By Ken Alltucker | The Arizona Republic
Horst Schmittenberg, 78, will be among the more than 1,000 runners expected to lace up in Scottsdale today to race nearly 7 miles in the heat of the afternoon.
Schmittenberg is the oldest runner to sign up for the inaugural 11.22-kilometer Scottsdale Beat the Heat Race, an event held to commemorate the Phoenix area’s hottest day on record, June 26, 1990, when temperatures peaked at 122 degrees at 2:47 p.m. The race will start precisely at that time, and temperatures are expected to hit 106 degrees.
While some doctors and trainers warn that running in such extreme temperatures can trigger heatstroke or, in rare cases, death, runners such as Schmittenberg say they can’t resist proving their mettle.
“It was simply a challenge to myself, something novel,” said Schmittenberg, a retired steel-industry executive who ran the Boston Marathon in 2009. “Why not try it and see what it’s like?”
His wife offered a more succinct explanation.
“He’s crazy,” Karin Schmittenberg said. “But he’s a man of steel.”
