Badwater® 267 VR
Thirty-One Day Event Requirements and Perks
Every Badwater race features a challenging route with all its literal and psychological ups and down, a definite 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 is intrinsic to the Badwater 267 VR experience! Here are the guidelines and the perks which are unique to THIS virtual challenge:
GUIDELINES
• Running division: You must complete all 267 miles on foot: only running, walking, hiking, and snowshoeing are allowed and you may accomplish your miles anywhere, including on a treadmill, elliptical, or stair-stepper, or on an indoor track, alone or with others, or even during a “real world” running event.
• Cycling division: You must bike all the miles, whether outdoors, indoors, or both. (For logging and covering the 267-mile course, 4 miles outdoor cycling = 1 mile running. If you are riding indoors, please make it realistic.)
• Swimming division: you must swim all the miles, either in open water or a pool. (For logging and covering the 267-mile course, 1 mile swimming = 2 miles running.)
• Multi-Sport division: You may swim, bike, run, XC ski, or paddle, logging your miles according to the formulas for each sport. (Cross-country skiing and paddling sports are logged one-for-one.) Activities may be done indoors and/or outdoors. For prone paddling -i.e. no paddle – this is considered equivalent to swimming and counts 2 miles for each 1 mile paddled.
See more information about the various non-running categories on the “Other Sports!” Tab.
TRACKING YOU / TRACKING THE COMPETITION
- Every day that you participate, you must manually log your miles, elapsed time, and elevation gain on your RunSignUp page for this event. Please keep up-to-date with this!
- We highly encourage you to track your miles with Strava or similar, but it is not mandatory.
- We highly encourage you to join our private Strava group, but it is not mandatory. (But this is where the camaraderie happens!)
- We encourage you to post pix of your Badwater 267 VR to social media with the hashtag #Badwater267VR
COMMEMORATIVE ITEMS and PERKS
- Unless you opt out of receiving them, you will receive a BADWATER tech shirt, BADWATER buff, BADWATER sunglasses, and more in a custom BADWATER box. (NOTE: When you register, there will be an option for “no swag” if you do not want to receive any items in the mail.)
- Participants who complete the full 267 miles – AND LOG THEM on our RunSignUp -page – will also receive a BADWATER 267 VR Medal, unless they chose the “no swag” option while registering.
- These items will be shipped approximately 45 days after BADWATER 267 VR concludes.
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.
As you progress along the route, you will receive virtual “Milestones” to celebrate your progress along the Badwater 267 VR route. Besides cool graphics, this will include links to videos and image galleries of the various 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 and we also encourage you to post pix of your Badwater 267 VR to social media with the hashtag #Badwater267VR.
The heart of the event is the serious real world challenge of covering two hundred and sixty-seven miles (430km) in just 31 days.
CAN YOU DO IT?
WILL YOU DO IT?
WILL YOU BECOME A BADWATER 267 VR FINISHER?
There is no doubt, a daily average of 8.6 miles (13.9km) 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 31 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 cover your miles on foot and you log your miles on RunSignUp. This is not a traditional ultra – Badwater events are NEVER a traditional ultra – it’s the BADWATER 267 VR – an entirely new and exciting BADWATER competition – and it’s AS REAL AS YOU WANT TO MAKE IT!
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
This event is, effectively, a stage race. The “winners” are the male and female athletes who cover 267 miles with the lowest cumulative time as of the end of January. Blasting through the 267 miles early in January 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 February 1. At that point, the lowest cumulative time wins, just like a stage race.
