, through a mix of road (73 miles) and trail (8 miles) in temperatures ranging from 95 F to 40 F temperatures! The unique part of Badwater Salton Sea though is that you run all 81 miles as a 3 person (or two person) team. Not a relay but, together the whole time, you have to stay within 25ft of your teammates at all times. It is therefore key to choosing compatible partners as you want runner that runner at relatively the same pace as you and partners that you are not going to murder during the 15-25 hrs of running together.
7:00AM Start at the shores of the Salton Sea, I see a few people walking with Badwater flags into the "sand" just kinda deciding that it was a good starting point, love the laid back vibe of this race! The sun coming up over the Salton Sea mixed with the scent of sulfur and the nervous energy of the runners made for a fantastic start to a race! The first 3-4 miles were along roads paralleling the shore of Salton Sea and all the teams are trying to find there pace. The first 7 miles are without crew but it didn't matter much because it was still relatively cool and everyone was still feeling fresh. However, Miles 7 gas station aid station was a mad house of crews waiting on there runners and felt kinda hectic. Quick exchange of bottles and donning of the hot weather essentials we were off on the hot endless road that would take us to Borrego Springs.
The next 30 miles would be run along the long vast highway in the heat of the day, here is where the true taste of Badwater really began. Our team, "Chasing Who?"- Consisting of Ray Sanchez, Tim Tubra and myself along with our crew of Sergio Medina and Candy- had the strategy of running a consistent pace of 9:45 min/miles. We expertly paced ourselves at 9:45 min/miles for the first 30 miles of the race, every 2 to 3 miles our crew (who by the way was the best crew out there, I mean for real!) would leap frog to cool us down with an ice bath, exchange our bottles and freshly chilled bandannas! The feeling was amazing, it was hot, it was steady, it was beautiful and I felt like I could run at that pace forever. Just as we were about to enter the town of Borrego Springs, Tim played poltergeist on us by ejecting in stomach demons all over the sun baked asphalt. Our consistent pace slowed to a FAST walk as we tried to get Tim's stomach settled and refueled. Soon our walk turned into a mix of walk and run the remaining 2 miles into the Borrego Springs aid station.
The trend continues as we push out of Borrego Springs aid, walk and run, except.. wait for it.. Pizza! Glorious pizza never tasted so good to me until mile 38 of Salton Sea, as Tim's stomach settle some we were able to push the pace a little to the trailhead at mile 40. Was really looking forward to getting off of the pavement and onto the trail. I Changed out of my Altra Torins and into my Altra Superiors, donned a hydration vest and we set out on a steep 95 F power hike up! Power hike we did, like fast and hard, probably faster hiking it then I would have trying to run it, 95F+ turned into a chilly 60F wind as we approached the top of the climb. We made great time through the trail section as we had made up 30 minutes on the lead team. Altra Superiors off and Altra Kayentas on, a slice of pizza as we set off to Ranchita.
Made it into Ranchita just in time for Tims stomach to start revolting again, mandatory picture with the Rancheti, more pizza, off on a long walk to settle the stomach as Tim rehydrated himself with some salts. Well apparently we should have busted the salts out sooner because the salts started doing the trick as the walk turned into a shuffle in turn to a run again, we were ticking off some of our fastest splits of the race! As night started to creep in we put on our reflective gear with our eyes set on a big push up Palomar Mountain, we reassess our goal and realized we still had a chance for sub 17hr finish. Lake Henshaw lodge was our last check in point and we were all feeling great as we start passing other teams on our way to East Grade Road.
I felt great going up East Grade road for the first few miles, we were running at a quick pace up the steep grade and was very confident we would have sub 17 in the bag at this point with how well we were moving. Than things started to hurt, as much as I tried to not show any discomfort I would be lieing to say I wasn't struggling, my left quad was shot which is strange seeing as there is very little downhill during the race and I never had quad issues before. Regardless I pushed on despite the pain. It was too close to slow now, but we were all starting to slow, we would run 2 minutes walk 2 minutes and keep this routine into the fog and all the way up the mountain, things got quiet as we were all in the zone and ready to be done! Hit the Firehouse with one mile to go, just hammering up the last large hill of the day and all of a sudden out of nowhere I could see the finish line.
2nd place 3 man team and 3rd team overall in a time of 17:23:03. Although this effort was not good enough for a guaranteed entry in Badwater 135 it was great learning experience and was a ton of fun! The first place team Electrolyte Love (with Walker Higgins and Jake Jackson) were just solid all day and came out with a 3 person team course record, congrats to them. Special thanks to Ray Sanchez for letting me join his team and for passing along lots of hot running knowledge, to Tim Tubra for keeping us all entertained and for pushing through some stomach issues, your one tough mofo! Big thank you to Chris Kostman for doing an amazing job directing such a awesome race. Thank you Altra Running for making not 1 or 2 but 3 pairs of kick ass shoes that got me through some hot miles with no damage to my feet! Thanks to rabbit for making me look good while managing to stay cool and comfortable in the heat. I have been invited to crew Ray Sanchez later this year during his Badwater 135 attempt and really look forward to possibly running Badwater myself sometime in the future, IF I can convince Desirae to let me do so... Until then a beer to celebrate and another trail to run...
