Half marathon course cutter Ashley Paulson, who served 6 month contamination suspension, wins coveted Badwater 135.

getrealu wrote:

Crascrenbon wrote:

Also a factor "against" her seems to be that she appears to present in the vein of a certain look-at-me instagram type, that heavily tanned fitness mom type that poses like a 19-year-old in her pictures, and that's a type that people love to hate, and I would say this message board REALLY loves to hate. At the very least I'm finding hints of such hate here and there as I catch up on the thread, or getting a real feeling that it's at least a factor in, let's call it, "bringing people back" to this thread over and over. I think this is an element in the skepticism along with her course cutting and drug history, and it's similarly inconsequential to her performance, such as it is -- you don't gotta like her to accept her result if you can't prove she faked it.

I'd love to see the doppelganger thing proved in some race sometime, though, even if Paulson didn't do that here. It's one heck of a cheating technique and someone should have the brass cajones to try it sometime! Where are the old Heath twins when you really need them? Or the L. Youngs?

What kind of persona she puts on on social media is irrelevant given she has verifiable evidence of her running talent. No matter however she was seeking attention from social media cannot change the fact that she PHYSICALLY run in the Olympic trials with a 2:40 time.

bReOt wrote:

Caveat, I didn't read several of the last pages here, so apologies if any of this is redundant.

Badwater's website does a reasonably good job of letting you download large sets of results and splits data from previous races in various pace, time of day and other formats.

More caveats - the race used to start in the morning and the lead runners would finish as the sun was rising. As of the last few years because of the parks service wussyness, the race has to start in the evening to get their permits...presumably for safety so the runners are out of the lowest part of the valleys by the heat of the day. That means the leaders are finishing as the sun goes down and in the dark (presumably cooler temperatures). I believe that's also part of the rub from reports on the course due to darkness over the last few hours.

I downloaded a bunch of split data to cover the last 5 years results. As some have pointed out, some runners have taken 4, 6, 8, and even 10+ hour breaks in years past. Including their splits over the ensuing checkpoints after long breaks like that is not a fair way to compare data. So I looked at only the top 10 finishers over the last 5 years.

I looked at the last two sections - Line Pine to Portal Road (9 miles, miles 122 -131), and Portal Road to the Finish (4 miles, miles 131 - 135). Note that the total of these 2 sections are the final 13 miles of a 135 mile race with an elevation gain somewhere around 4,500 feet. The last 4 miles in particular averages something like a 10% gradient.

Top 10 finishers last 5 years, LP to PR 9 mile section: Avg Pace: 17.6 min/mile

Top 10 finishers last 5 years, PR to Finish 4 mile section: Avg Pace: 17.7 min/mile

The single fastest split across the entire data set was Ashley Paulson in both instances, 12.6 min/mile and 13.5 min/mile respectively. Meaning the elite of the elite top 10 finishers across the last several years were nearly 50% slower than she was at this point of the race.

These top finishers are folks like Harvey Lewis and Pam Smith - folks who have 13-14 hour 100 miler speed. Folks who have decades long resumes of ultramarathon experience and now how to finish races, Badwater included.

Ashley Paulson is an elite runner from everything I can see. Elite speed and great long distance strength and endurance. I don't find the data to be impossible, just an extreme outlier. But records are set with outlier numbers. My struggle is that these numbers are outliers within outliers. Not only did she best the worlds best by a significant margin, she did it with low heart rate (assuming the data is reasonably accurate) going up a mountain and was hardly breathing at the end from what I see on the video.

But, if she didn't have a checkered past, I'd probably not think twice about the result. Just like when people like Camille Heron break 13 hours in a 100 mile run or run 165 miles in 24 hours. I guess that's the burden and curse she will live with because of her past. Looking forward to the next marathoninvestigation article as I hope he is able to get more details from people who were at the race that reported suspicious behavior. Hopefully none of this bears out and the result is legitimate. And if so, hopefully she'll try and view all this internet chatter as a badge of honor and keep showing up, trying to be transparent, and doing big things. I'm not worried about what will happen if the result is proven tainted, because the internet is the trash can of the world - it will get taken care of. :)

getrealu wrote:

bReOt wrote:

Caveat, I didn't read several of the last pages here, so apologies if any of this is redundant.

Badwater's website does a reasonably good job of letting you download large sets of results and splits data from previous races in various pace, time of day and other formats.

