How fear helped runner finish Death Valley race
He figured he owed it to those who helped him.
How fear helped city runner finish Death Valley race

By David Zizzo

Published: July 24, 2008

"I had hit bottom,” Deupree said.

Still, the Oklahoma City man found a way past this low point of his attempt to run across Death Valley. In the early morning darkness of July 16, after 43 hours, 21 minutes, Deupree crossed the finish line of the Badwater Ultramarathon, a grueling 135-mile event that has been called "the world's toughest foot race.” The 41-year-old food sales representative had begun the morning of July 14 at Badwater, Calif., 282 feet below sea level, and finished at about 8,300 feet on a slope of California's Mount Whitney.

"It really went better than I thought it would go,” Deupree said.

Temperatures reached 117 degrees, not as high as he had expected. A couple of sections on the race got some clouds and sprinkles, he said.

A 17-mile climb that began at the 42-mile mark got to him, though. That's when his crew suggested he take a break, so he jumped in the van driven by his support crew, planning to rest for about three hours.

After 90 minutes, however, he found his motivation — fear. He was afraid that he "might somehow lose my focus to finish. My real fear was that I would just maybe quit.”

"I felt like I would have let them down,” he said.

So he pressed on. "The first moment I got up I really felt as bad as I've ever felt in my life,” he said. "But it did pass quickly.”

The best part for Deupree came around the 90-mile mark.

He had been "plodding” along for the last 20 miles when the sun slipped behind some clouds. He thought, "Make hay while the sun shines,” or in his circumstance, while it doesn't. Temperatures dropped mercifully into the mid-80s, and Deupree began picking up his pace. It even began to shower. The next 30 miles, which included the first miles he had ever run beyond the 100-mile mark in a race, seemed "as fast as any I have run.”

Still, the biggest struggle was to come — the 13-mile climb to the finish. "It just required finding a different gear and a different mind-set,” Deupree said.

But he endured that section the same way he made it through the previous 122 miles, thinking only about the present.

At the finish, Deupree said, "I felt relieved, yet at the same time, I was a little disappointed (because) it seemed to go by pretty fast.”

His feet were unblistered, he said, "which is pretty remarkable,” and he was tired for a few days. But more than a week after the run, he felt "really good.”

He plans to return to Badwater next year to pace another runner, but he will compete there again someday.

For now, the hardest part is letting go of that epic push toward a distant goal. And getting over the vastness of the land he crossed, the grandeur of the setting. Basically returning to normal life.

"There's some reluctance that I had to come home, that it's over,” Deupree said. "I miss the experience of it already.”

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