You are not known by what you dare to dream but rather by what you dare to do
The further away from Las Vegas we got, the hotter it got. We drove past a sign saying ‘Welcome to Death Valley’. I decided I wanted a photo of me standing in front of it so Neil stopped the car. As I scooted back to the sign, and after only about 30 seconds out of the car, I was roasting. I yelled at Chris to hurry up and take the photo because I was boiling. And I was going to have to run in this!
When we finally arrived at Furnace Creek — the base for all the runners in the race — at eight that night, the temperature was still in the forties. It was crazy. Furnace Creek also has the dubious claim to fame of being home to the hottest and lowest golf course in the United States. When I saw the sign proclaiming that I looked at Chris and asked, ‘Why would anyone want to come to Death Valley to play golf?’ It just seemed so insane. Chris, not surprisingly, looked at me as if it was me that was insane and said, ‘Lise, why would anyone come to Death Valley to run 200 kilometres?’ Hole in one to Chris.
We rocked up to the arranged accommodation only to find that the motel had mucked up our booking and all five of us were going to have to share one tiny room. We managed — Neil, Chris, Sandy, Gerhard and me — to get ourselves and all our gear jammed into the room only to find the air conditioning didn’t work.
It wasn’t an ideal start to my first visit to Death Valley. Thank God we had another couple of nights before the race was due to start. By the second night, the motel people had managed to find us another room so Gerhard and I moved out of camp headquarters. Unfortunately our room was right at the other side of the compound and it took about 15 minutes to get from one room to the other. In the heat, that was enough exertion to leave us feeling exhausted.
Sandy became camp mother and she did the job really well. She was constantly doing washing and making sure all our gear was sorted. While she was doing that, Gerhard, Neil and Chris spent ages getting the team car sorted out. Everything needs to be easily accessible so packing the support vehicle really is a fine art. It wasn’t long before I realised what a well-organised team I had compared to the other rookies in the race. Even so, the guys nearly had an own-goal when they left the 250 litres of water that we’d bought in the car. They hadn’t been inside the motel long before they decided to go and check that everything in the car was OK and found that, in the extreme heat, some of the plastic bottles had already started to buckle. They carried all the water indoors to avoid a big wet disaster in the car.
On the first day, the film crew from 20/20 joined us so I spent quite a bit of time with them doing pre-race interviews. We also made a reconnaissance trip out to the starting point of the race at about 1 pm on the first day we were there. It was about 55°C when we got out there and I was petrified. The guys suggested that I do a training run while I was out there so I ran for 5 kilometres and I was relieved to find I coped OK with it. But Chris and Neil were absolutely poked. I reckon Chris only managed about a kilometre before crawling back to the car and going to sleep. The good thing about the training run was that it helped us work out a few glitches in our systems before the race began.
While we were out there, some American tourists came along in their car. They were shocked to see us running along the road. The guy wound down his window and the first words out of his mouth were, ‘Are you guys craaaazy? You’re gonna die out here. You can’t run in Death Valley.’ I told him I was preparing for a race through the valley starting on Monday but he wasn’t having it.
‘You’re gonna die out there. Get in the car before you die.’ When I wouldn’t get in the car he drove off shaking his head. Thankfully, I didn’t think too much about his predictions of doom because there’s absolutely nothing you can do before you get there to prepare yourself for that kind of heat. All that time I’d spent in saunas had nothing on this.
The next night, just two nights before the start of the race, a huge storm came through. It’s a really rare occurrence out there so we went out and found a good viewing-point to watch it roll through. It was beautiful. Even stranger, it was actually raining in Death Valley, where they get only a few millimetres a year.
The next day I woke up in a filthy mood and there was nothing anyone could do about it. I was freaking out and I was sick of the waiting. It was probably nerves, but there’s not really any excuse for the way I behaved that day. Just as well the crew were amazing about it. I guess they realised the kind of pressure I was feeling or maybe they were just too scared to say anything!
