Pam Reed: "I Felt Like I Could Run Forever"

Just before 10 a.m. on July 24, Pam Reed crossed the finish line of the Badwater Ultra-Marathon and began to cry. She had been running for 27 hours 56 minutes, and when she was done, she led the field by more than five hours. It made Lance Armstrong's ride through the Alps come off as a Tour de Breeze.

Reed thought of the other 61 runners still on the course, who wouldn't finish until midafternoon when temperatures in Death Valley, Calif., would exceed 120 degrees.

"I hate crying, but I couldn't stop," Reed said. "I was so overwhelmed by what I had done. And I kept thinking about those poor people; it was so hot, it was scary. Some of them had the bottoms of their shoes melt."

Pam Reed is 41, a Tucson mother of three and stepmom of two who is 5 feet 4 inches, maybe 105 pounds, and about as fragile as a sumo wrestler. In April, she ran the Boston Marathon in 3 hours 30 minutes, and then, without stopping, turned around and ran it the other way in 3:36. But it was 60 degrees in Boston that day. When she ran through Death Valley last week - passing through the most uninhabitable hellhole in this country, through Stovepipe, Furnace Creek and Badwater basin, where, at 282 feet below sea level, the overnight low is often 100 - it frightened her.

"I knew I could run 135 miles," she said. "But Death Valley? In July? It was unlike anything I had ever done."

Reed did not stop. She did not get sleepy. She did not consider quitting. She did not run for fun. She intended to win - and she did.

"My goal was to beat 30 hours," she said. "I blew that away. I felt like I could run forever."

The Badwater Ultra-Marathon has been part of the American Ultra- Running Association's race calender for about two decades. At first, it was a dangerous publicity stunt, no more sane than snake-hunting or cliff-jumping. But the race endured, growing from a handful of male daredevils to this year's robust field of 71.

Reed was the only female.

She took a crew of Tucson friends with her to Death Valley, including distance runner Suzy Bacal, who followed closely in a car with medical equipment and supplies. For 27 hours, Reed consumed more than 30 cans of vitamin-rich sports liquids, constantly chewed ice and, with the exception of a half peanut butter sandwich, declined to eat.

"I ran aside Pam for three hours during the heat of the day and I was pretty wasted," said Bacal. "I almost heat-stroked out when I got back in the car. And that was after three hours. Pam ran for more than 27 hours."

You ask: Why does Pam Reed ... why does anyone ... do this? She did not win a cent for her victory. She has since been interviewed by reporters from Sports Illustrated, Runners World, and the Los Angeles Times, but the payoff is neither publicity nor money.

"I just do this for me; I do this for my sanity," she said with a laugh.

Sanity? Running when it's 123 degrees outside?

"My husband, Jim, and I (a Tucson CPA) have five kids at home, between the ages of 7 and 17. Running allows me to get away and focus on other things. I don't find it exhausting, I find it exhilarating."

Those who know Pam Reed - she has worked as an aerobics instructor in Tucson, and as a fitness director at the Jewish Community Center - do not find this run-through-hell much of a surprise.

In 1988, she ran the 111-mile El Tour de Tucson cycling course a day before the race, and then hopped on a bike and rode it on race day. In 1996, she ran the Bisbee-to-Sierra Vista Mule Marathon, roughly 50 miles, on a Saturday. By Monday, she was at the Boston Marathon.

She plans to run the 100-mile Leadville (Colo.) Ultra-Marathon later this month, at an average elevation of 10,000 feet, and tune up for that by running the Wasatch 100, Utah's longest road race, next week.

Not bad for a former Michigan high school tennis player who stayed in shape by jogging three miles ("it seemed ridiculously long to me then," she said) and evolved into a distance runner when she moved to Tucson in the 1980s.

"She's like Forrest Gump," Bacal said admiringly. "She just keeps going, one step after another. She's a hero."

When Reed and her crew left Death Valley last week, she vowed never to return to Badwater. How many times does one need to climb Everest? But on Thursday, in the mountain air of her family's vacation home in Jackson, Wyo., she softened.

"When I crossed the finish line that day, I said, 'That's it. I'll never do that again.' But now I don't know. I might. It wasn't really that bad."