The other day, Craig Wheeler was in the sauna at his local gym, with the temperature cranked up to the upper reaches, when an attendant came in and told him to stop exercising.
Wheeler, known as “Wheels,” was doing a few jumping jacks and pushups — light calisthenics — he said. Because he’d been inside between 30-45 minutes, he agreed to take it easy for the last few minutes. He was pretty much done with his heat training for the day.
The 53-year-old Burlington resident needs to acclimate himself to the heat because at the end of the month, he’ll be visiting Death Valley. There, he’ll be joining another 96 ultrarunners for the 135-mile race from Badwater Basin to the Whitney Portal.
Known as the Badwater 135, it’s considered one of the toughest, most demanding foot races on the planet. It’s scheduled to start on July 28, a time in Death Valley when temperatures regularly hit 120 degrees in the middle of the day. It has gotten so hot at times that the shoes worn by competitors have melted on the hot asphalt.
It starts just outside a desert town called, appropriately enough, Furnace Creek.
Oh, and in addition to the heat, runners also must deal with extreme elevation changes. Badwater Basin is 280 feet below sea level, the lowest point in the continental United States. The race ends at the Whitney Portal, which is at 8,300 feet. Over the course of the race, runners go up and down three mountain ranges, covering a total ascent of 14,600 feet.
It’s also windy through the valley, which means it’s like running into a blow dryer turned up high, Wheeler said.
And you have 48 hours to complete the course.
“You look at different races,” Wheeler said, “and you look at the one in which you know is going to test you to the limits of your ability.” Then he smiled. “And it’s fun.”
Wheeler is one of two people from Greater Cincinnati who qualified for this year’s race, and he is the only Kentuckian. Harvey Lewis, a school teacher from Cincinnati, is looking to become the first person since Scott Jurek won back-to-back in 2006 and 2007 to repeat as the winner.
Last year, Lewis won the race, finishing a different if similar course in under 24 hours.
Wheeler has more modest goals, hoping to finish the 135 miles in under 34 hours.
Last year, in his first Badwater, he finished in 41 hours. But he spent the last half of the race nursing a sore hip and other assorted injuries, and he wasn’t in the best of shape at the end.
“I just fell apart,” he said. “I was in pain. I think I overtrained a little bit, and I started out (the race) too quickly.”
After a day of running, he felt “beat up,” he said. “I felt good during the night, but the next morning …”
His training last year consisted of several weeks of running 100-plus miles. The workouts repeatedly running up and down the two miles of hilly Dixie Highway from Covington to Fort Wright, wearing extra layers of clothes (more heat training).
This year, he said, he cut back his weekly mileage to around 80. He cut out the heat training on Dixie Highway — although he still sprinted around in the heat of summer wearing sweats and long sleeves. And instead of doing back-to-back 30- and 20-mile runs on weekends, he choose to do longer 40-mile runs on several days.
“I wanted to spend a little more time on my feet,” he said. “You have more issues come up when you’re doing the extra 10 miles, up to 40 miles a day. And I’m trying to balance the heat training by spending more time in the sauna, and resting more, and not over-stressing my body. I’m not trying to kill myself, just pushing my limit.”
The point of the heat training, he said, is that after 15 days or so, your blood produces more plasma, which makes you sweat more, which cools off your body more efficiently. At least, that’s the theory.
Wheeler, who works and coaches at the Tri State Running Company store in Edgewood, wasn’t a runner growing up. He started about eight years ago, at the urging of his wife, Karen, who said he needed to lose some weight.
“I remember going out that day and doing two miles, and thinking I was going to die,” he said. “I eventually got up to three miles, and I thought I’d never be able to do four miles.”
Fast forward a year, and Wheeler was running the Flying Pig Marathon. Soon, he was increasing the distances — a 50K (31 miles) here, a 50-miler there, until 2010, when he signed up for his first 100-mile race.
Since then, he’s done 11 100-mile races, including a second-place finish last October at the inaugural Cloudsplitter 100 along Pine Mountain in southeastern Kentucky.
Among his races this year was the Cruel Jewel 100 miler, a punishing race in the north Georgia mountains in the Chattahoochee National Forest. That one — which is actually 105.9 miles, has some 33,000-feet of elevation gain along the way. Wheeler used it as a training run for Badwater.
One more thing about Badwater. While it’s on the paved roads through Death Valley, it does not have any aid stations — no water stops, no ice, no food of any kind. So you have to bring your own, and a crew to help you cart it around.
The race does allow you to have four people and a van, to provide gear, first aid, a change of clothes and shoes, water, sunscreen, nourishment — and company along the run when things get a bit bleary-eyed.
“Badwater is a team race,” Wheeler said. “You can’t do it by yourself.”
For his crew, Wheeler has Cameron Simoneau, the owner of Tri State Running Company; Jeremy Hurm, who recently completed the 50-mile Cruel Jewel race; Nick LaBoffe, an accomplished ultrarunner from Cincinnati; and Chad Lockard, who has a couple of 50ks under his belt.
“I feel good,” Wheeler said. “I’m excited about the race. I’m going in there with less training, not over-trained, and I feel good about that.”
Paul Long writes weekly for the NKyTribune about running and runners. For his daily running stories, follow him at dailymile.com or on Twitter @Pogue57