Sandy, with the wisdom of experience, took me aside and said, ‘Lise, let me tell you about my experience from doing these races. Two days out, I was always a mess. I was always freaking out and I always felt the most pressure on that day. Tomorrow you’ll wake up and you’ll be fine. You’ll be calm and the adrenaline will start to kick in. Right now is the worst time you’re going through. It’s the two day out blues.’
Then Sandy gave me a massage and continued to calm me down. Not for the first time, I felt so blessed to have the legend that is Sandy Barwick on my team. She’s run more miles than any other New Zealand woman and she’s one of the few people in the country who has experienced the kind of extremes that I have. Thank God, Sandy was right. The next morning I woke up and I was calm and felt at peace. I was still scared but I was ready to take whatever Death Valley had to throw at me.
That day I had to attend a briefing with all the other runners. It was so exciting to be in the hall with all of my fellow competitors — some were my heroes. The race director went through all the race rules. He laid down the law to the media about what they were and were not allowed to do throughout the race.
Once that was over, all of the runners were called to the stage one by one and presented with printed T-shirts that said ‘Don’s Team’. Don was a runner who had done the race the year before and he was dying of cancer. We all put the T-shirts on for a mass photograph and it was then sent to Don by email. It sure helped take my mind off what I was facing over the next couple of days. That kind of thing really helps put things into perspective.
After that we all went and had our individual photos taken for the website. The race site was amazing — it was possible for anyone anywhere in the world to follow each runner online. Once the official photos had been taken I decided I wanted some of my own. Like a real fan, I asked Dean Karnazes and David Goggins if they would let me have my photo taken with each of them. They were both really great about it. In all of those photos I’m grinning ear to ear. I was at the most prestigious event in ultra-running and I was with my heroes. I was determined to make the most of it because I knew what lay ahead of me.
That last night before the race I managed to sleep better than I thought I would. I was in bed at 8.30 and Gerhard sat with me and went through everything that we’d done to prepare the team. That made me feel much better. He assured me I was going to be fine and I figured he, more than anyone, would know that was true.
The next morning, the alarm went off. I woke up and got moving really slowly. Even then I knew I had to conserve my energy for the race. I went off to get some breakfast and for some reason, I had my heart set on having French toast. I put some on my plate and Neil saw me. ‘Uh uh,’ he said. ‘You’re not having that.’ I was furious and I made sure Neil knew it. I completely chucked my toys and stormed back to the room having had no breakfast. I knew that he was right because there was no way I should have been eating protein right before the race, but I didn’t care.
I climbed back into bed in a complete paddy. I wouldn’t move, wouldn’t talk to anybody and there was only a couple of hours before I had to be at the start line of the race of my life. Finally, I managed to calm down enough to eat a banana.
Once the car was ready to go, Gerhard came in and helped me with my final preparations. He plaited my hair and made sure I had plenty of sunscreen on. He was brilliant. He did everything for me that morning. I didn’t have to do anything. He was looking after me and I knew I would be fine. I was focusing 100 per cent on the race ahead. I was just pleased he was there and that he would be by my side throughout the next couple of days.
Eventually everything was sorted and we all piled into the car. The team were pretty quiet — it was probably partly that they were focusing on what they needed to do over the next few days and partly because Neil had told them about the French toast incident!
We got out to the start line about an hour before the race start-time and the heat was blistering. There were speeches and formalities to get through before the race finally started. Chris Kostman, the race director, gave a wee pep talk, the cameras were rolling, including those from the 20/20 crew that had come from New Zealand to film me. We were off — 84 competitors, including 22 women, with a 217-kilometre course to be completed in 60 hours.
After the gun went off to start our group, I went out really slowly. I was really focused on doing as little as possible to get that forward motion. I knew I had to keep moving forward and keep my pace slow. It took me about 5 kilometres to find my pace and my rhythm. Those first few kilometres are horrible. Like most, my body takes at least that amount of time to adjust before I slowly get into the rhythm of running. Until I’ve got my body up to operating temperature, it’s horrible, but once that’s reached I feel as if I have hit my stride and can begin to feel comfortable running.
During that first period of the race, I really just wanted to concentrate on my running, but I was surrounded by a bunch of over-excited elite athletes. They were all yarning away and talking about how many times they’d done the race and how great they were and I was freaking out.
