Face of Defense: Soldier is Giant in Ultramarathon Community

By Army Master Sgt. Frederick Zimmerman

U.S. Special Operations Command

MOUNT WHITNEY, Calif., Aug. 7, 2012 – Standing at 5 feet 4 inches and weighing in at 130 pounds, Army Master Sgt. Mike Morton is a giant in the ultramarathon community.

Morton, a U.S. Army Special Operations Command liaison officer, recently won the Badwater Ultramarathon – a 135-mile race from Death Valley to Mount Whitney in California. This was his first Badwater, and he completed the course in 22 hours, 52 minutes, 55 seconds, a time that was just shy of the 22:51:29 course record. The Badwater Ultramarathon starts off at 280 feet below sea level, and ends at an approximate altitude of 8,300 feet above.

“It’s a very competitive race -- you had two former winners and two guys who are on the U.S. 24-hour team with me – a handful of guys that I consider serious competition -- but I knew I had the potential [to win],” said Morton, who is on the U.S. 24-hour team that competes in races that see how far competitors can run in one day. “I was elated to win – just to finish it.”

A total of 90 runners are selected. Just to enter the race, applicants must have finished a prior Badwater as well as a series of other high endurance events including races of at least 100 miles. Morton has finished and won three 100-mile races so far this year, all in under 14 hours.

He and a friend, Eric Clifton, who had won the race in 1999, had discussed taking aim at the course record.

“In January, I ran a 100 in 13 hours, 18 minutes, in March I ran a 13:11 100, and then in May I ran a 13:42, and those were all relatively flat courses,” Morton said. “Eric laid out a plan and he was expecting around a 21-hour finishing time, but I don’t speculate like that. I said using those splits is a good tool, but you can’t account for the variables of the heat and the three substantial climbs.

“So in my mind, the course record was a strong record. I had a super-smart runner telling me 21 hours, but in my mind I was content even being near [Valmir Nunez’s] record, because I knew those variables were going to play a role, even with the wind during the day. It’s a strong wind; it’s something I didn’t account for.”

Badwater allows entrants to have a pacer run with them after the first 17 miles, and that comes in handy as the pacer can “mule,” or carry food and water for the runner. Morton had Clifton running with him for the last 20 miles of the race, and Morton said he was doing the math and letting him know he could break the record.

“He was spitting out times, but it got to the point where I wasn’t talking,” Morton said. “I didn’t want to hear him. I was just like, ‘Hey, man, you can tell me all I have to do is run 15 minute miles. I’m going as fast as I can go.’ At some point, there’s no more effort available. You’re running at max capacity.”

One of the hardest points of the race for Morton came at mile 42– a 14-mile climb that he power-walked most of the way. He had a 19-minute lead when he started, but by the time he reached the peak, the second-place runner had caught up.

Temperatures throughout the race reached 119 degrees during the day, and dropped to the mid-50s at night. Morton said he changed out of his singlet into a T-shirt at night, but didn’t realize how cold it was until he saw photos of his support crew wearing hats and jackets. Due to the extreme heat, he went through four gallons of a sports beverage, a gallon of water and the occasional soda to take in sugar. It was enough to require a small support crew and two minivans full of supplies to travel with him.

“I’m more of a minimalist runner – a lot of people have this big layout of food and take everything they may desire,” Morton said. “I usually find one thing in a race that I like and I stick with it. I don’t require anything fancy.”

Morton, who has won nearly 30 races, began competing in ultramarathons -- which can vary from 50-mile, 100-mile and 24- and 48-hour competitions -- in 1994. He served 11 years in the Navy before transferring to the Army, and began running marathons when stationed on Diego Garcia. He was introduced to ultramarathons by a chief petty officer in Norfolk, Va. “I wasn’t a competitive marathoner at the national level – I could run a six-minute pace and not even come in the top 10,” said Morton, who has served a total of 22 years. “But then I moved up to running 50s and 100s and I was winning, so it became exciting.”

In 1998, he was forced to give up competing after injuring his knee and hip when he slipped on ice while carrying scuba tanks. The injury, and training and deployment cycles after joining the Army, kept him from competing for 14 years. The injury still bothers him a bit, he said, but he’s learned to deal with it.

When training for a race, Morton puts in 140 miles a week running twice a day during the week, and once a day on weekend, going through a pair of running shoes in about 10 days. He completed the 135-mile Badwater race on the morning of July 17 and went out for a run again the next day.

Up next for Morton are the 24-hour World Championships next month in Poland, where he will compete on the U.S. team. The American record for a 24-hour race is just over 165 miles, and Morton said he would like to break it. He came close in September 2011 when he ran 163.9 miles, just 1.8 miles off the record, at the Hinson Lake 24-hour in North Carolina.

