Ultrarunning
Staying Power
Unsanctioned, unhinged, underground and off the grid. On the road with the Speed Project, the rebel running race that few know about, fewer compete in and no entrant ever forgets.
It began with a rumour. About an underground foot race starting at the beachfront of Santa Monica and finishing in Las Vegas. A race without sponsors, without rules, without even a website. Where no spectators are allowed and there’s no purse at the end. And yet it attracts some of the world’s best athletes, drawn by the promise of a unique trial of pace and perseverance. That rumor led to a name—the Speed Project, a moniker coined by the founder of the race, Nils Arend—and eventually to a call.
“There’s a raw beauty in the idea of traveling somewhere on foot, running from one place to another, versus doing a community 10K and getting a free T-shirt at the end,” Arend told The Red Bulletin over the phone at the start of 2020, back when he was busy planning that year’s Speed Project. That was back when the world was a different place.
He shared the idea with U.S. marathon-running legend Blue Benadum, who insisted that this competition be about speed. “We wanted a twist,” said Arend. So it became a relay race—no rest stops, no fancy hotels, just the runners supporting themselves with accompanying RVs. “We put our heads down and race as hard as we can without letting go, almost like pit bulls.”
A group of runners at the beginning of the race.
© JIM KRANTZ
They pioneered a route from the Santa Monica Pier to the Las Vegas welcome sign—a relentless 340-mile route that climbs through Hollywood and then the Antelope Valley, then cruises past a massive airplane graveyard at the edge of the Mojave Desert and the Inland Empire city of Barstow, through the remote town of Baker (population: 541) and skirting the edges of Death Valley National Park, then on to a short segment of the Old Spanish Trail and finally Nevada SR160 into Vegas.
This would become known as the OG route—the Speed Project’s most popular path—but it’s only a guideline. Teams can deviate in any way they please, with one condition: “No freeways.”
Into the unknown: Runners set off on a fog-filled morning in Santa Monica.
© Jim Krantz
Likewise, there are no fixed relay handoff points, no rules on how far each of the six crew members must run, or how many times they can be subbed back into the race. A map is emailed out in advance, breaking down the OG route into 39 segments ranging in length from 4 miles to 48 miles. Most are around 6 miles. How the runners tackle these sections is up to them. Typically, they use the 6-mile markers as an opportunity to pass the metaphorical baton. But if they need to make up time they might do half a section each, or just a couple of hundred yards per person on the final frantic sprint into Vegas.
In the years following its inception, the Speed Project’s reputation grew, but its DIY ethos remained. Today, there’s still no website, no invite and minimal coverage in the mainstream press. In 2020, after sounding us out on the phone, Arend agreed to let The Red Bulletin tag along. You know the rest. Pandemic. Plans on hold. Then, in early 2022, another phone call. The message was simple: “Get to L.A.”
Making light work: A competitor heads out of L.A. at sunrise.
© Jim Krantz
The Chilean
The fog rolling in off the Pacific lends an eerie hue to Santa Monica Pier at 3:30 a.m. on this late March morning. The low hum of music and laughter is audible as RV lights burn through the mist, silhouetting the figures of scores of athletes. Three hundred participants—grouped into 55 teams—have traveled here from as far afield as Europe and South America for this, the seventh Speed Project. One of them is Max Keith.
The 33-year-old from Chile’s capital, Santiago, has been running trails his whole life. Today he’s here as part of the Maffetones Club, a Chilean team following the teachings of sports guru (and singer-songwriter) Dr. Phil Maffetone, whose “method of moderate running” advocates a low-heart-rate marathon plan; the idea being that the slower your heart, the more efficiently your body draws energy. Instead of sugar, your body burns fat, and you don’t “bonk” or “hit the wall.”
Last year, when COVID halted sporting events, the Speed Project organized a DIY race, asking teams to run the longest relay they could, wherever they were, in 31 hours and 15 minutes (the course record, set in 2019). The Maffetones covered 264 miles of the Atacama Desert, ranking them in the top 10 of more than 160 teams. With temperatures there ranging from 104°F in the day, and dropping to below freezing at night, it was also the perfect proving ground for the searing plains of Death Valley.
As the 4 a.m. start approaches, the countdown begins, and then they’re off—55 runners, one from each of the six-person teams. Some are in flashing vests and neon gear, some wearing headlamps, others in ordinary running gear, all disappearing in different directions, intent on finding the fastest route out of the city. Most dart down Santa Monica Boulevard, while the team RVs roll out into the night like a herd of migrating elephants.
