Changes

I had the opportunity to crew and pace Chris Moon at the 2013 Badwater 135 Ultramarathon. I wanted to help someone at Badwater because I was considering entering, and I wanted to learn more about the race, as well as support a fellow competitor. The Badwater 135 goes from the lowest point in the US, at Badwater in Death Valley to close to the highest point in the lower 48 states at Mount Whitney Portal, covering 135 miles and 13,000' (3962m) of cumulative ascent and 4,700' (1433m) of descent. The race is held in July, when the heat is at its most extreme, and this year the temperature was higher than usual. While Badwater is an extreme challenge for any athlete, [http://www.chrismoon.co.uk/ Chris Moon] lost his right leg and arm while clearing landmines for a charity in Cambodia, which presents an additional and significant challenge. Chris has four prior Badwater finishes, including two 'doubles', where you return to the start for a 270 mile run. This year Chris was working with [http://www.endolite.com/ Endolite] to test a prototype for a new prosthetic leg, as well as raising money for the [http://www.cambodiatrust.org.uk/ Cambodia Trust charity]. The new technology will offer some big advantages to amputee athletes, but testing out a prototype technology under race conditions adds yet another challenge. The new leg worked remarkably well, but it cost several hours of lost time in tweaking and even minor issues with the fit caused additional pain for Chris. It also slowed Chris down so that he had to work harder to stay within the race cutoff time of 48 hours.

=The Race=

* In both races there are places where you can see how far you have to go, but psychologically it's far worse at Badwater, where there are places you can see some 40 miles ahead to the finish.

=What worked=

As usual, I like to record what worked and didn't work for future reference and for the benefit of others. While I was only pacing at Badwater, I went far enough to learn a few things.

* '''[[Heat Acclimation Training]]'''. While it's almost impossible to replicate the heat, low humidity and high sun energy of Death Valley, I believe that my [[Heat Acclimation Training]] worked well. It provided some physical adaptations, such as sweating more and higher blood volume, but it also provided the even more critical physiological adaptation of knowing the signs of overheating.