One of ultrarunning’s most grueling tests just got rewritten.
Max Jolliffe has won the legendary Badwater 135, and he didn’t just cross the finish line — he obliterated the existing course record by nearly 40 minutes in what’s already being called one of the most jaw-dropping performances in the race’s history.
And this wasn’t a cool, forgiving year to do it — temperatures at Badwater were brutally unrelenting, making the achievement even more extraordinary.
Here’s everything you need to know about Jolliffe’s historic run — and the chaotic behind-the-scenes story that had fans scrambling to find out who even won.
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A Record-Shattering Run Through Death Valley’s Worst
The Badwater 135 is not a normal race. Starting 282 feet below sea level in California’s Death Valley — the hottest place on Earth — competitors run 135 miles straight to the trailhead of Mount Whitney, climbing over 14,000 feet along the way.
This year’s heat was described by followers as particularly savage, which made Jolliffe’s course record demolition all the more remarkable. Shaving nearly 40 minutes off a record at Badwater isn’t a marginal improvement — it’s a seismic shift.
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The ultrarunning community erupted online almost immediately, with fans calling it an “insane performance” given the conditions on the course.
A Women’s Record Fell Too — But Almost No One Knew
Jolliffe wasn’t the only one rewriting history out on that scorched pavement.
The top overall women’s finisher also set a new course record, crossing the line in an impressive 21 hours and 5 minutes. Even that achievement nearly got buried, though — Badwater’s official Instagram page initially listed her finishing time as 21:57:44, a time that actually belonged to the third-place overall male finisher.
Two historic records in one race. Both nearly lost to poor record-keeping.
Fans Had to Turn to Reddit to Find Out Who Won
For a race of this magnitude, the media coverage left a lot to be desired — and the ultrarunning community made their feelings abundantly clear.
There was no official live broadcast. Multiple confusing links circulated, directing fans to different streams that led nowhere useful. When coverage did surface, it appeared on a random, unofficial channel that most viewers had to hunt down themselves.
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One frustrated fan summed it up bluntly online:
Absolute masterclass by Badwater social media not showing any of the finishers or really any content whatsoever of the end of the race. Reddit is how I find out who won lol.
Another viewer pointed out the baffling vagueness of the official Instagram updates, noting that posts would tease a runner arriving at an aid station without ever naming who it actually was.
Their IG posts were like, “First runner coming through this aid station” and they didn’t even say who it was!
For context, this is a race where the winner just broke a record by nearly 40 minutes. And fans found out through a subreddit.
The Heat Defense — And Why Some Fans Pushed Back on It
To be fair, Badwater does present genuinely unique challenges for any media crew attempting to cover it. Temperatures in Death Valley can exceed 130°F on the valley floor, and multiple community members noted that phones and cameras are known to overheat in the basin before footage can even be captured.
Some fans were sympathetic, arguing that Badwater operates differently by design — and that not every race needs a sky camera tracking every step for over 100 hours straight.
Bad water coverage is not like the others. Turns out, it’s pretty hot, and can be pretty dangerous for media crews.
Others weren’t buying it. The comparison to the Barkley Marathons — a notoriously secretive and logistically nightmarish race — came up more than once, with fans pointing out that even Barkley manages to push out more meaningful updates via social media than Badwater did this year.
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I feel like we get better updates during the Barkley Marathons through Twitter than we did in this race.
Has the Bar Been Raised Too High — Or Not High Enough?
The debate cuts to something deeper than just one bad broadcast year.
Races like Cocodona 250 have dramatically raised expectations for live ultramarathon coverage in recent years, and fans are now accustomed to a level of real-time storytelling that Badwater simply didn’t deliver. The question the community is wrestling with is whether that’s a problem to be fixed — or a feature to be preserved.
A vocal portion of the ultrarunning world actually *likes* the low-key, underground feel of events like Badwater. The sport grew up in obscurity, and for some purists, blanket media saturation changes the soul of what these races are about.
But when a competitor shatters a course record by 40 minutes in punishing heat — and the world almost doesn’t find out — even the purists have to admit something went wrong.
What Comes Next for Badwater
Despite the coverage frustrations, the performances at this year’s Badwater 135 speak entirely for themselves. Max Jolliffe’s record-breaking victory stands as one of the most impressive ultramarathon results in recent memory, achieved under conditions that would end most people’s ambitions before the first mile.
The ultrarunning community is already calling for Badwater to modernize its media approach ahead of next year’s race — finding a middle ground that honors the raw, participant-first spirit of the event without leaving history-making performances buried in a Reddit thread.
If you want something simple that actually works, this is one of the most effective tools I’ve used to build strength, conditioning, and endurance without needing a full gym setup.
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- Solid cast iron build that feels stable and lasts for years
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Whether race organizers are listening remains to be seen. What’s not up for debate is what happened out on that desert highway — a performance for the record books, literally.
