Sometime in the early morning hours last Thursday, Chris Cavanaugh went searching in Death Valley for a stake.
No, he wasn’t seeking to slay a vampire — although he would like to have picked off a Yeti — but was searching for the exact spot where runner Harvey Lewis had left the course during the Badwater 135 ultramarathon. As chief of Lewis’ four-man crew, Cavanaugh knew that his runner had to return to the same spot he left when he stopped to seek medical attention during the race.
So, after risking a few blisters and questions about why some guy was wandering around in the darkened desert, Cavanaugh found the spot, put a light on it, and helped Lewis return. Later that afternoon, Lewis overcame a myriad of problems to finish the race — and put the stake in the Yeti.
(The Yeti is what Lewis and his friends have named the various problems that have arisen during his racing career.)
“We knew The Yeti would show up throughout the race. He always does,” said Tracey Outlaw, who has run many miles with Lewis and kept in touch with his crew to report the progress back home. “But Harvey… ‘embraced the Yeti.’ He was smart, listened to his body and was able to push through and finish strong.”
And in being able to do so, Lewis credited his crew, which he said was instrumental in getting him to the finish line. In addition to Cavanaugh, the group consisted of Matt Garrod, Luke Thoreson, and Andy Lohn.
“We try to keep the mood fun, while also making sure our runner is safe and performing optimally,” said Garrod, who has crewed four times for Lewis, and is an accomplished ultrarunner in his own right, having run 131 miles at the 2015 national 24-hour championship.
“Crewing Badwater is very challenging and a lot of hard work (but incredibly fun). I have been lucky to have outstanding crew mates throughout the years. We live and work in a van for over 24 hours, so you can imagine the sleep deprivation, smells, and potential conflicts that occur. Every year I am honored to go back.”
Crew members are the behind-the-scenes cast during a Badwater race, known as the world’s toughest foot race. It starts in Badwater Basin — at 282 feet below sea level, the lowest point in the United States — and continues 135 miles to the Whitney Portal at 8,300 feet above sea level, the trailhead to Mount Whitney, the nation’s highest point.
Runners climb three mountain ranges for a total elevation gain of 14,600 feet. The crew gets them there and keeps them going.
“This is truly a team race,” said Craig “Wheels” Wheeler of Burlington, who finished 15th in the race. “I couldn’t have run the race I did without these four guys — Cameron Simoneau, Nick LaBoffe, Chad Lockard, and Jeremy Hurm. They took care of me throughout the race, making me laugh and having fun. I couldn’t have had a better team.”
Hurn said he felt prepared to crew the race, which often means running miles with your runner in the brutal heat of the desert, which hits 120 degrees or more.
“The length and of the race and the heat make it very challenging,” he said. “With Badwater, your aid station is your crew and the vehicle they are in. Careful planning is essential to a successful race.
“During Badwater, our goal is to get our runner to the finish line. As crewmen and women, we are an extension of the runner… I chose to do this because I really wanted to see what it was like, and I wanted to help out a friend who was running it.”
The crew’s main job is to keep their runner motivated, often running with him, spraying him down with water, and keep the runner focused on finishing, despite the grueling course.
They must monitor the runner’s food and water intake. They assist with any change of shoes or clothes, and care for blisters, muscles spasms, or any other pain or injury that can be treated quickly. They keep track of their runner’s pace, making sure he’s not going too fast or too slow. They ensure the runner’s safety, and must keep track of and follow a variety of rules — if a rule is broken, the runner can be disqualified.
They also keep a detailed log of the runner’s progress — everything to how he is feeling, to how much he’s eaten, to how often he’s gone to the bathroom. The more detailed the log, the better, said Melanie Owen of Cincinnati, who crewed for a runner out of Portland, Oregon, Greg Pressler.
Crew members usually are ultrarunners, and some use the crewing experience at Badwater to determine whether they will try the race themselves. They often train as hard as their runners, logging hundreds of miles a week, doing long runs of up to 40 miles at a time, and preparing themselves for the intense heat and mountains of Badwater.
“I also incorporate sauna sessions to get adapted to the insane heat, as well as hot runs — running during the hottest part of the day in full winter gear,” Garrod said. “On one (training) run, I donned my full winter gear, put a 25-pound dumbbell in a backpack, and did hill repeats for five miles in 90 degree heat.”
Owen, who plans to run Badwater herself one day, agreed to help out Pressler, whom she did not know, at Lewis’s suggestion.
“The only thing in it for me was the experience of seeing what it takes to crew for a runner at Badwater, and what I will experience when I run in three years. It was a ‘lessons learned’ kind of experience for me, so I can prepare my crew as well as myself for running this type of race. Crewing has also given me the confidence that I can run this race.”
Owen said she’s been training for another ultramarathon in September, and she helped crew a 48-hour run a few weeks before Badwater, so she felt she was ready to step in at the last minute. But she also learned the race is harder than she could have ever imagined.
“Because of the environment and course’s immense elevation, this is by far the hardest race that I’ve seen a runner endure,” she said. “It was great to take part in such a great running event and see Craig, Harvey, and Greg finish. Because this is the hardest racing event I have witnessed, I understand how even the top runners may not have their best race because of all the factors they are constantly fighting against to get to the finish.”
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