Two runners beat Badwater's record in one night, and smoke is taking races off the calendar

On Tuesday night in Death Valley, two runners beat a Badwater 135 course record that had stood since 2019, less than 12 minutes apart.

Here is the week of July 27 through August 2.

Two runners beat Badwater's record in one night

Max Jolliffe won the Badwater 135 in 20:53:41, the first finish under 21 hours in race history and 39:20 under Yoshihiko Ishikawa's course record from 2019. Carmen Maria Perez, 44, finished second overall in 21:05:32, which beat the old course record too and took 39:03 off Ashley Paulson's women's mark. Tamás Bódis ran 21:34:47 for third, 1:46 outside a record that had stood for seven years.

Neither Jolliffe nor Perez had finished the race before. The night produced 4 of the 10 fastest runs in Badwater history, in the first year the organizers cut the time limit from 48 hours to 45. Of the 95 starters, 88 reached Whitney Portal, and the full night is in our Badwater 135 report.

Smoke is taking races off the calendar

Fat Dog 120 will not run next week. Organizers canceled the 124-mile race into E.C. Manning Park on July 30, with four fires burning in the Manning Park Complex and one of them less than 500 meters from the course. Their statement cited ongoing wildfire activity, smoke, air quality concerns, and increasing fire risk as "unacceptable safety risks for racers, volunteers, staff, and the broader community."

Smoke reached mid-race in Oregon. The Hood Hundred rerouted its course for the Grasshopper Fire, then stopped the race entirely early Sunday morning over air quality, with 8 finishers home, per UltraRunning Magazine.

Both join a season of fire calls. Colorado lost two races in early July: the Ouray 100 as the Gold Mountain Fire spread past 32,000 acres near its course, and Leadville's Silver Rush 50 as the Willow Fire burned in the San Isabel National Forest nearby. Last August the Oregon Cascades 100 was halted mid-race when air quality reached hazardous levels. Fire has joined heat on the list of things a summer race director plans around.

The rest of the weekend

Saturday put 11 races on the calendar. At the Waldo 100K in the Oregon Cascades, Anthony Fagundes won in 9:29:31 and Jennifer Schmidt took the women's race in 10:46:07, with 131 finishers in the official results. The Canadian Death Race timing page, still marked unofficial, has Samuel Dickie winning the 118K in 13:25:13 and Mandy Currie taking the women's race in 15:10:05, fourth overall. At Lean Horse 100, iRunFar reports wins for Zane Musgrave in 17:34 and Holly Hirsch in 19:03, with Hirsch second overall; Sheep Mountain 50 had not posted results by Monday morning.

The Taupō Marathon ran through the middle of a New Zealand winter and still logged 609 marathon finishers, with about 5,200 results across the festival's distances. Jacob Priddey won in 2:27:12. In Queensland, Olympians Ryan Gregson and Izzi Batt-Doyle won the Sunshine Coast Half Marathon in 1:04:01 and 1:08:49, and Brett Robinson, who held the Australian marathon record until 2024, took the festival's full marathon in 2:15:45.

Sunday began at 12:01 a.m. on Nevada's Extraterrestrial Highway, where Henry Biggs of Brewster, New York won the ET Full Moon Marathon outright in 3:50:48 at age 62, first of 48 marathon finishers, with a 51K running alongside. Natalie Combs took the women's race in 4:11:15 in the event's 20th anniversary year.

The rest of Sunday ran hot. The Bound for Boston Marathon in Denver, the flat qualifier we pointed to last week, recorded 11 marathon finishers, the last of them home just before noon as temperatures climbed through the low 90s. Camarillo put 115 marathon finishers through its California course, and Ben Walker won the Yukon River Trail Marathon in Whitehorse in 3:28:48, where 47 of 52 starters finished. The halfs rounded out Sunday: John & Jessie Kelley in New London, Craft Classic Seattle, Hofbräuhaus Cleveland, Little Miami, and more. If you ran one of them, tell us how it went.

Off our board, Pamela Kosgei outkicked Elise Cranny by 2 seconds to win her road 10K debut at the 28th Beach to Beacon 10K in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. Habtom Samuel won the men's race in 27:40, and both champions came through the University of New Mexico program.

Do Nascimento found safe

Daniel do Nascimento, the South American marathon record holder, was found safe in São Paulo over the weekend, more than six weeks after going out of contact in June. Those close to him cited mental health struggles, and he remains suspended from competition until 2029. His 2:04:51 from Seoul in 2022 still stands as the continental record.

Garmin's record quarter, and COROS gives chase

Garmin reported its second quarter on July 29: record revenue of $2.02 billion, up 11 percent, with the fitness segment that builds its running watches growing 25 percent to $757 million. On the earnings call, management described the TrainingPeaks acquisition as a loop, where the watch records the workout, TrainingPeaks routes it to a coach, and the coach's plan flows back to the athlete. Garmin announced the completed acquisition on July 22, and the platform now sits inside its fitness segment.

The same day as the earnings call, COROS shipped Live Tracking in a free firmware update. Runners can now share a live link with family mid-race, the feature Garmin owners have leaned on for years, and the update rebuilds sleep tracking while it is in there.

On's raceday launch also landed this week. The Cloudboom Strike 2 went on sale July 30 at $250, a claimed 191 grams, alongside the $310 LightSpray version, whose laceless upper is sprayed onto the shoe by a robotic arm in minutes. Believe in the Run calls the standard version a legitimate race-day option; the LightSpray costs $60 more.

What's next

Next week runs 22 races on our board with Fat Dog now off it, and the big ones bookend it. KAT100 starts Thursday in the Austrian Tyrol, and the Williamsburg Bridge Marathon runs back and forth over its namesake bridge in New York on Friday night. Saturday belongs to Eastern States 100 in the Pennsylvania wilds, with live tracking, and to the Haulin Aspen Marathon on the trails outside Bend, Oregon.

Sunday returns to last month's downhill story. The Tunnel Vision Marathon finishes in North Bend, Washington, the same town where Jack & Jill's Downhill Marathon wrapped up its Snoqualmie Tunnel course in July. Anyone chasing a 2027 qualifier on that kind of profile still has to pin down their course's net drop before September registration, and our Boston Qualifier index tracks the eligible races.

A new Marathon Scout Weekly is up, and it opens in Death Valley. Registration for Boston 2027 opens September 14. Six race weekends stand between here and there.