Two Course Records Fall at Badwater 135 as Max Jolliffe Breaks 21 Hours

Max Jolliffe broke 21 hours at the Badwater 135 for the first time in the race’s history on Tuesday evening, covering the 135 miles from Death Valley to Whitney Portal in 20:53:41. Eleven minutes and 51 seconds later, Carmen Maria Perez finished second overall in 21:05:32, and both course records at the race had fallen inside a single evening.

Jolliffe, 34, of Costa Mesa, Calif., took 39 minutes and 20 seconds off Yoshihiko Ishikawa’s 21:33:01 from 2019. Perez went 39 minutes and 3 seconds inside Ashley Paulson‘s women’s record of 21:44:35 from 2023. The two marks fell by margins 17 seconds apart, according to results published by race organizer AdventureCORPS.

Perez, 44, of San Juan de Requena, Spain, was running Badwater for the first time, as was Jolliffe. Her 21:05:32 is the second-fastest time in the race’s history, and it is more than 27 minutes quicker than the men’s course record she did not break.

Both started in the last of three waves, at 10 p.m. Monday, on a course that runs from Badwater Basin at 280 feet below sea level to the Whitney Portal trailhead at 8,360 ft, with 14,600 ft of cumulative climbing across three mountain ranges. It is regularly ranked among the hardest ultramarathons in the world.

For most of the desert, Perez was the one in front. She reached Furnace Creek at mile 17.7 in 2:18 to Jolliffe’s 2:20, Stovepipe Wells at mile 42.2 in 5:43 to his 5:48, Panamint Springs at mile 72.8 in 10:25 to his 10:26, and Keeler at mile 108.4 in 15:52 to his 15:57.

The race arrived in Lone Pine, at mile 122.8, with three runners inside seven minutes of one another. Tamás Bódis of Hungary led through the time station in 18:07, with Jolliffe at 18:13 and Perez at 18:14. What remained was the Whitney Portal climb, which AdventureCORPS lists at 4,750 ft of gain over 12.2 miles, an average grade of 7.4 percent, and its final mile is the steepest stretch of the route.

Jolliffe climbed it in 2:40:41. Perez took 2:51:32 and Bódis 3:27:47. Jolliffe led Perez by one minute at Lone Pine and by 11:51 at the finish.

Bódis 37, finished third in 21:34:47, a time that would have been within two minutes of Ishikawa’s record. Ivan Penalba Lopez of Spain was fourth in 21:57:44 and Francesco Perini of Italy fifth in 23:14:47. Four runners finished inside 22 hours.

Paulson, the woman whose record fell, was in the field wearing bib 1. She finished seventh overall in 24:59:36, second among the women and 3:54:04 behind Perez. Pete Kostelnick, the 2016 champion, was sixth in 23:50:12.

The times came in a year when AdventureCORPS cut the overall time limit from 48 hours to 45, and in the extreme Death Valley heat that has defined the race since Monday night. Ninety-eight athletes from 21 nations entered, 65 of them Badwater rookies, with an average age of 46. Runners have until Wednesday evening to reach Whitney Portal inside the new limit.

The 2027 race is scheduled for July 19 to 21, when AdventureCORPS will bring Eleanor Adams Robinson back to Lone Pine to mark 40 years since she won the first Badwater race in 1987.