Hey y'all, we scrolled through 400+ IG posts and 55+ articles, newsletters, podcast episodes, and videos since Monday's issue so you could have the start of your week without living on your phone. Here's your Wednesday Ultra Minute:
Badwater’s official results show both course records fell within 12 minutes of each other. Max Jolliffe won in 20:53:41, lowering Yoshihiko Ishikawa’s 2019 men’s record by 39 minutes and 20 seconds. Carmen Maria Perez finished second overall in 21:05:32, lowering Ashley Paulson’s 2023 women’s record by 39 minutes and three seconds. Tamás Bódis still led Jolliffe by six minutes at Lone Pine, mile 122, before the final climb reordered the race. The men’s podium was Jolliffe, Bódis in 21:34:47, and Ivan Penalba Lopez in 21:57:44; the women’s podium was Perez, Paulson in 24:59:36, and Micah Morgan in 26:32:45. Harvey Lewis, 50, finished 11th in 25:55:41, breaking the men’s 50–59 course record—Charlie Engle’s 26:15:35 from 2013—by 19 minutes and 54 seconds and completing the 15th consecutive finish Badwater had identified him as pursuing. At 8:15 a.m. MDT Wednesday, the live results showed Sally McRae at Lone Pine, mile 122, in 34:07 elapsed, while the compact table listed Sophie Power as a DNF without a public cause.
In Trail Society’s conversation with Nicole Ver Kuilen, the barriers begin before adaptive athletes ever reach a start line. Ver Kuilen, who lost a leg to bone cancer as a child, talked with Corrine Malcolm about equipment, representation, becoming Salomon’s first American para athlete, and racing MaXi-Race while helping shape the Salomon Adaptive Project.
Zach Bitter argued that education has to come first in trail and ultra’s debate over anti-doping rules. He said the system is more complicated than a banned-or-allowed binary, pointing to therapeutic-use exemptions and substances regulated differently in and out of competition. Sage Canaday said published rules should apply to everyone and that participants should disclose the biases they bring to the argument.
Mountain Outlaw profiles Anastasia Wilde, a Missoula photographer who has covered more than 20 ultramarathons of at least 200 miles over the past five years. Wilde carries 30 pounds of gear, hikes out before dawn, and sleeps in her car to find the intimate moments around races including Bigfoot 200, Cocodona 250, and Crazy Mountain 100. She said the ultra community gives her, an introvert, a rare sense of belonging.
Michelino Sunseri says running is on pause this season and knee surgery is scheduled for next week. In his gravel-race account, Sunseri said he crashed at nearly 30 mph on a rutted farm road, damaged his rear wheel, and stopped with 47 miles left. He still called it his most fun race experience and plans to keep gravel in the mix after surgery for what he described as a longstanding cartilage issue.
Anna Gibson plans a one-week run-to-bike double, racing in Switzerland and then Colorado. Gibson announced the two race dates: Sierre-Zinal with Brooks on August 8 and the Leadville 100 MTB with TrainingPeaks on August 15, extending a summer built around both running and riding.
Lastly, Kilian Jornet collected the performances that have stayed with him this spring and summer. His cross-sport list spans records, first ascents, comebacks, and breakthroughs. “But they all came from the same place: curiosity, patience, discipline and the desire to see what is possible,” he wrote.
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Ken
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