“If everything goes well in Poland and I meet my goals, I’m kind of content with doing some fun runs,” he said. “Maybe just chilling out and not running twice a day for a little while.”

SEAL Recruiter Finishes Strong in Badwater Ultramarathon

By David Mays
Special to American Forces Press Service

July 30, 2007 - A Navy SEAL recruiter went the extra mile – or extra 135 miles, to be exact – to reach athletes who may have the fitness and drive to make it through the notoriously difficult SEAL training course. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class David Goggins, assigned to the Naval Special Warfare Recruiting Directorate in Coronado, Calif., competed in and finished third place in the Badwater Ultramarathon by running 135 miles across Death Valley and up the side of Mount Whitney in California last week.

Goggins was on orders from his directorate to compete in Badwater. He and fellow recruiters are sent to "extreme" events across the country in an effort to reach out to athletes who may be good candidates for SEAL training.

Because the Navy refuses to lower its standards for passing SEAL training, it must attract already highly trained candidates. The Navy aims to graduate 500 SEALs during the next three years, said Lt. David Hecht, a spokesman for the directorate.

"The kids who swim, the kids who bike, the kids who run, they have a higher success rate making it through the program," Hecht said.

Fallen comrades were especially on Goggins' mind as he prepared to conquer Badwater. His participation in the event this year and last helped raise money for the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which provides college scholarship grants, based on need, along with financial aid and educational counseling to the children of Special Operations personnel who are killed in an operational mission or training accident.

The Navy SEAL, who is also a former Army Ranger, took 25 hours and 49 minutes to complete what is considered the most grueling event of its type in the world. The course begins at 282 feet below sea level, the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere in California's remote southwestern interior near the Nevada border and ends 8,360 feet above sea level on the base of the continental United States' tallest mountain.

"In all these races you stay up a long time," Goggins said. "And to train to be a SEAL you're up for hours and days, so that helps out quite a bit knowing that you can go the distance."

Badwater participants frequently face temperatures approaching 130 degrees Fahrenheit. During the blazing daylight portion of their journeys, participants run on the white lane markers painted onto the right of the road as opposed to the asphalt itself. That way the soles of their shoes are less likely to literally melt from the heat.

Race directors intentionally hold Badwater in the middle of July so that runners will experience the very hottest weather Death Valley has to offer. Unlike most marathons and shorter organized races, Badwater offers no official aid stations. Instead, runners must bring their own support crew, all their own food and any other supplies they may need to survive the trek across Death Valley and up Mount Whitney.

Participants become so spread out over the course of the race that many complete most of the 135-mile event completely alone. Many participants stop to catch a few hours sleep along the way, and some have actually fallen asleep while running the race.

Goggins attributes his extraordinary performance on his crew, who would drive alongside in a support vehicle. "They worked their butt off for me out there, and it showed by the time I had, he said. "I mean you saw them out there on that mountain, they were coming off the car and sponging me down."

It was a specially designed sock, with individual compartments for each toe, that saved Goggins the agony of last year's race, when his feet became so mangled from 30 hours of pounding pavement that they were photographed and posted on Badwater's Web site, a sort of twisted badge of honor appreciated by the event's close-knit community.

"Last year I wore some thin socks, and it was just killing me," Goggins said. "This year the pain is not too bad, just on the front of my feet from going downhill."

This year's event featured unexpectedly cooler weather, with daytime highs only in the 112- to 117-degree range. Because of this, predictions of a possible new course record abounded before the start.

While many participants thought of the 24-hour mark as a mythical time that could never be bested, first-time Badwater participant Valmir Nunes, a 43-year-old from of Brazil, smashed the previous record by nearly two hours, finishing in 22 hours and 51 minutes. Nunes spent more than a week living in the Death Valley town of Stovepipe Wells to train on the course and acclimatize to the brutal conditions.

Goggins had no such luxury. He lives in Chula Vista, Calif., where daytime high temperatures hover in the comfortable 70s year round. That's perfect for recreational running, but not for Badwater preparation.

Goggins dressed in heavy layers of clothing to simulate the heat he would face in the desert and ran for hours at a time. He even turned the heater full blast in his car to experience sweltering conditions when he drove.

Only 90 athletes are allowed to compete in Badwater each year, although hundreds apply. The bare minimum requirement to even be considered for entry into the event is to have officially finished a running race of at least 100 continuous miles in length. Goggins surprised everybody when he placed fifth last year in his first Badwater attempt. He finished nearly four hours faster this year.

"I've run a few more hundred-mile races this year," he said. "It gets your legs used to the distance."