2010 Badwater Ultramarathon

(Photo by Luis Escobar)

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HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Medina's own Connie Gardner, fellow Medina County Road Runner, and frequent training partner, for not only surviving the Badwater Ultramarathon, but for finishing 2nd female and 9th overall!!! Badwater is 135 miles through Death Valley in temperatures up to 130 degrees, as well as crossing three mountain ranges climbing 13,000 feet.

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The race started at 6:00 AM Pacific time and I was following online as best I could from the very beginning. It was hard at some points due to the lack of cell coverage in Death Valley causing updates to be delayed, as well as the server being overloaded with so many people logging in to see how the race was unfolding, but it was exciting none-the-less.

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Connie ran very well right from the beginning and just didn't stop. The women's winner, Jamie Donaldson, cut about half an hour off the women's course record and finished a couple hours ahead of Connie, but she kept pushing, expanding her lead over 3rd place finisher Pam Reed.

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Ultrarunning is totally addictive. If I had been asked whether or not I had any interest in running through Death Valley, I would have promptly responded NO WAY! But after following along with this event, I can now say... maybe. Would I ever be invited to run there? Not yet, I haven't done anything to meet the requirements. But I would like to go run out there sometime. Maybe in the winter when it's a little cooler. For the full results and many more images from start to finish, visit the Badwater website.

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One final note. As I write this, there are still 5 runners left on the course. They began running Monday morning and it is now Wednesday afternoon. They need to finish within 60 hours. GOOD LUCK RUNNERS!