So You Think You Can Run? Try the Death Valley Badwater Ultramarathon

Referencing the geographic coordinate system, Death Valley National Park is located at 36.2419° N, 116.8258 W. Interfacing the Great Basin to the Mojave Desert, Death Valley National Park is the largest national park in the lower 48 states. Comprising over 3,000,000 acres, of which 95% is designated wilderness, Death Valley National Park contains some of the hottest, driest, and most extreme geography in the world. Temperatures in the summer time regularly top 120° F. The highest recorded temperature on earth, 134° F, was observed at the aptly named Furnace Creek section of Death Valley, in 1913.

Death Valley, CA 

From http://foundtheworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Death-Valley-2.jpg

The Badwater Basin is the lowest point in North American at 282 feet below sea level. A mere 82 miles away sits highest summit in the contiguous United States, Mount Whitney, at 14,505 feet. Given all these remote and extreme features, it may be surprising to most that an actual marathon race is held in Death Valley every year, from Badwater to Mount Whitney. In mid-July. With no prize for first place.

Some of the world's greatest endurance runners prepare for the Badwater Ultramarathon 

Inexplicably ambulating through Death Valley

Most traditional marathons today are 26 mile (and 385 yard) races through large urban centers like London, Los Angeles, and New York. The New York City Marathon, one of the world’s largest, regularly features over 45,000 participants. The Badwater-Death Valley Marathon is a far cry from the traditional marathon. The Badwater race, heralded as the “toughest footrace in the world,” is more accurately categorized as an ultramarathon, or any marathon race beyond the traditional 26 mile limit. In the case of the Badwater Race, it is a held in the infernal desert heat of July, and features a grueling 135 mile slog from the Badwater Basin (-282 feet below sea level) to the Mount Whitney Portal (8,360 feet above sea level). In 2012, a grand total of 96 intrepid souls set out to Death Valley for a chance to win a medal (for those capable of finishing in less than 60 hours) or more brazenly, a belt buckle (for those who finish in under 48 hours). There is no award, other than notoriety, for those who finish first.

A coveted Badwater Ultramarathon belt buckle from the 2009 race

So if you are a runner who would like a real challenge, maybe you can start training for the 2014 race. After all, if you can run 135 miles through the most forbidding desert in the world for a belt-buckle, you can probably do anything. Happy trails!

Running In Death Valley

From: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150826114949-dean-karnazes-badwater-marathon-exlarge-169.jpg

Remembering the Red October of 1917: Октя́брьская револю́ция

How was the Soviet Union formed? The answer to that complex question actualized during the chaotic year of 1917, the third full year of World War I in Europe. Russia, along with most European nations at the time, was governed by a monarchy, in this case by the person of Tsar Nicholas II, last ruler of the Russian Empire. His accumulated wealth at the time of his death would be over $250 billion in today’s currency.

Tsar Nicholas II of Russia 

Russia entered World War I (at Nicholas' behest) both to support Serbia against invasion by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and because of their alliance with France against the presumed common enemy of Imperial Germany, who was led by Kaiser Wilhelm II. Wilhelm II was Tsar Nicholas’ cousin, who was himself cousin to King George V of Great Britain.

Nicholas II (left) and King George V (right) 

Widespread civil unrest and uneven Russian military successes on the Eastern Front, along with desertions and the catastrophic living conditions of the Russian peasantry, forced the eventual abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in March of 1917. On July 16, 1918, a revolutionary secret police unit, the Cheka (чрезвыча́йная коми́ссия), executed the Tsar and his family while they were being held prisoner in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

Russian forces during World War I 

However, prior to his execution, Tsar Nicholas’ abdication resulted in the creation of a Russian Provisional Government. Led by Aleksander Kerensky, this government declared Russia a “republic.” Alas, the Provisional Government was short lived. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin (a political exile who was smuggled back into Russia by the German government to foment rebellion), led the overthrow of the Provisional Government on November 5, 1917 (or October 23 in the Old Style Calendar, hence the “October Revolution”, Октя́брьская револю́ция).

Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, 2nd Prime Minister of the Provisional Government 

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, founding leader of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialists Republic, 1917 (picture above dated from 1920). 

Withdrawing Russia from World War I through the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Bolsheviks and their Red Army looked to consolidate power within the restive former Russian Empire, but they were drawn into a complicated and bloody civil war against Anti-Bolshevik forces and their international allies.

Victory of "The Bolshevik" by Boris Kustodiev (1920) 

Near the end of this tumultuous period, the victorious “soviet” entities elected to create a continuous political union, by way of proclamation (Договор об образовании СССР), on December 30, 1922. This entity--the first self-proclaimed socialist state in history--was known in the west as the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). It would last nearly 70 years, until Mikhail Gorbachev, the last President of the Soviet Union, began Glasnost (гла́сность) and Perestroika (перестро́йк), or the “reformation/dissolution” of the Soviet state into the current Russian Federation.

1922-1991:

Coat of Arms of the Soviet Union