Dean Karnazes Photo courtesy of Dean Karnazes

Music: Indie rock

Favorite Food: Anything Greek (reminds me of home)

Recent Achievement: Ran 262 miles non-stop

Favorite Book: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (I just read it to my son.)

Biggest Fear: Sleeping in

About Dean
More than just an accomplished ultra-endurance runner, Dean is a passionate adventure athlete who is as comfortable windsurfing the massive breaks of Northern California as he is running 100 miles through the mountains. This nationally recognized windsurfer and runner is also a competitive snowboarder, mountain biker, surfer and triathlete. His body-pounding feats include running 262 miles nonstop in 76 hours, mountain biking for 24-hours straight, swimming across the San Francisco Bay, running across Death Valley in the middle of summer, running a marathon to the South Pole and winning the Badwater Ultramarathon: The World's Toughest Footrace. Dean has been featured in numerous magazines and newspapers, as well as on TV and radio. He graced the cover of the January 2004 issue of Outside magazine, in which he was referred to as the "quintessential ultramarathoner."

As someone who loves the outdoors, Dean is committed to environmental preservation and restoration and is active in both the Sierra Club and Surfrider Foundation. Through his running he has raised thousands of dollars for charity and is committed to bettering the world "one mile at a time."

Dean lives and trains in the San Francisco Bay Area. He holds dual graduate degrees in science and business, is actively involved in the development of the North Face's running footwear and outdoor apparel and frequently speaks and writes on the topic of health and outdoor sports. Look for Dean's upcoming memoir, Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner (Tarcher), in early 2005.

Mark Synnott Talks with Dean Karnazes
March 2002

North Face athlete Mark Synnott uses his unique perspective to get to know the rest of our athlete team—who they are, what inspires them, and what lies ahead.

Dean Karnazes, a 36-year-old San Francisco-based athlete, has lost count of the number of miles he has run, though he estimates that in his life he has worn out 2,500 pairs of running shoes on the roads and trails. A veteran and often-times winner of scores of long distance mountain races like the Western States 100, and an endurance runner who has tackled grueling backwoods ordeals like a speed run of the John Muir Trail through the Sierras, Dean has blended adventure and survival skills with running in a mountain environment. Dean came to The North Face as a runner, rather than a mountaineer or skier, but after hearing about his feats on foot I came to the conclusion that his sport contains many of the same disciplines as alpinism. Wilderness distance running is a relatively new game with few participants and with many new horizons to explore. Dean is truly at the forefront of this sport; he maintains his rigorous schedule of events and training while being a married man with two young children and holding down a professional career. He had just returned from a photo shoot for the North Face footwear, near Bishop, California when I spoke to him.

Mark: What do you call the type of running that you do?

Dean: Extreme trail running—but there's not really a name for it. I've been doing it for about eight years, but I've been running since I was a kid.

Mark: This is a sport that not a great many people do, right?

Dean: Yes. It's a combination of hiking and running—with ultra distances.

Mark: Were you a runner in school?

Dean: Yes. I did cross-country and track.

Mark: What got you interested in heading into more remote country?

Dean: There's an event that's called the Western States 100. It's a one hundred mile wilderness run. It's from Squaw Valley, California to Auburn, California. I learned about this race after I did my first trail marathon in the Sierras—a 23-mile race. That marathon really piqued my interest in mountain running, and I entered the Western States 100.

Mark: What was your time in that first Western States 100?

Dean: I did it in 21 hours. It's an invitational event. There's a field of 450 runners from around the world; about 20 countries are represented. I came in 15th.

Mark: Have you ever won one of those?

Dean: I've won a couple of them.

Mark: Do you do those races every year?

Dean: Well, my claim to fame is that I did four of those types of races in one summer. The Western States 100 is the best-known race but there are others of 100 miles or more. So that summer I started with the Western States then I did the Badwater—a 146-mile race that starts at the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere, which is Badwater, in Death Valley. The elevation there is 243 feet below sea level and it finishes at the top of Mt. Whitney, which is the highest point in the lower 48 states (USA). The third race was the Wasatch 100 in Utah. The fourth one was a 200-mile race called the Napa to Santa Cruz Relay in the Bay Area. Normally it is a 12-person relay team, but I did it solo.