There was one other female athlete in that group and she spent the whole time trying to mess with my head. She told me that I’d gone out too fast and that I’d pay for it later on. I thought I’d paced it pretty well but nevertheless started to worry. What made it worse was that during the first 35 kilometres of the race your crew aren’t allowed to run with you. They were alongside, spraying me with water and giving me encouragement but I was running on my own. Those first 10 hours were the hottest of the whole race, too.
Between the heat and the mind games, I wasn’t in the best of states. Of course, because of the advice I’d been given I was really worried about my pace and my speed. The guys in the car kept reassuring me that I was doing fine and after a while I had no choice but to believe them. By the 20-kilometre mark, I’d got away from the rowdy athletes and started to feel as if things were starting to go well. I kept looking over at Gerhard and he gave me heaps of encouragement.
At checkpoint one at Furnace Creek, I met up with my old mate Death Valley Jack — Jack Denness. The guy is a total legend. He’s run Badwater 11 times and in 2005 he became the first 70 year old to complete the race. Since then Jack has worked as a volunteer on the run and it helps to have such a gentleman and hero around. I’d met Jack on the Trans 333 in Niger and we’ve been mates ever since.
It was an absolute pleasure to see Jack’s smiling face there at the checkpoint waiting for me. I gave him a big hug and he told me I was looking good. He added, ‘You New Zealanders are all tough. You’ve got the All Blacks over there and they’re tough, too.’ I couldn’t help but laugh that even out here I was being compared to the rugby boys, and favourably, too!
The hottest 28 kilometres were now behind me and even better, from the first checkpoint on, our crew members were allowed to run with us. As soon as he was able Gerhard joined me as a pacer. With Gerhard at my side, I felt really strong. His experience of the race and the fact that he knew my strengths and weaknesses as an athlete made him the perfect running partner during the early stages.
The way the crew works on races like this is that there’s usually one member running with me as a pacer. The other two will be in the vehicle — one of them driving and the other one either organising drinks, supplements, ice and stuff for me, or trying to get some sleep. The driver crawls along keeping about a kilometre ahead of me. When required, the driver stops the car, get outs and the support person hands out drinks and stuff to the driver. When I am about 100 metres away, the driver runs towards me and, when we meet, he turns to run with me. Then they give me whatever I need before returning to the car to get ahead of me once again.
At about the 30-kilometre mark, I went through a checkpoint as normal. For some reason my check-in was recorded but not uploaded to the race website and, all over Taranaki, people who were following the race online were worried that something had happened to me. More than a few people have since told me that they were really relieved to see my name pop up at the next checkpoint along the route.
After about 50 kilometres, the heat started to really take its toll. The entire race is run on the road so you’re not just dealing with air temperature but the heat that’s coming up off the road as well. Sometimes the road surface can get up to 90° Celsius. It was hot enough to fry an egg on as the documentary team from 20/20 proved! I ran on the white line down the middle of the road as much as I could because it was a bit cooler than the tarmac and it helped to stop my feet from getting cooked.
I knew I had to get through the hottest part of the valley as quickly as possible — most people who drop out of the race do so during the first 70 kilometres and usually because they’re suffering from heatstroke. The lore of the race says that if you make it up the first pass, which is at about the 100-kilometre mark, then your chances of finishing are really good.
As I was battling the heat to get through the first 70 kilometres, my crew were battling serious problems of their own. Around the 60-kilometre mark the support car got a flat tyre. While most cars in New Zealand have the spare tyre in the boot, this American car had its spare tyre underneath the chassis encased in a plastic casing, but to get it out they had to unload the whole car to get to a clip that was inside the car! Neil and Chris struggled desperately to get the tyre out while feeling overwhelmed by the extreme heat coming off the road.
To make sure that the temporary absence of the crew vehicle didn’t register with me, Sandy grabbed as much ice and food as she could carry and Gerhard stocked up on water and the pair of them ran on beside me. While a flat tyre is a pain at the best of times, in a race like this losing your support vehicle for any length of time can make the difference between finishing or not. The car carried everything I needed to complete the race and while Sandy and Gerhard did their best, they all knew that if they couldn’t get the car fixed quickly my race could be over.
