Badwater 135 2026: Max Jolliffe breaks 21 hours, Carmen Maria Perez finishes second overall

Max Jolliffe won the 2026 Badwater 135 in 20:53:41. It is a course record, and the first time anyone has broken 21 hours. He took 39:20 off Yoshihiko Ishikawa's 21:33:01 from 2019.

Carmen Maria Perez finished second overall in 21:05:32. She beat the old course record too, by 27:29, and took 39:03 off Ashley Paulson's women's best from 2023.

Tamás Bódis was third in 21:34:47, 1:46 outside Ishikawa's old mark. Before this year, only Ishikawa had ever run quicker.

All three started in the 10 p.m. wave, the last of the three. The results and the all-time list are on our Badwater 135 results page, and our Badwater 135 race guide covers the course, the dates and how entry works.

All of this in a year the race got harder. The organizers cut the time limit from 48 hours to 45 for 2026.

Two runners beat a record that stood since 2019

Winning times since 2007 have ranged from 21:33:01 to 25:50:23. Before that, the quickest was Scott Jurek's 24:36:08 in 2005. Nobody had ever broken 21 hours. On Tuesday night two runners beat the old record within twelve minutes of each other.

These are the fastest runs on record. Nothing between 1988 and 2006 was quick enough to make the list.

#	Time	Runner	Year
1	20:53:41	Max Jolliffe (USA)	2026
2	21:05:32	Carmen Maria Perez (ESP)	2026
3	21:33:01	Yoshihiko Ishikawa (JPN)	2019
4	21:34:47	Tamás Bódis (HUN)	2026
5	21:44:35	Ashley Paulson (USA)	2023
6	21:47:45	Simen Holvik (NOR)	2025
7	21:56:32	Pete Kostelnick (USA)	2016

Three of the seven fastest Badwater runs ever recorded happened on the same night.

Perez, second overall at 44

Perez is 44, and her nationality is listed as Spain. She finished ahead of every man in the field except Jolliffe.

Ashley Paulson won Badwater outright in 2023, so a woman leading the race is not new here. What is new is the time. Perez ran 39 minutes faster than Paulson did, and the two fastest women's runs on record now sit second and fifth overall.

Winning times and finish rates since 2007

Every edition from 2007 through 2025, with the number of starters who reached Whitney Portal. The 2026 race was still running as this published, so it is not in the table.

There is no 2020 row because that race never happened. It was called off about ten days before the July 6 to 8 start, during the pandemic, and entrants were rolled into 2021. The database still lists the 2020 field, 102 names, with no times beside any of them.

Year	Winner	Time	Finishers
2025	Simen Holvik (NOR)	21:47:45	93 of 99
2024	Shaun Burke (USA)	23:29:00	74 of 97
2023	Ashley Paulson (USA)	21:44:35	89 of 100
2022	Yoshihiko Ishikawa (JPN)	23:08:20	78 of 94
2021	Harvey Lewis (USA)	25:50:23	68 of 84
2019	Yoshihiko Ishikawa (JPN)	21:33:01	79 of 95
2018	Michele Graglia (ITA)	24:51:47	69 of 99
2017	Wataru Iino (JPN)	24:56:19	75 of 95
2016	Pete Kostelnick (USA)	21:56:32	84 of 97
2015	Pete Kostelnick (USA)	23:27:10	79 of 97
2014	Harvey Lewis (USA)	23:52:55	83 of 97
2013	Carlos Alberto Gomes De Sá (PRT)	24:38:16	81 of 96
2012	Mike Morton (USA)	22:52:55	89 of 96
2011	Oswaldo Lopez (MEX)	23:41:40	82 of 94
2010	Zach Gingerich (USA)	24:44:48	73 of 80
2009	Marcos Farinazzo (BRA)	23:39:18	53 of 86
2008	Jorge Pacheco (MEX)	23:20:16	73 of 80
2007	Valmir Nunes (BRA)	22:51:29	78 of 84

Finish rates swing a lot. In 2009, 33 of 86 starters did not finish. In 2018 it was 30 of 99. The best year was 2025, when 93 of 99 made it. Over all 18 editions, 1,400 of 1,670 starters finished. That is 83.8%, or about five in six. The race has a fearsome reputation, but most people who start it do finish.

The rest of the field

Ninety-five runners started in three waves, at 8, 9 and 10 p.m. on Monday, July 27. The course runs 135 miles from Badwater Basin, which the race calls the lowest point in North America at 280 feet below sea level, up to Whitney Portal. With the limit now 45 hours, the cutoff fell on Wednesday evening.

The results page has the finisher list and a timestamp showing when we last checked it.

How we source this

Every number here comes from the AdventureCORPS results database, the official timing record. We read it with a script instead of copying by hand.

The year-by-year tables cover 2007 through 2025. To check the record claims we also pulled the winning time from every race between 1988 and 2006. The quickest was 24:36:08, nearly four hours slower than this year. Worth noting that the 1988 race ran a longer 146-mile course.

Badwater ranks by elapsed time, not by who crosses the line first. A 10 p.m. starter and an 8 p.m. starter are judged on their own clocks. We checked that rule by rebuilding the 2025 finishing order from elapsed times, and it matched the official placings exactly.