Even if we fall short, it’s about knowing we died on the line
Understanding the importance of these early moments of the race, the Maffetones have planned out a 4-mile shortcut that heads directly to the hills north of the city. Instead of the usual 6-mile handovers, they’ve put their fastest runners into 1.8- mile sprints to cement their head start. Keith is one of them. This focus on speed over pace is a new challenge for him, but after years of lockdown he has a renewed appreciation for being out here, opening up his stride and pushing hard. “When you realize you’re able to cover distances at pace, it gets addictive,” he says. “You get this feeling of freedom. You’re focused on your form, motion, steps, how you’re breathing—you’re hyperaware of your surroundings. The more in-tune you are with yourself, the wilder the experience gets. The more speed you can achieve, the more intense the experience.”
Chilean ultramarathon runner Max Keith at the start of the race
© Jim Krantz
When you realize you’re able to cover distances at pace, it gets addictive.
At 4:22 a.m., a message in the group WhatsApp warns of a man waiting with a plank behind a turn in the road. At 5:16, the first racers puff uphill past the famed Chateau Marmont hotel on Sunset Boulevard. By 5:53, the front runners have left most of the crowd behind.
At 6:10 a.m., half an hour before dawn, the Maffetones are 8 miles ahead of the rest. At 6:41 a.m., the sun begins to rise over the hills of the sprawling San Fernando Valley on the northern side of L.A. Four team members swapped out the first 20 miles in 1.8-mile stretches, hitting a top pace of 5 minutes and 28 seconds per mile before subbing in their hill runners for fresh legs on the uphill climbs.
Shortly after, on a winding stretch of hillside, Keith sprints to finish his fourth section. “I’m super excited,” he says, the energy inside the Maffetones’ RV akin to an airborne sugar rush. “I feel good because I have to. We’re only two hours in.”
There’s a long race ahead, but for Keith right now it’s about tackling the rice and burritos, and the cold brew and energy drinks in the RV’s fridge, rebuilding his strength until it’s his turn to run again. With no breaks, it’s all about staving off injury and fatigue. For when the team reaches Death Valley there will be a single cold beer to be shared among them. By that point, they may need it.
Mexican athlete Alex Roudayna putting in the hard yards
© Jim Krantz/Blake Woken
The latecomer
Alex Roudayna didn’t expect to be running inthe Speed Project. At 32, the ultrarunner from Mexico City has been competing since 2013, but it was only last year that a friend suggested she apply for a place on the international women’s team being put together by ON Running—one of two teams sponsored by the sports apparel brand, and one of five teams in the race made up entirely of women. Usually averse to pitching herself in such scenarios, this time Roudayna went for it, won a place and met her teammates for the first time near LAX just 12 hours before the race began.
By midmorning, it’s 70° in Soledad Canyon—the ninth section of the OG route, and Roudayna’s second of the race. Halfway between the edge of the suburbs and the desert, the buzz of L.A. has been left behind for long roads with only the occasional campground and distant passenger train to break up the monotony. As the heat haze rises from the pavement, Roudayna is easy to spot, even from a distance, thanks to her dyed green hair. Moving at a rapid pace, she’s soon swapping legs with her waiting teammate.
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Born to run: a Maffetones handover in action.
© Jim Krantz
In the build-up to the Speed Project, Roudayna had been running a lot. One of her recent achievements was 11th place in the USA Track & Field 100 Mile Road National Championship in Nevada in February, something she says she undertook mainly to gauge her speed. Most days, she trains eight to 10 hours. As someone with Asperger’s, Roudayna explains that “nothing really makes a lot of sense socially to me,” but that when she’s running she can stay in her own head without the need to talk to others. “We’re all part of a community and you just understand each other with a nod,” she says. “It doesn’t matter what you’re going through or where you come from.”
As someone with Asperger’s, Roudayna explains that “nothing really makes a lot of sense socially to me”, but that when she’s running she can stay in her own head without the need to talk to others. “We’re all part of a community and you just understand each other with a nod,” she says. “It doesn’t matter what you’re going through or where you come from.”
Speed Project runners pound the tarmac in the open landscapes outside L.A.
© JIM KRANTZ/BLAKE WOKEN
Route force: a Speed Project runner in Death Valley.
© JIM KRANTZ/BLAKE WOKEN
As she finishes her section, sweat covering her tattooed arms, Roudayna looks tired, but she bounces excitedly on the spot. “I’m not looking forward to a break,” she says. “I want to keep going!” Despite only lately becoming acquainted with her teammates, Roudayna has fitted comfortably into the dynamic, especially when it comes to pushing harder and faster. “If they tell me to run fast, I run fast,” she laughs. “It’s not easy, but once you hit the pain cave it’s groove time.”
