Here’s What Ultramarathoners Use to Run in 117-Degree Heat

It’s 111 degrees at 8 PM. Not a good sign. The mountains of Badwater Basin are baking. I’m baking. Everything is baking. With heat like this, you run out of original things to say and reach for deeply trodden comparisons: it’s an oven, it’s a furnace, it's a sauna. All of them are true.

Runners in various forms of reflective gear and heat-mitigating clothing are milling about a salt flat in Death Valley, the hottest place on Earth and the lowest point in the United States. “Look up there,” a friend tells me, pointing to the surrounding cliffs catching the day’s last bit of light. A sign, etched into the cliff's face, 282 feet above us reads, Sea Level. “This is the farthest any American can be from the moon,” he says.

Death Valley is surprisingly biodiverse, but you couldn't tell by looking at it. Sitting around waiting for the start of the Badwater 135, a 135 mile ultramarathon between here and Mount Whitney in the Eastern Sierras, the self-anointed “toughest footrace on earth,” you only see a particular sub-species of human, ultrarunners.

For this race, they'll run on scorched asphalt through small towns and by landmarks with names that read like a contemporary translation of Dante: The Devil's Golf Course, Furnace Creek, Stovepipe Wells. They’ll run in desert conditions, temperatures nearing 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the day and dropping significantly at night, while climbing a total of 14,600 ft over no more than 48 hours. My editor's asked the big question: What gear do these runners use to keep themselves alive?

For context, there’s a growing class of modern athletes who aren’t satisfied with the marathon. They try a 50K and find it lacking. They answer, they think, lies in distances 100 miles and beyond. Some of them are sober. Some of them drink like fish. Some of them have the bodies Olympic-level marathoners, long and lean with purposeful strides. Some of them have love handles and knobbly knees. All of them have some kind of steel within their spines. It’s not singular self-determination exactly; each runner has a crew to aid and abet their times of trouble. But it is a kind of wild determination all the same.

Ultras, and 100 milers in particular, are growing with a rapidity normally associated with capitalism or cancer. From 2002 to 2023, ultrarunning stats show a growth percentage in the mid 700s for almost every metric. But even among ultrarunners it’s a particularly masochistic group that comes to Death Valley in July for the Badwater 135. The race takes 100 runners the 135 miles from Badwater Basin (elevation -282') to the Mount Whitney Trail Head in the Eastern Sierras (elevation around 8,000'). They’ll run in extreme conditions over two mountain ranges. Most won’t sleep over the course of the race and around hour 30 will begin to experience visions from the deprivation. They have just 48 hours to finish before the cutoff. And all of them paid $1595 for the privilege.

Each runner participating here has put in the miles and extensively heat-trained. But at the end of the day, even that’s not enough. They have to coordinate with their crew to make sure each packs and distributes aid at crucial moments. This year's winner, 48-year-old Norwegian runner Simen Holvik, who finished in a blistering 21 hours and 48 minutes, shrugged off congratulations in a double door saloon the day after the race and told me the real folks who deserve applause aren’t the top ten podium finishers. They’re the runners staying on the course for all 48 hours.

And when you’re running in the desert for that long, gear can make all the difference.

I’m no ultrarunner, but I'm up for 26 hours for the second time in two weeks. It’s not insanity or insomnia, though it feels a little like both. Rather it’s professional curiosity. I write professionally, but in a creative mix to pay the bills as a modern freelancer, I also consult with brands in the outdoor and endurance sports spaces. A few of them are focused on extreme endurance athletes, and, not being one, I’ve tagged along to two ultras in two weeks to observe and report. My first was eight days before this one, the famed Western States Endurance Run—100.2 miles over Tahoe’s rugged alpine country and sun scorched valleys. Then here, Badwater, where Mount to Coast, a new ultrarunning shoe brand that I work with, is this year’s title sponsor. That said, I’m shoe agnostic here. I’m reporting what shoes actual runners wore.

HOKA represented a lion's share of mid-to-back-of-the-pack runners, athletes leaned on the shoe’s max cushioning and Zone 2 pace rep to steadily build up mileage through the long first night. Altra too was in the mix, the brand famous in the trail space for supporting Appalachian Trail Fastest Known Time holder Tara Dower. Mount to Coast has a strong showing for an upstart brand, with nearly a quarter of the runners choosing the brand’s shoes for the race, but those stats are bolstered by the official partnership, which gifted each entrant a pair of the flagship R1s. I saw a few Asics and more than a few Sauconys; the heritage brand is on a return streak like no one else. Powerhouse brands Nike, Adidas, and Brooks were also in contention, but not nearly as strong in this niche space as in the common marathon. Some elite runners chose Nike and Adidas' carbon-plated super shoes for the first half of the race, but most runners went with a more daily trainer or less aggressive racing shoe. 135 miles is a long way, and the smart runners pace themselves, even with shoe choice.

This is, apparently, a cool year. Last year, temperatures hovered around 120. A few years before that, 130. People scratched, but the race wasn’t canceled. A fellow writer I met on the trip, working on a book about deserts, heat, and mankind’s ability to adapt to them both, posited a future in which the National Parks Service may issue heat closures in the same way it issues road closures due to blizzards. Opposite sides of the environmental spectrum, the same result.

In the meantime, staying cool is the number one priority of the runner and crew. Badwater bans anything other than ice out of a kind of sadistic glee that the runners must experience the true nature of the race, which means tech like the graphite-based cooling headband Omius, worn by Olympic marathoners in Paris and top ten finishers of the Western States 100 Endurance Run, isn’t allowed. Runners get creative.

