What It Takes to Crew the Hardest Race on Earth

Just past midnight somewhere along the long road between Darwin and Lone Pine, California, driving a car littered with Cheez-It boxes, baby wipes, and crushed cans of energy drinks and coffee, Andrew Boyd tried to decide if he should tell Kaylee Frederick something important. As the crew chief of Frederick’s third consecutive Badwater 135 run, Boyd was the keeper of the pace secrets. Not even Frederick knew whether she was on pace to achieve her goal of besting the 20 to 29 female age group record of 32 hours and 31 minutes. She had spent the previous day listening to Boyd’s encouragement, and now, in the darkness outside of Death Valley, she was just hours away from breaking 32. She would need, however, to dig deep—to run most of the way up Mount Whitney’s Portal Road. The margins were too close; she didn’t have time to take a break or a quick nap. Every step, truly, had to count.