It’s clearly working: The team are ahead of schedule and one of the most promising in the competition. Seven hours into a possible 40-hour race, optimism and adrenaline are running high. Heading into the RV for recovery and a cold drink, Roudayna offers some parting thoughts. “It’s just about seeing how far I can go and what’s possible. The goal is to give it all. Even if we fall short, it’s about knowing we died on the line.”
Runners are undeterred by aggressive truck drivers and wild dogs.
© JIM KRANTZ/BLAKE WOKEN
The power line
As the day progresses, the race reels out into desert proper. Here, the route is marked by mines and concrete factories; rundown towns with buildings like dusty shoe boxes. In the distance stand the snowcapped San Gabriel Mountains and, in this dry landscape, roadside reservoirs feed water to L.A. Drivers along the route are by now used to the sight of lone runners trailed by RVs bearing taped-on messages like “Todo es mental [Everything is mental],” “Wish you were running” and, simply, “Grit.”
An empty lot on a desert crossroads forms a natural meeting point for teams. There’s a vendor selling orange juice from a cart. Another is offering vivid religious portraits from Mexico. One runner, stripped to his shorts, reclines in a large cooler full of ice water in the bed of his team’s truck. Others shelter under the shade of a single palo verde tree.
At 2:13 p.m., a message comes through that one of the runners, Tilly, has lost her crew. It’s now 79°, and fatigue has begun to bake the desert runners. The wind picks up. Tensions are frayed as one team accidentally clips the wing mirror of another’s RV. In the group chat, there are warnings of stray dogs chasing runners. This is common enough that, in 2018, Team Hunter carried pepper spray as a precaution against enthusiastic canines; luckily, they didn’t have to use it.
By 2:30 p.m., Tilly has been reunited with her team. On El Mirage Road, a red-haired woman appears on a black horse and gallops alongside the runners, sending up clouds of desert dust. Beyond El Mirage, one group is trying something different. An old 94-mile service road— the aptly named Powerline Road—runs between transmission towers. In 2019, ahead of the fifth Speed Project, the route was discovered by a team from Nike, who had been desperately scouting for new ways to beat their rivals, Team Adidas. It worked—Nike won, Adidas came in second.
Self-confessed “pace junkie” Kam Casey in his RV (note the custom socks).
© Jim Krantz/Blake Woken
I was losing control of my emotions; on the verge of tears in the middle of running
It’s here that Kam Casey finds himself on this hot Saturday afternoon in 2022. Tall and wiry, with a buzzed haircut and a way of speaking in soundbites that suggests media training, the 29-year-old Indianapolis native, now based in L.A., could surely make a career out of wearing clothes on Instagram if the running thing doesn’t work out. Indeed, the day before the race, when all the teams met up, Casey and his crew—Team Bandit—were hanging out on top of their RV in matching black velour tracksuits and shades. It’s clear they’re here to make an impression, and look stylish while doing it. Which isn’t to say they’re not dedicated to the cause. Drawing inspiration from Nike’s discovery, Bandit scouted the route for three months, poring over satellite imagery before concluding that the Powerline route would bring them in at 288 miles—52 less than the OG runners.
Before the Speed Project came along, self-confessed “pace junkie” Casey had been struggling. A 2:30 marathon runner, he hadn’t run one since the start of COVID, and his last attempt had been aborted midrace when, he says, his body gave up on him. “I was losing control of my emotions; on the verge of tears in the middle of running,” Casey recalls. “I couldn’t make sense of it. It was mentally very tough.” It dented Casey’s confidence. He knew he could do better. The Speed Project is many things to many people; for Casey it’s a chance at redemption.
Emerging in the heat haze, flanked by twin rows of power lines, Casey looks strong. His L.A. move has helped him acclimate to the heat, but the ground underfoot is unforgiving. Sharp downhills lead into long uphills lead into rolling ups and downs without respite. But, running 4:49-minute miles, with a few 4:20s thrown in, Casey feels confident that Bandit have everything to play for. As afternoon slides into evening, they’re just a few fast relays behind the leaders.
Londoner Angela Tomusange, still far from Barstow on Friday evening.
© Jim Krantz/Blake Woken
The long slog
Speed, of course, is relative. The Speed Project’s 2019 winners, Team Nike, completed the race in 31 hours, 15 minutes—that’s very fast, averaging 9.3 mph. But while Casey and the front-runners are tactically analyzing shortcuts to reduce that time even further, for others finishing at all is achievement enough. Five hours behind Bandit, the Black Trail Runners, a team from the U.K., are doggedly pounding on.