"I got caught in a lightning storm on Forester Pass. The storm blew in and I had to shelter under a rock for three hours until it passed. It was so scary. It was pouring rain, lightening everywhere, really loud thunder; my hair was standing up on end from the static."

Mark: How many race miles in total is all that?

Dean: 550 miles.

Mark: How did your legs feel after all that?

Dean: Tired!

Mark: I can only imagine what kind of meals you were eating.

Dean: Oh, I ate constantly.

Mark: On a 200 mile race, how can you stay hydrated and caloried-up enough to keep going?

Dean: It depends. A lot of races have aid stations along the way, or the trail will pop out in a little town and you can get supplies there. But, when I did a run on the John Muir Trail, which is totally remote, I had people hike in at different areas with fresh supplies.

Mark: Topher Gaylord from the North Face was crewing for you on that run, wasn't he? I remember hearing that that was quite an adventure for you.

Dean: Yeah, that was two years ago. That run didn't work out to be successful, though. I got caught in a lightning storm on Forester Pass. The storm blew in and I had to shelter under a rock for three hours until it passed. It was so scary. It was pouring rain, lightening everywhere, really loud thunder; my hair was standing up on end from the static.

Mark: That sounds more like a form of mountaineering than running to me.

Dean: It is, in a sense. It's like fast-packing.

Mark: Had the John Muir trail been run continuously before?

Dean: Yes. I was trying to break the existing record of four consecutive days. I want to try and break that record next summer. I would like to do it in less than four days.

Mark: So what do you carry with you when you do something like that?

Dean: On the Muir Trail run the North Face had made a custom pack that was specially designed to be very light, form fitting, and carry about 15 to 20 pounds. I carried water purification bottles so I could fetch water out of streams. I had to purify it from Giardia.

Mark: So I suppose you had a few energy bars in this pack?

Dean: Ha. Ha. I had about 20. Actually I was eating Balance Bars and I had two roast beef sandwiches in there, as well as fruit and nuts. My pack was stuffed.

Mark: I bet you ate every bit of it too.

Dean: Oh, I was so hungry.

Mark: I bet you licked the inside of the pack out to get the last crumbs! And I'd bet you would take twice as much food if you could carry it.

Dean: I would if I could carry it. The problem is you can't run with much weight on your back.

Mark: What kind of clothing did you take?

Dean: That's an interesting question. The temperature ranged. Daytime highs were in the mid-90s, but then you'd get up to a summit and it would be in the 40s. I ran in shorts whenever I could, but I had Gore-Tex pants and a down Nuptse jacket, which I used to bivouac in.

Mark: That sounds like an alpine style climb.

Dean: Does it?

Mark: Yeah. Because the stuff you take for a fast ascent of a mountain, except for the climbing gear, which you didn't need, is similar. On alpine style climbs you rely on what you are wearing and little else. So what's the John Muir trail like?

Dean: The trail is fairly well defined. But there's snow in the High Sierras all year, and on the north sides of the passes I found a lot of snow covering the trail, which made route finding pretty hard.

Mark: Did you get lost at all?

Dean: I got lost quite a bit. The other thing is the problems with traveling at night. There's a lot of water in the Sierras and you are constantly crossing rivers; when you cross a river at night you often can't find where the trail begins on the other side.

Mark: So you are traveling by headlamp.

Dean: I use a headlamp and a hand-held light. When you're running and you are wearing a headlamp and you hear a noise off to the side and you turn your head, you'll quickly lose the trail. The hand-held keeps you focused on the trail.

Mark: What sort of headlamp do you use?

Dean: A very small Petzl that runs on two AA batteries and my handheld is a Mini Q 40.

Mark: This is starting to sound like a fair amount of weight.

Dean: Yes, you are constantly trying to minimize—to go as light as you can. I was carrying about 20 pounds.

