Somerandomguy wrote:
Well how good would it be if Deano, arguably the face of Badwater and the reason it is so well known, was disqualified for cheating. It would be a huge hit to his reputation and the race's reputation. If you've never spent any time around the RD, you will know that if you speak any ill or unkind words about his race that you are basically ostracized. You better 100% kiss his butt. Thanks to Dean and his book, the RD has been able to raise the entry fees of Badwater to huge levels, allow more people in and start an entire "series" of Badwater races. The guy loves the attention of the race and the media and has used it to his financial gain.
I know the guy who saw (along with his crew) Deano cheat last year and lets just say that Deano unleashed his wrath on him, to the point of removing it from his blog. Think he'll ever get into Badwater again? Given that the RD is the "race committee" and Dean is a huge name, I'm going to say hell no.
A few years back, a guy who has done both Badwater and finished Barkley said there was no question that Barkley was much, much tougher and caught flack by a lot of the BW vets and fans for saying it.
I can make a few guesses as to who you are. :) I've started Badwater (DNF at mile 40, as I had mono, unaware I was racing with it, of course, and was throwing up at mile 3) and have crewed it 3 times, so I know the race well. AdventureCorps has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way at this point. The guy who saw Dean cheat didn't apply this year, as he was equally miffed by Kostman's reaction to the Dean incident as everyone else that knew about it. I won't name him because he may stand something to lose if he wants to run it again, and he's a friend of mine, so I don't want to dick him over. I have no interest in running AdventureCorps' Badwater race in the future, so I don't care if my name is out there, hence me posting under my own name. Now, the other guy you're talking about is Nick Hollon, no? Badwater is certainly not the toughest race out there. Nick is absolutely correct and has done several significantly harder races (Barkley, Tor des Geants 200, etc). Especially on this new course, Badwater is far from the "World's Toughest" that they claim. My understanding of the situation with Nick is that Kostman claimed to admit Nick last year to avoid bad publicity (Nick is, after all, the youngest guy to have done it), but then never sent Nick his acceptance email. Nick said he was rejected by email when I asked him and Kostman just made it sound like one big mistake, when he was likely just trying to get back at Nick for not sucking up to him.
One other thing that caused me to lose respect for Badwater is their endless worship of Al Arnold, who is literally insane. They post articles by Al every year that are full of lies that have the potential to kill competitors. For example, they published heat training advice from Al claiming the benefit, or even necessity, of being able to spend 45 minutes in a sauna at 240 degrees. A couple years ago, the sauna world championships had a final round at 230. The top 2 guys lasted 5 minutes. One died and the other (by default, the winner), had such severe burns that he was in a coma for a month. If any competitor attempted Al's supposed training methodology, they would die, and yet Badwater insists on publishing this to make their race and its required training sound more impressive.
I feel that I have some personal unfinished business at Badwater, so I may go back some number of years down the line and attempt it again when I stop improving at the marathon, but I'll do it as a solo effort. Chris Kostman bankrolls 50% of his personal salary off this race, and a massive percentage of what he does, by his own personal admission, is publicity for the event. In other words, he pays himself from the 100,000 / year in entry fees (plus other related income) to publicize his event so that he can charge even more exorbitant entry fees and make even more money. It's nothing more than a sham, and people need to know that he is personally responsible for covering up Dean Karnazes's cheating at the event.
At this point, the race is dead. The new course is entirely pointless. The whole point was Badwater to Whitney. Without that, Badwater should not exist. At this point, it should be obvious that the only goal is profit.