Angela Tomusange, a Londoner of Ugandan heritage, began the race feeling nervous. “[In the running scene] I don’t see a lot of people who look like me,” she says. “Black Trail Runners appealed to me because I want to inspire others to take it up.” At 40, she’s somewhat older than the Speed Project’s average runner age (mid-20s), but Tomusange applied as a fresh challenge, to prove that anyone can compete alongside some of the world’s best runners, even if it means traveling 5,500 miles across the Atlantic and the breadth of North America to do it.
She prepared by training on hills in and around London, but London isn’t the Mojave, and the going here is tough. On her third relay section, Tomusange finally finds her rhythm, but by the first evening of the first day—and with the fastest teams expecting to finish just after dawn the next day—it’s clear that the Black Trail Runners are in it for the long haul. Unacclimatized to the desert heat, they’re slowing down. Add a change of plans to help an injured teammate rest up, and the U.K. team is feeling the strain.
A runner braves the area near Death Valley just after sunrise.
© Jim Krantz/Blake Woken
Even if we fall short, it’s about knowing we died on the line.
As the race stretches into night, the fatigue is evident to all the runners. Most are on the outskirts of Barstow, running along deserted sandy roads. For Tomusange, the cool night air offers a welcome respite and, fears of encounters with wolves or mountain lions aside, she’s beginning to enjoy herself. “I’m going with the flow,” she says. “It’s a nice experience. I’ve got used to running in the dark with our RV in the distance.”
After a long night, the dawn casts a blue light over the yellow sage flowers around Death Valley. A national park, the desert here is pristine and protected— different than many scrappy stretches between L.A. and Barstow. Not far from here Charles Manson and his followers set up shop in the abandoned Barker Ranch in the late 1960s. And the area’s last gold prospector, Seldom Seen Slim, lived alone in the empty town of Ballarat before his death in 1968. It was near here that the drugs kicked in and Hunter S. Thompson hallucinated bats shrieking low around his Great Red Shark convertible, as detailed in the opening paragraphs of his 1971 novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
For Tomusange and crew, the new day brings nothing sinister. They run the sun up just before the park entrance. A chance encounter with another team at a gas station in the night has spurred them on. But Vegas is still roughly 150 miles away, and in Vegas the lucky front- runners are about to cross the finish line.
Team Bandit (with Kam Casey in black) celebrating at the finish line
© Jim Krantz/Blake Woken
The finish
About 40 miles from the Vegas sign, and the Bandits aren’t doing so good. With rumors that Team ON Running was in the lead, the Bandits chanced an unknown path, heading off-road over sand and rock—in the middle of the night. The gamble didn’t pay off. Now, surrounded by drab cookie-cutter houses that mark the desert between Death Valley and Vegas, runner Allison Lynch is having trouble with her knee, and teammate Evan Schwartz’s quads are burning up. The team have no choice but to cover the remaining distance with the four remaining runners.
Casey and the others dig deep. There’s a downhill slope into Vegas and they’re able to push 5:14 miles; that’s around 11.5mph—a Herculean pace after 30-something hours. At 11:34 a.m., they storm into Vegas as a team, joined by their injured runners as they finish in 31 hours, 45 minutes, taking fourth.
“We went for the win and we didn’t get it, but that’s what it is,” says a proud but exhausted Casey. “You take your chances.” His Bandit vest is soaked in sweat and champagne, his Speed Project medal—a poker chip on a necklace— hanging on his chest. Having signed up to run around 50 miles, Casey estimates he has clocked at least 60.
The Maffetones take eighth place, reaching Vegas in 36 hours, 24 minutes. “It was brutal,” says Keith. “We were so tired during the last climb on the highway, but we kept pushing because we wanted to finish quickly. I’m destroyed.”
On the group chat are warnings of stray dogs chasing runners.
Roudayna’s ON Running women’s team complete the race in 42 hours 49 minutes. Next year, she’s considering running it all by herself. Right now, though, she’s going to bed—the Vegas lights and postrace celebrations hold no allure.
For Tomusange and the Black Trail Runners, the final slog became a blur. Pushing on through the desert on that first night, they ran all through Saturday and into another night and day, rotating runners every mile for the last run into Vegas, eventually completing the race in 59 hours, 30 minutes. “When we could see Vegas, it felt surreal that we were actually about to reach it,” recalls Tomusange. “It gave us that extra push. I couldn’t believe we’d done it. I took so many positives away; if someone asked me to do it again, I definitely would.”
The winners are ON Running’s other team, who set a new race record of 29 hours, 26 minutes. But this journey from one place to another is as figurative as it is literal, and every runner at the finish will take away more than the poker chip around their neck. For Casey, it’s personal redemption, and perhaps he was speaking for everyone when, exhausted at the finish line, he summed it up: “We did it one by one. A mile at a time. A half mile at a time. And we never lost face.”
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