Earlier this week a man, who admits that the stunt is a bit crazy, ran a mile in Death Valley wearing a full-fledged Darth Vader costume. Jonathan Rice, a Longmont, Colo., resident completed the stunt for his third straight year, this time in 129-degree heat on Sunday, according to the Longmont Times-Call.
Rice told the paper he fell in love with "heat running" back in 1996 when he visited Death Valley and tried to do a half a mile, with his friend driving slightly ahead of him in a car for safety. He struggled through that run, but he was hooked.
Then in 2010, he decided to add a bit of a twist to the challenge: A hot costume with limited breathing potential.
It became the official Darth Vader challenge and has attracted a bit of a following, according to the report.
Sounds crazy? Even Rice says it's not highly recommended.
"There is no good reason for it other than the sheer joy of seeing the looks on the faces of the people quietly trying to escape the cloying heat, windows rolled up and AC blasting ... while you thunder by, cape flying, in 129 degree heat!" he wrote on his website (which is called DarthValley.com).
He finished this year's mile in a whopping 6 minutes and 36 seconds and is hoping to be recognized for the hottest verified mile in history.
(h/t USA Today's For The Win )
