Customer Reviews

To the Edge: A Man, Death Valley, and the Mystery of Endurance

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

As Johnson passes a fellow Badwater runner near the end of the race, he writes: "I thanked him and wished him luck, and felt a pang of guilt for how damn good it had felt. And still the road ahead beckoned." Similarly as Johnson climbs toward the Mt Whitney Portal at the end of the race, with tears streaming down his face, he summarizes his emotional feelings about the death of his brother in the powerfully terse language of an ultramarathoner: "I'm alive. I go on."

Johnson's well written book creatively uses the challenge of the Badwater race as a model for the journey we make through life. There is no sound-bite exclaimation of "I solved the mystery of endurance and it is...", or "The best way to run an ultramarathon (and your life) is ...". Instead, Johnson shows us his journey with remarkably clear, honest and insightful writing. Far from being a model athlete, Johnson is an ordinary person in the midst of extraordinary struggles who uses determination, planning and instinct to find a path, his path.

I found myself laughing out loud many times and my eyes welling up with tears in other sections of the book. The moments of self-doubt when he finds himself struggling to speak to his hero were hilarious; the frogs and Bach were pure comedy genius, and the deep dive into a semi-hallucinatory second night on the road were frightening. As a runner I marveled at his determination and the magnitude of his feat. But I'm certain non-runners will respect and admire the honesty he uses to describe the sometimes conflicting emotions and experiences he and his support crew have during the race. This is not a training manual for running long distances, but rather an engaging story about one man dealing with the death of a brother and searching for ways to unite and celebrate with the most important people in his life - his family.

As a writer for the Times, Johnson was instructed to do his research, then return to the office and forget everything about being polite or rude, careful or exclamatory, and to report the truth. He succeeds brilliantly at that task with this book.

As I read through Kirk Johnson's account of his journey and motivation and inner search that made up his Badwater ultramarathon experience, I was pulled into his writing the same way long-distance running seduced me as a young man. He captured the euphoria, isolation, drive and the heart and essence of endurance running in a way I haven't seen done. He was lyrical and poetic in his descriptions of the epic battle of man against himself. I would recommend the book to any runner or to anyone who wonders why we run. The only criticism I have are the few moments in the book where Johnson seems to repeat emotions he is feeling that he already has delved into. But the power of the book is evident in that Johnson's gripping tale has created in me a runner who longs to tempt Badwater and Death Valley. Well-done book.

I want to first say that I'm not a runner. I happened upon this book one day when I was at a book store looking for information on Death Valley for a trip in June (one I just got back from). The cover of the book intrigued me but decided not to buy it. I later on ended up ordering it through Amazon. Other bookstores close by had this book sold out!
I couldn't put this book down. I was Kirk Johnson for the time I was reading the book and found myself reliving details of Kirk's run while I was at Death Valley. I kept asking people there at Death Valley if they've seen the Badwater race - I guess anyway I can keep living Kirk's experiences. I can tell you I will never see tomato juice the same way again! IT taste the best out there! I jumped on ANYONE that said the Badwater race was about "crazy" runners and their pride - which I knew isn't at all the case. My companion and I (who knew parts of Kirk's experience from what I've read aloud to him) even brought along La Boheme. Perfect!

So you can see that the title of my comment is really in response to those who commented negatively on this book. I find it hard to believe that there are those out there that could find this book "shallow", "repetitive". "poorly written", and "Irritating". I respect their opinion but it is clear to me that those who has this opinion of this book has obviously not received the message of the book. Just from the cover, you can tell that the book was little about running but more about the people that run - their mentalities, the way they see life (I still laugh when I think of what Kirk said about driving fast enough or how the more he ran, the slower he gets) and their search for endurance. If you want to read a book about how to run, this is not the book for you. However, if you want to know why you run, then maybe you'll get this very touching, very well written, and very unforgetable book.

I think my Death Valley trip was even closer to my heart because the book showed me that I needed to respect the desert and respecting it allowed me to see the magic that only the desert can give.

Thanks Kirk and to the badwater runners. You make me want to run for my life.

This is a very inspirational tale, for anyone who wishes to do something major with their life. It doesn't have to be running, as the theme is conquering your inner self.

Unfortunately, this book is 287 pages long, with the race beginning at page 165. Johnson has an interesting writing prose, as he goes over the most minute details of all his interactions with his family and running legends of the infamous 135-mile "Badwater Race".

But you will find yourself screaming at him - "enough already - get to the running !!!". I was so relieved when the race finally began, only to find that he inserts huge chunks of meaningless nonsense throughout the rest of the book. The last 122 pages feature 20% running, and 80% of the same self-introspection, silly comments about tomato soup over and over, his relationships, the history of Badwater, etc.

That 20% of writing devoted to the race and running made it worth slogging through, but somebody needs to rerun that race, and write a book solely about that race . . . step-by-step . . . the pain, the duration, the tricks, the opponents, the joy, and most important . . . the change in your soul.

There's a great story here but the author can't quite decide how he wants to tell it. He is both a reporter and a participant in the race and the book is split between these two points of view. The books tells the story of how the author went from novice runner to running the Badwater ultramarathon in a mere two years. He first heard about Badwater while doing an article for the NY Times, and soon found himself in the grip of the idea of doing the race himself. But he also believed he was crazy for trying something so difficult so soon and he reminds us of this over and over.