Meanwhile out on the course, I started to wonder why I hadn’t seen the car for a while. Gerhard told me to concentrate on running and that Chris and Neil would be back soon. And he turned out to be right — thank goodness. The boys managed to get the space-saver tyre out and get the car back on the road fairly smartly under the circumstances. Everyone was just praying that the space-saver would last the distance.
My worries weren’t over once the car was back on the road. Looking ahead, I could see the sky was blackening. The one thing we were pretty sure we wouldn’t have to contend with in Death Valley was rain. We were wrong. The sky ahead brightened with flashes of lightning and thunder boomed around the valley. The average rainfall in Death Valley is about four centimetres a year and I reckon that much fell over the next couple of hours.
Going through a checkpoint, I was told that the road ahead had been blocked by landslides and flooding. This isn’t unusual when it rains in the desert as sand doesn’t soak up water very quickly. Even short periods of heavy rain can cause flood conditions very quickly and with little warning. As a result, what are usually dry ditches can turn into raging torrents and any area of low-lying land can turn into a lake almost without warning. As a result of the flooding, we were told that the route of the race would be changed to avoid the worst of the storm damage. I was gutted at the prospect of my first Badwater not being on the traditional race route. Thankfully, the flooding subsided almost as quickly as it arrived and within a couple of checkpoints I was given the great news that the original route had been reinstated.
I was still feeling pretty good so took a short break at Stovepipe Wells, which is a village with little more than a petrol station, a motel and a general store. While I was there the crew gave me a quick massage, a drink of Sustagen, and they did their best to patch up the holes that had started to appear in the skin on my back. I’d been looking forward to that stop for about 12 hours, but after the flat tyre and the hasty repacking of the gear, the crew vehicle was in chaos and it wasn’t quite the smoothly run pit stop I’d looked forward to.
Not long after my stop at Stovepipe Wells, just as the sun was starting to set, I passed the magic 70-kilometre mark. It had taken me just over eight hours, averaging about 8.5 kilometres an hour. But there was no time for celebrating as ahead of me lay the first mountain pass. Townes Pass is just over 1500 metres high but the road to the top is 30 kilometres pretty much straight up. I knew I’d be walking for the next few hours as the pass is so steep that only the elite competitors can run up it.
Once the sun went down the temperature dropped to a more bearable 42° Celsius. It still felt bloody hot but at least I didn’t feel like my feet were cooking anymore. Even though the temperature was cooler I still needed the crew to keep loading fresh ice into my cap and around my neck. This was probably the one thing that stopped me from going down with heatstroke.
I tried my best to settle back into a good rhythm all the while blocking out the pain of the first serious uphill portion of the race. By this point, I was way ahead of my planned schedule and I took some solace in knowing that the hottest part of the race was over. When I was about three-quarters of the way up Townes Pass, another female runner passed me. She turned as she went past and said, ‘See, I told you so’. It was the woman who’d told me I’d gone out too fast earlier in the race. And if that wasn’t bad enough, she carried on to say, ‘Don’t worry it’s only a mile to the top of the pass’.
While these might have seemed like encouraging words from a fellow athlete, they turned out to be anything but. It was another 5 miles [8 kilometres] to the top of the pass and she knew it. It still seems pretty weird to me that another runner in such a tough race would bother wasting energy on trying to psych out the other competitors.
I did my best not to let her get to me and focused on walking up the rest of the pass. It was about one in the morning when I made it to the top. The crew were there waiting for me and I decided to take a break. My body had other ideas and soon began shivering like crazy. There was only one thing for it and that was to get back out on the road with a Sustagen in hand. My plan had been to eat like a pig, drink like a fish and run like a tortoise. Two out of three isn’t bad — food made me feel nauseous but the electrolyte drinks kept me going.
