Jolliffe breaks 21 hours at Badwater; Carmen Maria Perez second overall in 21:05:32
Both course records fell on the 135 miles from Death Valley to Whitney Portal: Jolliffe 20:53:41, Perez 39 minutes under the women's mark.
Photograph: A finisher breaking the tape at Whitney Portal at the 2008 Badwater Ultramarathon, by Kaisove, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsThe 39th Badwater 135 started on Monday night, 27 July, in three waves at eight, nine and ten o'clock, from Badwater Basin in Death Valley, 280 feet below sea level. The course crosses three mountain ranges, climbs 14,600 feet in all and finishes at Whitney Portal, 8,360 feet up the side of Mount Whitney. This year the time limit was cut from 48 hours to 45. Ninety-eight runners from 21 countries were entered, 65 of them rookies, with an average age of 46.
Max Jolliffe, 34, of Costa Mesa, California, finished on Tuesday evening in 20:53:41, the first time anyone has broken 21 hours. Yoshihiko Ishikawa's course record of 21:33:01 from 2019 went by 39 minutes and 20 seconds.
Carmen Maria Perez, 44, of San Juan de Requena in Spain, was second overall in 21:05:32. That is 39 minutes and three seconds under Ashley Paulson's women's record of 21:44:35 from 2023 and the second-fastest finish in the history of the race, faster than every man who ran it before this year. Paulson was the second woman, seventh overall, in 24:59:36.
Tamás Bódis of Hungary was third in 21:34:47, Ivan Penalba Lopez of Spain fourth in 21:57:44 and Francesco Perini of Italy fifth in 23:14:47, with Pete Kostelnick, the 2016 champion, sixth in 23:50:12. Four runners were inside 22 hours. Of 95 starters, 88 made the finish inside the limit.
Two records by 39 minutes each, in the 39th edition of the race. Perez beat the old men's mark by 27 minutes and still finished second.
Sources: Badwater 135 results database; Badwater 135 pre-race release; Marathon Handbook; iRunFar.