His lack of experience and insecurities take up too much of the book. He goes over the same territory many times, with lines like "And I almost immediately lost my ability to even be a reporter in researching the race. I was overwhelmed, so frightened and insecure by what I'd embarked upon that I couldn't even pretend to be an objective observer." Because of these insecurities, the books fails as an objective account by a reporter. He has the names and phone numbers of all the entrants and he knows he should call all of them. But he's afraid to call most of them, especially the ones that are legends in the ultramarathoning world. He thinks he has no business entering the race, and is afraid the other racers will refuse to talk to him, maybe even laugh at him. It was hard to understand how someone who has been a reporter for 17 years would not be able to make these phone calls, and the constant agonizing over it was excruciating to read. When he does finally call some of them and flies out to visit two of them, he doesn't seem real interested in them and doesn't have much to say about them. This chapter was so flat I wondered why he even bothered to include it.

When he writes about his personal story, the book is only slightly more successful. On the one hand, he seems to be a serious person searching for something, trying to get through grief, wanting to find some big answers, he has chapter titles like "The Paradoxical Heart." But on the other hand, his writing style is light and breezy. The book ultimately felt like alot of fluff to me. He doesn't quite have the writing skills to convey things like why he needed to do this race, what it was like preparing for it with so little time, what he discovered about himself in the process. I felt him struggling to explain things in this book that he just wasn't able to explain. He clearly wanted to understand, and communicate, things like the mystery of endurance, and the mystery of his own motivation, but he was never able to communicate any of those things to me.

Even with all these reservations, I'm glad I read the book. It's a fast read, and there is a great story at the core in spite of the shortcomings. He does a good job of describing the race itself (the last third of the book), especially the second night when things become surreal. I read almost every book I can that has anything to do with adventure, endurance, and exploration and I'm glad to have this book in my collection.

This book inspired me so much that I underlined passages of it and insisted that my crew members read them to me as I ran Badwater myself in 2002. Kirk Johnson's wit and honesty provided a delightfully endearing account of the highs and lows of Badwater training, suffering and finishing. Although I personally believe that words alone will never suffice in explaining why we do what we do, Johnson's attempt to unlock the mystery is as close as anyone will ever get.

I will preface this review by saying that I spent ten long years running ultras.
I have friends who've run Badwater. I've been invited to crew for friends at Badwater. I would sooner have sharp needles poked through my eyes than pay money to run for 135 miles along the side of a road in the middle of July. With this disclaimer out of the way, let's dive in.

The Badwater 135 is a mutation of one man's original idea, which then morphed into a publicity stunt for the Hi-Tec Shoe Company, who then lost interest and it passed into the hands of Chris Kostman, a sports promoter. This coincided neatly with the explosion of "extreme" sports programming that the bottomless appetite of cable helped stimulate. All of this eventually came to the attention of Mr Johnson, who felt it had something to offer him in the way of redemption or achievement.

This book really belongs in the category of "Baby's First Experiences". It covers all the emotional terrain familiar to First-timers; like first dates, marriages and divorces. But it's about Running. So, to readers unfamiliar with running further than a 10k or a marathon, this book is for you. If you have a yearning to vicariously experience the Badwater 135, step right up. If you want to remind yourself why you run trails in a wilderness, this is essential.

Johnson's credentials as a New York Times reporter are on vacation in this book. It is a mystery to me as to how a reporter, in 1999, could type in "ultramarathons" into an internet search engine and come up with...nothing.

The famed Western States 100 was already 23 years old, had been seen on ABC and so on. There were at least 15 100-mile races being run in the US alone. Not a whisper of that here. The UltraMarathon_List (out of Dartmouth College) had been up and running for over five years, and had been a popular posting site for anything relating to ultras. And finally, Ultrarunning Magazine had been the veritable Bible of the sport since 1978...you get the point.

Moving away from this type of laziness we are on more familiar ground, the narrative where "The New Guy Does OK". This is a scenario Americans are fond of--God forbid that anyone would actually do their homework and train with any sense of responsibility before undertaking something like this. I doubt that people look for these qualities in eye surgeons and auto mechanics.

The credit in the book lies in the relatively accurate portraits of some of the participants--mainly Ben and Denise Jones, and Major Carl Maples. It is also accurate in its description of the heat.

There is relatively little hard information on what a Badwater effort takes. By contrast, Will Steiger's "North to the Pole" had detailed appendices of everything they ate, carried, wore, abandoned and so forth at the end of the book. It bolstered the sense of credibility and achievement.

Whether or not it's worth trudging through is up to you. Johnson accomplished what he set out to do. The ratio of content-to-filler made me wish that he had written a tight and dense 100pp book in the manner of Wilfred Thesiger.

It was so fabulous to read this highly enjoyable chronicle of Kirk Johnsons journey from nonrunner, basically, to ultrarunner and badwater finisher. Amazing. As an avid runner and ultrarunner, it was refreshing to see the sport from his eyes. Ihad first learned of him in the documentary on the Badwater 135,Running on the Sun. this book chronicles how he first learned about the race, his trianing and time leading up to the race, and the race itself. It was a great book. I recommend it to runners and nonrunners alike.

The author knows how to pick a subject to write about - ultramarathon, which is by itself a mysterious event. And he took time to outline every aspects of the ins and outs of this sport - people, environment, self struggle ... i recommend it.

As a veteran of over a dozen 100 mile trail runs myself, I can say that this wonderfully written book was truly the best book on the sport of ultrarunning I have ever read. Among a lot of things, it came closest to answering the most often question that is asked about ultrarunning: "Why would one ever run one of these things?" Beyond that, it went to the core of the rewards of self-understanding that one can obtain by pushing one's self the edge of emotional, psychological, and physiological exhaustion. It's a wonderful story about the importance to look at life from a perspective of things that really matter that, as it turns out, are the simple things all around us all the time. Best book I have read in awhile that stays in your thoughts for a long time after the book is done. Trust me, read it, and then sign up for Badwater or the Hardrock 100 to find your soul and spirit too. This is a great book!