Bob Becker, 80, has a easy philosophy about his age. “I don’t consider myself by way of age, actually,” Becker mentioned. “I simply determine if anyone else can do a selected factor, there’s in all probability not a complete lot of motive why I can’t do it myself.”
Which is why, on July 7, Becker discovered himself 282 ft beneath sea degree in Badwater Basin, California, in 118-degree Fahrenheit warmth, staring down the near-impossible as soon as extra: In his ninth decade of life, Becker wished to change into the oldest official finisher within the historical past of the Badwater 135 Mile ultramarathon, the punishing 135-mile race by way of the state’s searing Demise Valley.
Nearly precisely 45 hours later, he did.
Bob Becker proudly shows his 2025 Badwater 135 Mile finisher t-shirt, alongside coach and pal Lisa Smith-Batchen (to his proper.) Photograph courtesy of Lisa Smith-Batchen.
“Form of all people within the race knew I used to be capturing for this oldest runner finisher mark,” Becker mentioned in a latest telephone interview. “So there have been lots of people up there cheering me on.” “It was only a nice journey,” he added.
Becker — a race director in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, who now has 4 official finishes at Badwater — had already as soon as tried to change into the oldest finisher. Three years in the past, when he was a spry 77, Becker completed 17 minutes — “17 minutes and 27 seconds,” he’ll level out — over the race’s 48-hour cutoff time. His again had gone out at mile 100 and he might barely transfer. Movies of him crawling to the end line went viral. An “unofficial end” he known as it. He wished to make it official.
“I had unfinished enterprise,” Becker mentioned. So, he got here again. He ran the Route 66 Ultrarun, a 140 miler on the historic street in Arizona, in November and “felt actually good about it … And I believed, You understand what? I believe I’m going to throw my hat within the ring and see if I can qualify and be chosen to strive yet one more time,” he mentioned. “And fortuitously, all of it got here collectively.”
Coaching and Preparation
First, although, he needed to practice. Becker has been working ultras for 20 years, however Badwater, which calls itself “the world’s hardest footrace,” represents a selected problem. In true race director vogue, Becker had a listing of the “4 main problem elements” of the infamous race: It’s lengthy, it’s sizzling, it has numerous elevation acquire, and until you’re an elite runner on the entrance of the sphere, it requires you to run by way of two nights. Becker credit his coach of 20 years, Lisa Smith-Batchen, for serving to him put together for his record-breaking try. “She’s all the time had me prepared on race day,” he mentioned.
Florida, famously, is flat — a largely paved swampland with only a few pure alternatives for elevation coaching and a lower than perfect place to coach for a race that begins on the lowest level in North America and ends on the trailhead for the best level within the contiguous United States. However Becker discovered a approach, and maybe there’s a lesson in that.
“The best level, principally, in Fort Lauderdale is 75 ft above sea degree on the prime of a bridge that’s a half a mile all the way in which throughout,” he mentioned. “So, you do 20 or 25 miles on that bridge and also you’re getting a bit hill work in. Attempt to discover an workplace constructing or a rental constructing the place you are able to do stairs and go to a health club and do a StairMaster.”
Or typically Smith-Batchen would prescribe one thing extra unorthodox: pulling a large tire. “It creates drag and actually works these calves and the muscle mass behind your legs,” Becker mentioned. “And it actually does simulate uphill motion.”
Operating 20 miles on a half-mile-long bridge, working up stairs in random workplace buildings, pulling SUV tires — that is the work ingrained in Becker’s legs and thoughts on the beginning line of Badwater. He didn’t break the report by chance.
Bob Becker on the climb as much as Towne Move through the 2025 Badwater 135 Mile. Photograph: Arnold Begay
Executing the Plan
However first he needed to run, after all, and a calf challenge simply three miles into the race was his first shock. “And that truly stayed with me the entire time,” Becker mentioned. “In order that was one thing that brought on a bit little bit of concern, however, you realize, I labored by way of it, shook it out, and was capable of maintain my race plan.”
His race plan was to stroll the steep uphills, run the downhills, and do a run-walk sequence on the flat sections. “That’s what I do. That’s how I practice. As a result of I determine in a race like this, I’m not going to run any greater than half the race,” he mentioned. “And I’d quite begin in the beginning to combine it up quite than doing a dying march on the finish.”
Greater than as soon as, Becker credited his crew — Smith-Batchen, Marshall Ulrich, Heather Ulrich, and Will Litwin — for serving to him by way of the race and showering him with robust love when he wanted it. “They bought me to the end line,” he mentioned.
By the point he bought to Lone Pine, the penultimate checkpoint about 123 miles in, he knew he would do it. “All I needed to do,” he mentioned, “was stand up that hill.” Becker bought up the hill — his unassuming identify for the 13-mile climb as much as the Mount Whitney trailhead with greater than 4,500 ft of elevation acquire — and made historical past. At 80 years younger, he had executed it.
Bob Becker close to Stovepipe Wells on the 2025 Badwater 135 Mile. Photograph: Arnold Begay
Reflections
Every week later, he mirrored on what it meant. “The very fact is, I’m older, so I’m not as quick as I was. I can’t bomb a downhill path race anymore. I simply don’t have that confidence,” Becker mentioned. “And so I’ve to select my races rigorously. I’ve to make certain that I’m being lifelike concerning the cutoffs and the situations of the race. However in any other case, the truth that I’m the oldest man is sort of secondary.”
Badwater, he mentioned, was the one race the place his main goal was breaking the oldest finisher report. “And I had my eye on it for a very long time,” Becker mentioned. “And so, it was very satisfying to lastly be capable of try this.”
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