Badwater® 267 VR Elite

Sixteen-Day Race Requirements and Perks

Imagine running a Badwater race: Every one of our Badwater races features a challenging route with all its literal and psychological ups and down, time cut-offs along the way, the overall time limit, and the simultaneous competitiveness and camaraderie of the other Badwater runners! Along the way, you encourage and support one another, while pushing yourself and the other competitors to give your best possible performances. The Badwater Family is at the heart of what brings runners to our events and especially what brings them back again and again. All of that will be intrinsic to the Badwater 267 VR experience, especially this 16-day Badwater VR Elite race where the competitors will track their every mile through a private Strava club, private Facebook event page, and the RunSignUp leaderboard in order to prove they are worthy of receiving the Badwater 267 VR Belt Buckle! Here are the guidelines and the perks which are unique to THIS virtual elite race:

GUIDELINES

• You must complete all of your miles on foot: only walking, hiking, and running are allowed, BUT, very importantly and additionally:

• You must complete your running between 00:00:01 at the start of April 5 until 23:59:59 at the end of April 20 WHERE YOU LIVE. (Everyone uses their own local time for this event.) So, for example, if you run past midnight on the night of April 16, no miles (km’s) run beyond midnight may count towards this event.
• What counts is ELAPSED time, not simply Moving Time, just like a real world race.
• You may run any distance you want, any day, and you may run more than once per day. The strategy of miles per run, miles per day, number of runs per day, and such are totally up to you and your schedule.
• You MAY include miles run while competing in any “real life” events.
• Treadmill Miles Do Not Count! Miles Run Indoors Do Not Count! All miles must be run outdoors, come rain or shine, sleet, snow, hurricanes, typhoons, or searing heat. (This is why we are waiting until April to host this event, so that the weather is warming up for cold climate folks – well, at least in the northern hemisphere!)

TRACKING YOU / TRACKING THE COMPETITION / STRAVA

• You must live-record your miles with a GPS device each day AND log those miles into your Strava account. (Yes, you must use Strava so that we can centralize everyone on one platform; no other apps will suffice.) We – and your fellow competitors – will be keeping tabs on you (and cheering for you)!
• Please use your real name on your Strava account, to make it clear who you are; if need be, you could switch your Strava account handle to your real name for just the month of April, then switch back to your usual handle on May 1.
• You must join our private Badwater 267 VR Elite Strava Club so we can all easily monitor one another. (The link to the club is provided to each registered entrant; please go there and request to join the club. Remember we must see your real name in the request to join.)
• Every day that you run, you must log your miles, ELAPSED (not moving) time, and elevation gain on your RunSignUp page for this event according to these guidelines:
  • This must be the exact information from your Strava data because Strava makes adjustments to distance and elevation gain to make the data more accurate. DO NOT import your GPS watch data directly into RunSignUp.
  • You must input every day that you complete an Activity!
  • In the notes for each day’s run(s) on RunSignUp, you must put:
    • A general description of what your Activity involved (“Four loops around Sunshine Park” “9 miles up the Thames River and back” or similar)
    • The link for the Strava record for that run (Easily copied from the Strava App or the Strava website.)
    • Please regularly post photos of YOU and your location / run so that we and everyone can visualize you and your runs.
  • We encourage you to wear a Heart Rate Monitor belt and therefore include your heart rate data with each of your Strava activities. This is NOT mandatory but it is highly recommended, especially if you will be at or near the top of the leaderboard. (We want all participants to be as transparent as possible so that everyone has full confidence in the race results.)
• We encourage you to post pix of your Badwater 267 VR Elite race to social media with the hashtag #Badwater267VRelite

TIME CUT-OFFS AND TIME LIMITS

• You must complete 267 miles within a total combined elapsed time of 90 hours or less.
• There is no credit for going over 267 miles. In fact, do not try to log any mileage beyond exactly 267.