Sandy joined me to run the 25 kilometres down the other side of Townes Pass. If anyone knew what I was going through at that time it was Sandy. She wasn’t named New Zealand ultra-runner of the century in 1999 for nothing. Throughout her career Sandy set five world ultra-running records and once ran a race that was 2000 kilometres long. It was fantastic to have such an amazing role model by my side urging me on.
The combination of having Sandy at my side, the cooler temperature and the downhill run made me feel really strong. The shaking that I’d experienced during my stop at the top of the pass subsided and my energy levels were high, which was a good thing as it was only a few hours before I was staring up to the second pass of the race. In the early morning light, I saw strings of lights rising into the sky. It was a weird sight but I soon realised that it was the headlights of all the support vehicles for runners who were in front of me.
At about 5.30 in the morning, I began passing some of the runners who had started in the two groups before me. While that felt good, the rising sun provided a timely reminder of the hot day that still lay ahead of me.
Panamint Pass was higher than Townes Pass by just over 100 metres but it was a much longer, winding road to the top. The slog to the top felt like it went on forever and by the time I got there the sun was high in the sky and the temperatures had soared back up into the fifties.
Running down the other side of Panamint Pass was a bit easier than running up it, but I suffered from a terrible panic attack when Gerhard told me he didn’t think I was going fast enough. In my weakened state, I let that negative thought in for a few minutes and tears started streaming down my face. Eventually, I fought that grain of doubt out of my mind and pulled myself together and refocused on moving forward.
For me, keeping on moving forward is the key to racing. Rather than think about a race in stages or kilometres, I have to break it down into much shorter goals. Sometimes that goal might be the next lamp post, the next energy drink or the next wee break.
By the time I reached the bottom of the pass I’d been running for more than 25 hours and I had another 60 kilometres ahead of me, which I would be running in the heat of the day. The good form I’d felt while running down the previous pass with Sandy had long disappeared. The lack of sleep started to get to me and with it came nausea. It was all I could do to focus on putting one foot in front of the other.
The road stretched out hot and straight ahead of me and I fought with everything in me just to stay awake. I looked up and in the distance I caught a glimpse of Mt Whitney — the finishing point for the race. Appropriately for a desert race, that view of the mountain seemed like a mirage way off in the distance. Even though I could see the end, it was a long way away and, at times, I felt like I’d never reach it.
The real battle in a race like this isn’t the physical one — it’s the psychological one, the top three inches. Putting one foot in front of the other is one thing. Trying to convince your brain that’s what you want to be doing instead of lying down and giving up is where the real fight lies. Somewhere along the straight, my mind just switched off. I remember being aware of Neil running alongside me and talking. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t have answered him. Everything in me was focused on moving forward. My memories of that part of the race are few and far between but Neil will never forget the moment when he accidentally clipped my heel with his foot.
It caused me to trip and fall to the ground. He must have been absolutely mortified but he just kept talking and urging me on. After the fall, the tears came pouring out again and I started to hyperventilate. It took me about 45 minutes to get myself back under control but all the while I kept on moving. There were a few points in the race where I ended up crying. I wasn’t too thrilled to be running along bawling my eyes out, but it actually helped to release tension and made me feel better. All the while, little by little, Mt Whitney was coming closer.
Of the next few hours of the race only a couple of things really stick in my mind. At one point, I heard a massive roaring overhead. For a moment I worried that it might have been more thunder bringing more rain. It turned out to be a couple of low-flying jets zooming overhead. The noise of the jets woke me out of myself and I watched as they flew back and forth across the valley. Suddenly, I felt alive again and I knew that I would make it to the end of the race.
It’s pretty amazing how your body can go through ups and downs on a race like this. For a while after I saw the jets, I felt really up. My body had staged a bit of a comeback. But it didn’t last. The nausea, the pain and the exhaustion all came crowding back in. That’s how it was for most of the race — ups and downs the whole time.
The second thing I remember was Chris bringing me a cell phone. Mum was on the other end of it. Although she’s always been my biggest supporter, Mum didn’t come to Death Valley with us. She reckons she would have worried too much and I know I would have been worried about her in the heat — it probably wouldn’t have helped either of us much.
