DEATH VALLEY — Leigh Corbin stretches out on a folding chair, her shoes off and her iPod on.

The stars in the Mohave sky look like diamonds.

“There’s no place I’d rather be,” Corbin says from atop Towne Pass (elevation 4,956) in Death Valley National Park.

Corbin, 48, takes a 20-minute rest. It’s not a nap; her body is too jacked up, her mind too aware of what’s ahead.

Corbin has been running across the desert for nearly 18 hours, in temperatures approaching 120 degrees. This rest point, her first significant break, is roughly 60 miles from the start. The married mother of four has to cover 75 more miles to finish the Badwater Ultramarathon, widely recognized as the most punishing endurance race on the planet.

The Badwater course goes up 13,000 feet. Winds can knock you down. Heat can, literally, melt shoes. Innumerable things could go wrong for Corbin between now and the finish, at the portal of Mt. Whitney (elevation 8,360): blisters, heat exhaustion, dehydration, death.

But, as she stares at the stars, Corbin, isn’t thinking about any of that.

“I’m happy,” she says. Her voice is weary.

Corbin doesn’t win races. She doesn’t even come close.

She just loves to run — to an extent that, she admits, taxes her children, her husband and her non-running friends.

And that love has brought her here. For “ultra” runners, a subculture of endurance athletes who compete in races longer than mere 26.2-mile marathons, Badwater is the biggest of the big.

The invitation-only event is the equivalent of running five marathons — all on simmering asphalt.

Is Corbin nuts?

It’s not a rhetorical question.

“People might think we’re crazy,” Corbin says, wearing an ice-cold white shawl on her head.

“But we’re not. We’re special, and we share something special.”

She knows other runners and crew members along the route, the ultrarunning community being a small tribe. As a slower runner, she chats with many of them.

“Some girls like to go clubbing,” Corbin says. “To me, this is clubbing.”

For much of her life, Corbin wasn’t much of an athlete.

Then, at 36, she was in a car accident, breaking several bones and suffering a cardiac contusion. She spent five weeks in a hospital. A year later, Corbin saw a TV commercial featuring a runner jumping over a kid’s toy, a Big Wheel, and she started jogging.

She started by running on her street for 30 days in a row, stopping at every light post. Next, she ran her first 5-K (3.1 miles).

“All the people were cheering me,” she says. “I felt like an Olympic star.”

Soon, Corbin was running marathons. Soon after that, marathons weren’t enough. She ran her first ultramarathon in 2005. Going into Badwater, Corbin’s resume included eight 100-milers.

“Ultrarunning just sort of found me,” she says. “I didn’t go looking for it.”

To prepare for Badwater, Corbin did some less-than-sane things.

She dragged a tire in the heat of the day through the desert and up mountains. She competed in a six-day, multi-stage race across the Sahara Desert. That one covered 151 miles.

But successfully completing Badwater involves considerable sanity. Logistics are key. So is teamwork. And, as in any war, when the planning falls apart survival depends on smart improvisation.

Crews accompany their runners by driving ahead every mile or so to replenish them with drink, food, massages, pain medication — whatever they need.

Corbin smiled a lot during the early stages of Badwater, which starts at 282 feet below sea level.

“This is an expensive way to lose 10 pounds,” she joked to one runner.

She drank at least two liters of water and electrolyte-laced supplements every hour, and nibbled on crackers and other salty snacks. She also had soup and pudding and a plain hamburger.

At around mile 60, she wanted to take a nap.

“Too early for that,” said crew member and Badwater finisher Kira Matukaitis, 32. “Once that starts, she’ll want more.”

Thus began the delicate balance between coddling and prodding Corbin to keep moving so she could finish within 48 hours, the longest you can take to finish Badwater and still get the race’s meager but coveted prize.

Corbin blew out her quads during the nine downhill miles leaving Towne Pass. They would hurt the rest of the way. Same with her feet, which Corbin says hurt even when she walked.

“I don’t like pain, but I think I deal with it better than most people.”

Her strategy was simple: keep moving. Sometimes she’d sing with iPod; sometimes she’d just groan. She never complained.

At mile 72, Corbin slept for 45 minutes in a motel room – her longest break.

By mile 95, Corbin’s jog/walk had slowed to a shuffle; she trotted on some downhill stretches. A friend spent 30 minutes taping her feet to prevent blistering.

The people around her kept Corbin moving.

“The friends I have, the friends on the course, people I don’t even know who were rooting for me — to me, ultrarunning is all about the human spirit.”

“Running something like Badwater, you really experience pure goodwill, which is so rare.”

Corbin completed the Badwater Ultramarathon July 15, at 2:17 a.m., under a half moon. Her time was 44 hours and 17 minutes.

There was no crowd or prize money at the end. Instead, she got a silver belt buckle. The word “Badwater” is engraved on it.

“Isn’t it beautiful?”

Is Corbin nuts?

At midnight, July 16 — less than a day after finishing a 135-mile run across the desert — Corbin attempted to hike Mt. Whitney, a 22-mile hike that peaks at 14,505 feet.

She didn’t make it. She became nauseated about half way up, probably a result of altitude.

On the way down, as she stopped to get sick, Corbin saw one of the most spectacular sunrises of her life.

“There’s always something positive to focus on. You just have to find it.”