AWARDS, COMMEMORATIVE ITEMS, and PERKS

• Certified finishers will receive the coveted BADWATER 267 VR ELITE Belt Buckle. This and the other commemorative items will be shipped to competitors AFTER the BADWATER 267 VR ELITE is completed and finishing performances and times have been certified. (Those who do not complete the 267 miles within the guidelines will still receive the other commemorative items, but will not receive the coveted BADWATER 267 VR ELITE belt buckle.)
• Unless you opt out of receiving them, your commemorative items will include a BADWATER 267 VR ELITE tech shirt, BADWATER buff, BADWATER sunglasses, plus the buckle. (NOTE: When you register, there will be an option for “no swag” if you do not want to receive any award items in the mail.)
• These items will be shipped approximately 45 days after the BADWATER 267 VR ELITE concludes.
• Certified finishers will have their name, basic biographical info and social media links, and BADWATER 267 VR ELITE results posted to the Official Badwater Results Website – alongside other Badwater “real world” events – at dbase.adventurecorps.com

RUNSIGNUP MAP AND LEADER BOARD / GETTING IT DONE

This event will be hosted at RunSignUp.com, the online leaders in tracking virtual events.

Although you will be virtually traversing the Badwater Cape Fear 51-mile race course, Badwater Salton Sea 81-mile race course, and then the 135-mile Badwater 135 race course, the map for this event will show a route from the outskirts of Las Vegas to Badwater Basin to Whitney Portal, a total of 267 miles. (The website only allows one map, not three different maps.) Your visual progress – and that of the other participants – will be shown on that map. Remember that the map is a visual aid, and for fun; the real tracking is via Strava and the RunSignUp leaderboard.

As you progress along the route, you will receive virtual “trophies” to celebrate your progress along the Badwater 267 VR route. Besides cool trophy graphics, this will include links to stories, photos, and videos of the three real-world Badwater events, inspiring stories from the wide world of Badwater, and more to encourage you to keep moving ever forward towards your finish line at Whitney Portal.

The RunSignUp site also allows you to generate a custom digital bib and custom digital finisher’s certificate, both suitable for printing and framing. (We will not send actual bibs or certificates in the mail.) We encourage you to use the digital bib as your profile pic on social media during the BADWATER 267 VR ELITE and we also encourage you to post pix of your BADWATER 267 VR ELITE experience to social media with the hashtag #Badwater267Elite.

The heart of the event is the serious real world challenge of covering two hundred and sixty-seven miles in just 16 days, in 90 hour or less, between April 5 and 20 (this allows three weekends.)

There is no doubt, a daily average of 16.7 miles will be very tough to keep up, even more so when you take a rest day or “life gets in the way” of completing your miles.

You may run any number of miles on any or all of the 16 days, and you may log more than one separate run per day. You may use any strategy to cover the distance as quickly and efficiently as possible, as long as you only run outdoors and you track every mile on Strava and within RunSignUp. (It will be interesting to see – and discuss – each runner’s strategy for throwing down their best possible time. For example, might it actually be fastest to run four miles, four times per day, to finish with the lowest cumulative time?) This is not a traditional ultra – Badwater events are NEVER a traditional ultra – it’s the BADWATER 267 VR ELITE, the world’s toughest virtual race and an entirely new and exciting BADWATER competition!

CAN YOU DO IT?

WILL YOU DO IT?

WILL YOU EARN THE BADWATER 267 VR ELITE BELT BUCKLE?

Keep in mind: Ultras are “won” one mile at a time: keep focused, so break this overwhelming goal into manageable pieces, and keep moving forward, ever forward towards that finish line at Whitney Portal! Along the way, be sure to enjoy the race routes virtually along with the competition and camaraderies of your fellow members of the Badwater Family!

RESULTS (Who are the Winners?)

This event is, effectively, a 16-day stage race. The winners are the male and female runners who cover 267 miles with the lowest cumulative time at the conclusion.  Blasting through the 267 miles early in the event means you will likely be the hare passed by the tortoise, in fact many “tortoises.” Keep that in mind if you are here to compete.  This underlines the fact that logging your ELAPSED (not moving) time for each run every day is the only fair way to participate. (And also explains why you must not log any more miles once you reach mile 267.)  Choose whatever strategy you want to compete, but we won’t know our winners – and overall standings – until the conclusion. At that point, the lowest cumulative time wins, just like a stage race.