Ice bandannas are in wide use, from the DIY sewn methods to the silicone-based East Peak, which I first encountered at Western State. While Omius graphite hats might be banned, several brands make ice hats: like a cooling, endurance sports version of the classic American sports spectators' beer helmets. And crews get creative. Many runners wear sun sleeves that are routinely stuffed with fresh ice every mile or two.

My favorite moment from the race was watching 80-year-old Bob Becker determinately power up the 13.1-mile, 4,610 foot climb up Whitney Portal road to finish in a time of 45 hours and 6 seconds. Three years ago, at 77, he finished 17 minutes after the 48 cutoff and he was determined to come back faster and stronger. This evidently included a handwoven straw sombrero-style hat, which the octogenarian rocked along with a flowing white scarf/cape combo up the entire climb. There wasn't a stronger 'fit, or a stronger finish, on the course.

Hats were the first layer of defense against the punishing sun. I’ve mentioned the ice hats, but I saw headwear of all kinds on the course. From the desert warfare-inspired legionnaire fits, to the ubiquitous bucket hat, to the classic runner’s ballcap. I took my spectating duty seriously and wore an old George Strait edition straw cowboy hat I bought twenty years ago in the mountains of New Hampshire, but there was more than one Stetson on the course in both crew and volunteer form. We all, though, could learn a bit about style from Bob. His woven sombrero carried him to an undisputed age group victory.

After hats comes UPF gear, common for fly-fishermen and river runners, a requirement of the course. Boutique running brand Path Projects developed a new arm sleeve for the race in collaboration with Canadian Ultrarunner and YouTuber Jeff Pelletier. He was there to put the gear to the test, as well as Path Projects founder Floris Gierman, who crewed Jeff along to his 31-hour finish. Floris and I bantered that this course was an ideal crucible for his brand’s Wadi collection, spun from a feather-thin Japanese fabric and with a UPF rating of 50+. Under my required OSHA hi-vis gear, I wore a sun hoodie from new brand SMBL, which uses graphene powered fabric to thermoregulate and block the sun. This is the kind of temperature that’ll have you diving headfirst into tech specs and novel technology. Did it work? I was heatstroke-free, so you tell me.

Throughout the day, both crew and runners switched between shorts and lightweight long pants. With a UV index of 11—rated by the Weather Service as “Very Extreme”— runners and crew had to take every precaution. At night, the UPF fabric was stored in favor of hi-vis vests and lights usually employed by construction workers. The race is licensed to run through Death Valley National Park, but the road remains open to the public.

As you can imagine, chafing is an issue. 135 miles is a long way to run. Your shoes are the baseline of your experience, but your undercarriage is important.

The race director, Chris Kostman, really hammers home his anti-nudity clause in the hours-long pre-race briefing racers and crew must attend, sweating in a high school gymnasium filled with volleyball championship pennants and booster clubs signs. As such, runners mostly pull off outfit changes at established rest stops with proper bathrooms or privacy areas. At Panamint Springs, a no-stoplight resort town (if we stretch the definition of resort) founded by Buffalo Bill’s cousin near the turn of the century, runners used the small bathrooms for full outfit changes. The need for new shorts is multiplied by the salt stains from evaporated sweat and the constant wetting runners receive from melting ice and crews with spray bottles attempting to keep them cool. It’s a tough environment on fabric. I saw a scattered mix of half-tights, like this excellent desert camo version from Janji, tiny high school cross country style split shorts, and any number of high-tech heat dumping fabrics like the Space-O from Parisian brand Sastify. Runners either went with a desert-approved white or something colorful and high-vis, like these Driveway Paradise shorts I spent my race hours in.

We’re living in a golden age of running sunglasses. Luckily for the Badwater participants, who desperately need them. Noon in Death Valley is comparable to a glacier, the sun pounds the landscape and pounds the corneas. Every runner wore sunglasses, without exception. I saw plenty of the trendy wraparound style you see from Oakley and the like, but I saw many gas station replicas. One crew member and pacer I spoke to, pacing the race's youngest runner, advocated for Goodr’s low price point, since his pair of aviators literally melted on his face from the combo of heat and direct sunlight. I escaped unscathed switching between a pair throwback style Vuarnet’s Belvedere 07’s and District Vision’s Junya Racers, but I also didn’t run 135 miles.

The crew are the unsung heroes of every ultra, but Badwater in particular. Runners can’t carry the water, nutrition, and other sundry necessities over 135 miles. A good crew means that runners can turn off their brains and just focus on running. I saw Excel spreadsheets with carbs per hour calculations that would make an accountant cry tears of joy over the complexity of the formulas, not to mention electrolytes, sunscreen, towels, buckets of water, and spray hoses to constantly wet athletes, spare clothes, et all.

At Bawadwater, the crew chases in vehicles, usually minivans, and leapfrogs the runner on the road every two or so miles. Every van is set up like a mobile aid station, and crews (with plenty of downtime later in the race) were eager to show off their setups in an off-camera MTV Cribs meets Pimp My Ride for ultrarunning. Vans get emblazoned with LED light strips and, in one case, a plastic skeleton affixed to the front bumper. The biggest issue, though, was ice. Crews had to keep an Antarctic supply on hand and protect it from Death Valley’s sordid temps. The smart/well-funded crews used Yeti coolers or Dometic fridges. The rest scraped by with Coleman's. The gas station in Panamint Springs gave conflicting accounts. The cashier inside claimed to have sold 800 bags by 7 am on race day, the guys working the freezer chest outside said 250.

The conflicting accounts get to the heart of this race and the gear that’s required to run it. It's hundreds of pounds of ice bought at a single gas station on a single weekend, enough ice to inspire legends in a race that's a mythology to itself. Nothing has changed since the '49ers and whoever crossed Death Valley before them. This is not a place conducive to human life. But the right gear—more Yeti coolers and UPF layers, less burros, these days—you can run through the hottest place on Earth.