Rosmus, Warady Find Just the Spot for Hot Fun in Summertime

With ice cubes in their hats, pajamas on their legs, and yards of electrical tape wrapped around their feet, John Rosmus and David Warady will take off today for a run across one of the nation’s hottest hot spots:

Death Valley National Monument.

Yes, Death Valley. California’s furnace-hot, vacation spot. A one-time world temperature record of 134 degrees was recorded there. Last Sunday, it was 125.

But hell-hot or not, Rosmus, of Fullerton, and Warady, of Huntington Beach, plan to run the length of Death Valley--from north to south, about 126 miles in all--in about 24 to 30 hours.

Completion time, they say, will probably depend in part on the degree of head winds they encounter.

According to Death Valley tourist center spokeswoman Karen Rosga, hot winds of 30 miles per hour or more are the norm on the desert floor this time of year. So for Rosmus and Warady, it will be like running directly into a gigantic blowtorch.

Now before dismissing Rosmus and Warady as hot-weather wackos, consider that the two have spent much of the last four months preparing for this challenge--one in a long line of ultrarunning adventures.

Rosmus, a 41-year-old former hockey player and veteran of some 35 marathons, first read about running Death Valley in a 1977 article in Runner’s World. After running the Death Valley Marathon in March, Rosmus suddenly saw the entire valley floor as something he’d like to personally challenge.

“It was 98 degrees at the marathon, and it really wasn’t all that bad,” Rosmus said. “From there, I just started looking at the map and said, ‘Hmmmm . . . we can do this.’ ”

Rosmus found the ideal partner for such a venture in Warady, a 33-year-old engineer for McDonnell Douglas.

Because of his weekly training mileage, Warady is something of a legend among local ultrarunners. Weeks of 170 miles--almost twice that of many elite runners--are common for him. Still, he and Rosmus know that extra mileage alone will not guarantee them a safe run across Death Valley.

Last week, the two runners met at the small, Garden Grove hockey store that Rosmus owns to discuss the final preparations. Lunching on pepperoni pizza and diet cola and surrounded by racks of hockey sticks, masks, skates and a poster of former marathon great Bill Rodgers, Rosmus and Warady listed what they consider the basic necessities for their venture:

--The crew. Rosmus’ wife, Martha, and fellow ultrarunner Fred Shufflebarger will accompany Rosmus and Warady in two cars. They will stop at each mile, supplying the runners with bananas, turkey sandwiches, chicken soup and the all-important drinking water--some 30 gallons.

Because of the intense heat, the cars’ air conditioning will not be used because of the chance of overheating, so the trek won’t be exactly a joy ride for Fred and Martha, either.

--Clothing. Lightweight, light-colored clothing is a must. T-shirts will be wet down at each mile stop. Borrowing an idea from another ultrarunner, Rosmus and Warady will don light cotton pajama bottoms to protect their legs.

“Running in pajamas . . . it’s not my idea of fun,” Warady said. “But you do what you have to.”

--Shoes. Both runners plan to use three or four pairs of running shoes. Because the ground temperatures can be 40 to 50 degrees hotter than the air, Rosmus and Warady will wrap their feet in electrical or duct tape to prevent blisters.

--Ice packs. They’ll wear them on their heads and underneath their painters’ caps, to further cool themselves.

“Keeping your body core temperature down, that’s the most important thing,” Warady said. “Naturally, if you were to go sit in an oven that’s 124 degrees, at some point you’re going to overheat and reach a point of heat sickness. . . . So it’s a matter of taking the correct precautions to avoid that.”

--Accident prevention. Rosmus and Warady had to obtain proper permits from Cal Trans in order to conduct the run on certain parts of the route. In addition, the crew cars must bear signs reading: “Caution--Endurance Run In Progress!”

According to Death Valley’s Rosga, several people have attempted to run Death Valley in the past, though the parks service keeps no official records.

“We just kind of await these things with trepidation,” she said. “Running out and picking up bodies off the road isn’t something we want to be doing.”

Rosmus and Warady are confident they know what they’re doing.

“You’ve got to look at the facts,” Warady said. “The heat is going to raise your body temperature and that’s the thing that could drop you out. So that’s what you have to try to counteract--keeping your body temperature as low as possible by wearing light clothing, keeping your shirt wet, keeping ice on your head, carrying ice in your water bottles . . .

“Pacing won’t be a problem--we’re both in good shape. We both could go out and run 150 miles over two days. But it’s some of the different elements, like the heat, that we have to be very conscious of, making sure we don’t get into trouble. But as far as limitations go, you place those on yourself. If you look at it realistically, you can usually counteract any limitation.”

So, the popular question: Why do this in the first place?

“You only live so long,” Warady said. “I mean, what’s the point in just thinking about living? You should go out and challenge yourself. Go out and see what kind of limits you can reach. . . . You’ve got to die some time. If that happens to be the day, that’s the day. My wife’s prepared for it and I’m prepared for it.”

Listening to his friend, Rosmus smiled and rolled his eyes. With a shrug, he offered his philosophy:

“I just look at it as something to do,” he said, smiling.

Their differences--Warady is intense and determined, Rosmus is go-with-the-flow personified--become more apparent in their personal strategies toward the run.

Said Warady: “I try to maintain a keen sense of reality at all times. I always try to understand, at each minute, where I am. You have to continually monitor yourself. If there’s any pain or anything, I try to accept it and go on. . . . But if you aren’t aware of the reality--if you aren’t aware of what your body needs--you can fall into a state of dehydration.

“A lot of people say you should try to play these mind games with yourself or sing songs during the run. But the best athletes don’t. The best athletes accept the stress and they deal with it.”

Rosmus quipped: “He can say that because he is an athlete. I’m just always in pain. I just try to go to these things to finish. . . . I just run.”

Warady: “Yeah, but he’s got the efficient ultrarunner stride . . . “

Rosmus: “Right. It’s like a walk--a six-inch stride. He looks like the real runner, I look like an old man shuffling down the road. I’m George Burns and he’s (world-class runner) Arturo Barrios.”

Running Notes

Orange County entrants did not fare too well last weekend at the Western States Endurance Run, a 100-mile run from Squaw Valley to Auburn. Many of the county’s top entrants were forced to drop out because of injuries, stomach troubles and other fatigue-related problems. Although he led the race for a short time and was in second place until 25 miles, Fred Shufflebarger of Laguna Beach fell and hit his head on a rock at 26 miles, and dropped out around the half-way point. “It was the muscle pain in my quadriceps that killed me,” said Shufflebarger, who admitted he might have gone out a tad too fast. “Going down hills, it was like a knife stabbing me.” Bright spots included Eugene Trahern of La Habra, who was 66th out of 208 finishers in 23 hours 39 minutes; Judy Milkie-West of Anaheim (69th, 23:44), Diane Eastman of Los Alamitos (80th, 24:41), Paul Jeffers of Seal Beach (117th, 27:05), and Meg Slavin of Irvine (157th, 28:39). “Toward the end, I really had to dig deep,” said Slavin, who munched potato-and-broccoli sandwiches en route. “But I had the time of my life.” Tom Johnson of Sacramento won in 16:38, and Ann Trason of Oakland broke the record she set last year by 14 minutes to win in 18:33.