The sound of Mum’s voice back there in New Plymouth was enough to turn on the tears again. I told her I was feeling pretty shattered but that I knew my goal was within my grasp. As always, she encouraged me to go on and reminded me of all the support I had back at home. After I’d talked to Mum, I thought about my project manager, Andrea Needham. Andrea was in hospital having suffered a set-back with her body rejecting her new lungs. It made me realise that my battle would soon be over. Unlike what she had to deal with, my fight to the finish line would be easy. There was no way I was going to give up — too many people, including Andrea, had put too much into me being here for me to quit. I had to keep going.
Hours and kilometres passed in much the same way until the town of Lone Pine came into view. Lone Pine was the site of the final checkpoint for the race and from there all that remained was the punishing climb up Mt Whitney to the finishing point. Arriving at the checkpoint, I was delighted to see Jack Denness again, there to cheer me on. He gave me another big hug and told me he knew I could do it. We both had tears in our eyes — me because I had made it so far and Jack because he knew what was ahead of me.
The final 21 kilometres climbed 2548 metres up the side of the mountain. The gradient for this part of the race was 18 per cent, which is bloody steep. On the up side, I was way ahead of the time I was hoping to do and pretty close to the finish line. The sun set for another day and because Mt Whitney is so much higher above sea level than Death Valley the temperature dropped to a much more bearable 35° Celsius. Even though the end was in sight, the trek up the mountain wasn’t without its challenges.
Once I realised I was really going to finish the race I got a bit hysterical. The exhaustion, the nausea and the pain were all taken over by the euphoria that I was actually going to achieve this massive goal I’d set myself. As it was the middle of the night, the crew had lights with them. I was wearing a head mounted torch but Neil was running with me and he had this spotlight. Ahead of me I could see my shadow and in my depleted state, I thought it looked really weird. So I decided it’d be pretty funny to wave my arms around and dance a bit. The crew must have thought I’d flipped when I started pulling out my best Michael Jackson moves! The television crew must have thought they’d struck gold with the potential headline looming ‘Ultramarathon Runner Loses Mind Just Short of the Finish Line’.
The elation didn’t last long and with only about 5 kilometres to go — the steepest part of the climb — my whole back went into wicked cramps. The pain was excruciating and I kept begging the crew to let me rest for a while. They knew I was in agony but there was no way they were going to let me stop so close to the finish line. I started crying again — I felt like my whole body was bruised and I didn’t know how much more I could take. Fortunately, the doubts didn’t have long enough to take hold as the finish line was in my sight within minutes. The crew were all with me to run over the line — it was one of the best moments of my life.
No words can quite explain the elation I felt at that moment. I’d spent so long with this goal in front of me and now I’d achieved it. It was magic. Gerhard, Neil, Sandy and Chris were all there with me and they were the best crew I could have wished for.
When I got my official time, I couldn’t believe it — 38 hours, 24 minutes and 43 seconds. Awesome! I’d hoped to do the race in 48 hours and I’d beaten that time by nine and a half hours. I couldn’t believe it. I’d averaged 5.65 kilometres an hour and I was the tenth woman home and 22nd overall. It was awesome. I was ecstatic. The race was won by Jorge Pacheco from Mexico. He’d run a time of 23 hours, 20 minutes and 16 seconds. And remember that chick who’d tried to psych me out during the race? I finished nine hours ahead of her.
Hallucinations
Hallucinations are another weird side effect of ultra-running. After I finished Badwater, Chris told me that at one point I was convinced that I was being chased by a bear and another time I thought someone was trying to pee on my shoes. When you’re getting low on blood sugars and that sort of thing, your body will do everything to keep you alive and sustain what you’re doing. It’ll go into survival mode and start doing stuff like drawing minerals out of your bones.
Hallucinations usually start with the fringes of your vision starting to go a bit weird. After that you’ll probably start seeing shadows moving. Later still, the ground will start to move. Then the voices and visions might start. There’s no way to control them and you have to keep moving through them.
It’s important that support people recognise hallucinations for what they are and don’t get too emotional about them. When they happen, they should do what they can to support the runner and make sure that they don’t hurt themselves.