Headlines from the past is a recurring feature looking back at stories we've covered over the past 40+ years.
There’s runs, and then there’s the adventure Mike Sessions had planned for the summer of 2005.
The 40-year-old runner from Port Moody was preparing to participate in the Badwater Ultramarathon, a 135-mile trek across California’s Death Valley desert in mid-July.
The three-day race is no jaunt through the park.
Temperatures can approach 130°F. The course dips 280 feet below sea level, then rises more than 13,000 feet as participants clamber over three mountain ranges.
The race finishes on the peak of Mt. Whitney at 8,300 feet above sea level.
Sessions was one of 90 competitors brave — or foolhardy — enough to sign on for the challenge. He told the Tri-City News it would be “the most demanding and extreme running race offered anywhere on the planet.”
To increase his odds of finishing — or even surviving — Sessions assembled a six-group support team who would monitor his status at all times and keep him supplied with food, liquids and equipment.
The latter includes the five to nine pairs of shoes Session figured he’d wear out through the run, as well as duck tape to wrap around his feet should blisters occur.
Sessions just started ultra marathoning in 2000. But he’d already completed more than 30 events, including the annual Diez Vista race on trails around Buntzen Lake.
He said the challenges of the sport are a far cry from his high school days when he used to regularly get a note to excuse his participation from gym class.
“I liked math better,” Sessions said.
The Tri-City News has covered civic affairs, local crime, festivals, events, personalities, sports and arts in Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody since 1983. Bound back issues of the paper are available at the Coquitlam Archives, while digital versions of several past years can be found at issuu.com.
