The Darth Valley Challenge is very simple. You dress up in a Star Wars costume, you head down to Death Valley on the hottest day of the year, and you run a mile as fast as possible!



(Nobody said it had to make sense… and of course, usually we don’t know if it will be the hottest day – but in 2013 we were watching the forecast.)



Darth Vader’s record is 6:13 for the mile… in 2013 it was a world-record June temperature of 129F but he still managed 6:36!

The numbers on the right represent Darth’s times so far, as a percentage of a 10-minute mile. Lower is better, of course!