Mark: Once again, this really reminds me of packing for an alpine-style climb.

Dean: The one time I did go climbing with Topher we ran in to Half Dome in Yosemite, climbed Snake Dyke (5.7), then ran back out. And aside from the rope and rack it was a similar kind of load.

Mark: Well, in Europe alpinism and running in the mountains are frequently mixed together.

Dean: Yes, this is pretty popular in Europe. There are races that go up and down non-technical mountains and that link a number of summits and passes.

Mark: Could you see mountain running ever becoming an Olympic event? Because I hear that the triathlon will be an Olympic demonstration event in Sydney in 2000. Do you ever do triathlons?

Dean: Yes. In fact, they have off road triathlons now, which involve swimming, trail running and mountain biking. Next month I'm going to Oregon to the Outdoor World Championships. It's like the decathlon of outdoor sports. It includes triathlon, wind surfing, snowboarding, kayaking, and a 24-hour mountain bike race. You do each event and they total your scores for each event. The highest scorer is the winner. It's over a period of several days.

Mark: I'm glad to hear you get a chance to rest between events. Otherwise you'd probably be dead. How many hours a week do you train?

Dean: About 15 to 20 hours a week.

Mark: And you also hold down a regular job, right?

Dean: Yes. I work for Healtheon. I'm the executive director of their program in San Francisco. That entails overseeing their business to business portal and their consumer portal, which means I work on their web content.

Mark: What do your fellow employees think of what you do in your spare time?

Dean: They think I'm crazy.

Mark: Well, imagine what they would think if you were a climber.

Dean: Oh yeah. Everyone thinks climbers are crazy. At least with running everybody at some point has at least run a mile. But when you say you plan to run a 100-mile race, that's when they think you are crazy!

Mark: Between work and training, how many minutes a week do you allocate for your family life?

Dean: I don't get much sleep; I'll put it that way.

Mark: Have you ever had any injuries from your running?

Dean: My knees are fine. I'm holding tight.

Mark: I know you went on an exploratory running trip sponsored by the North Face to the deserts of Namibia. Tell me about that.

Dean: Western Africa is incredible. We were running through sand dunes and spires of sand that were 2000 feet tall. They had really defined ridgelines just like a mountain—but they were sand.

Mark: Have you ever heard of an Australian runner named Peter Treseder?

Dean: That name is familiar.

Mark: He does similar things in Australia that you do here. He'll run huge tracts of wilderness or do speed sea kayak journeys. And like you, he'll run through the night. I remember doing a backpack trip that took me a week and later heard that he ran it in 24 hours. He has also done a fast trip to the South Pole. He told me a story once about running through the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia—when he was racing through the bush he stepped on a snake. He was wearing long pants to protect his legs from the thorny scrub and the snake panicked and slid up his pant leg. He couldn't get the snake out and it ended up in his underwear and bit him in a place we best not mention. Luckily it was a harmless snake. He just had to keep going. Has anything like that ever happened to you?

Mark: Now on another subject, I've seen runners and triathaletes lubricate themselves with Vaseline to prevent chafing. Do you do that?

Dean: Yes. Any place there could be chafing, there will be chafing. So you rub Vaseline on those areas. If you wear a singlet you get bad chafing under the armpits. The same with shorts and socks. Even in marathons you can see a problem known as chub rub, which is chafing where ones legs might rub together in the middle. It can be very painful.

Mark: What about socks? I'm not much of a runner, but any time I go very far they eventually become like a sponge with sweat or external moisture.

Dean: Yes, that's a problem. And that was a problem for me on the John Muir trail. Not just from sweat but from crossing rivers. When your feet get wet, the likelihood of blisters is tremendous. It is always a challenge to try and keep your feet dry. On the Muir trail I had a few different pairs of socks and I'd alternate them and tie them on the back of my pack to dry.

Mark: But you must be pretty much immune to blisters after so many years of running. In fact those feet must be tough as elephant hide.

Dean: Ya, they're pretty stable. But even so, when it is wet and warm out, even the toughest feet get blisters.

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