The Mount to Coast Badwater 135 begins today, sending 98 runners from 21 countries and 24 US states on the 135-mile non-stop route from Death Valley to the Mount Whitney Portal that has long carried the tag of the world's toughest foot race. The field, made up of 70 men and 28 women, includes 33 past Badwater finishers alongside 65 rookies attempting the course for the first time, run in temperatures that regularly exceed 120°F across the lowest and hottest stretches of the route.
The most significant change for this year's edition is administrative rather than geographic: race organisers have lowered the overall time limit from 48 to 45 hours, tightening the margin for runners who have historically used the closing hours of the cutoff to complete the climb to the Whitney Portal finish. The adjustment is expected to sharpen pacing decisions across the field, particularly for competitors managing the transition from the valley heat into the cooler, higher-altitude sections later in the course.
Defending the men's title is Norway's Simen Holvik, who won last year's race in 21 hours 47 minutes and 45 seconds, while American Marisa Lizak returns after taking the women's title with a finish roughly an hour clear of her nearest rival. Both arrive as the athletes to beat in a field that organisers describe as one of the deepest in the race's history, spanning veteran Badwater finishers with detailed knowledge of the course's demands and first-time entrants drawn by the event's reputation as the benchmark of extreme-heat ultrarunning.
Now in its 39th year, Badwater has built its identity around conditions few other events attempt to replicate deliberately: the race starts near the lowest point in the western hemisphere and finishes on the slopes of the highest peak in the contiguous United States, a net elevation gain that, combined with the heat, has made pacing and heat management as central to the result as raw running fitness. Support crews remain mandatory for every entrant, tasked with managing hydration and cooling across a course where conditions alone have ended plenty of well-prepared campaigns in past editions.
With the tightened cutoff in place for the first time, this year's race is likely to be watched as closely for its attrition rate as for the finishing times at the front. A shorter time limit typically sharpens the split between runners who can hold a sustainable pace through the heat of the Panamint and Owens valleys and those who fall away, and with such a large rookie contingent in the field, this year's edition carries an added layer of uncertainty about how many of the 98 starters ultimately reach the Whitney Portal finish line.