More caveats - the race used to start in the morning and the lead runners would finish as the sun was rising. As of the last few years because of the parks service wussyness, the race has to start in the evening to get their permits...presumably for safety so the runners are out of the lowest part of the valleys by the heat of the day. That means the leaders are finishing as the sun goes down and in the dark (presumably cooler temperatures). I believe that's also part of the rub from reports on the course due to darkness over the last few hours.

I downloaded a bunch of split data to cover the last 5 years results. As some have pointed out, some runners have taken 4, 6, 8, and even 10+ hour breaks in years past. Including their splits over the ensuing checkpoints after long breaks like that is not a fair way to compare data. So I looked at only the top 10 finishers over the last 5 years.

I looked at the last two sections - Line Pine to Portal Road (9 miles, miles 122 -131), and Portal Road to the Finish (4 miles, miles 131 - 135). Note that the total of these 2 sections are the final 13 miles of a 135 mile race with an elevation gain somewhere around 4,500 feet. The last 4 miles in particular averages something like a 10% gradient.

Top 10 finishers last 5 years, LP to PR 9 mile section: Avg Pace: 17.6 min/mile

Top 10 finishers last 5 years, PR to Finish 4 mile section: Avg Pace: 17.7 min/mile

The single fastest split across the entire data set was Ashley Paulson in both instances, 12.6 min/mile and 13.5 min/mile respectively. Meaning the elite of the elite top 10 finishers across the last several years were nearly 50% slower than she was at this point of the race.

These top finishers are folks like Harvey Lewis and Pam Smith - folks who have 13-14 hour 100 miler speed. Folks who have decades long resumes of ultramarathon experience and now how to finish races, Badwater included.

Ashley Paulson is an elite runner from everything I can see. Elite speed and great long distance strength and endurance. I don't find the data to be impossible, just an extreme outlier. But records are set with outlier numbers. My struggle is that these numbers are outliers within outliers. Not only did she best the worlds best by a significant margin, she did it with low heart rate (assuming the data is reasonably accurate) going up a mountain and was hardly breathing at the end from what I see on the video.

But, if she didn't have a checkered past, I'd probably not think twice about the result. Just like when people like Camille Heron break 13 hours in a 100 mile run or run 165 miles in 24 hours. I guess that's the burden and curse she will live with because of her past. Looking forward to the next marathoninvestigation article as I hope he is able to get more details from people who were at the race that reported suspicious behavior. Hopefully none of this bears out and the result is legitimate. And if so, hopefully she'll try and view all this internet chatter as a badge of honor and keep showing up, trying to be transparent, and doing big things. I'm not worried about what will happen if the result is proven tainted, because the internet is the trash can of the world - it will get taken care of. :)

I don't think your calculation is right. This year's second place, Penalba Lopez Iván finished the race in 24:02:57, and the last two segments in 2:55, that's an average pace of 13.5. How come your calculation yielded a significantly slower pace for the last two segments for the top 10 finishes?

RossiCheated wrote:

Whether she has been tested or not, she regularly races as a professional and knows that she is subject to testing. And we do know that she has not had a failed test that would call the result of THIS event into question.

Perhaps placing some faith in the race director:

"During the 2022 Badwater 135, we consistently saw Ashley Paulson running a fast, smooth, impressive, competitive race. As far as we know and observed, she and her support crew participated in an exemplary manner.

We have nearly 50 race staff who are out on and patrolling the course continuously. Every time we observed her, she was running fast, she was running with exceptional form, and she was smiling, happy, and engaging. She was clearly thriving as she competed against some of the best ultra runners on a brutal course. Living in both Florida and Utah, she didn’t seem to be impacted by the heat, either. She never wavered. From what we saw, she ran a perfect race."

AND

"But innocence need not be proven; quite the contrary, compelling evidence to prove guilt must be presented. So far, we have seen no such evidence and have mainly seen character assassination, hearsay, conjecture, and bruised egos."

getrealu wrote:

bReOt wrote:

Here are Badwater's results:

Link:http://dbase.adventurecorps.com/result...

Maybe you misunderstand what I said. I said when looking at the top 10 finishers over the last 5 years, they ON AVERAGE were nearly 50% slower than Ashley on those last 2 sections. And she in particular had the single fastest time for each of those 2 sections.

Some went quicker than average (like the 2nd finisher) and were closer to her splits, and some went slower than average.

That only shows that some of the top finishers did poorly in pacing. They could've done so much better, which only goes on to say that the course record is rather soft and has a lot of room of improvement.

It doesn't matter how many really good runners blew up in the last two segment, but still ran an overall good time. All that matters is how the last two segment can be ran if paced better.

bReOt wrote:

RossiCheated wrote:

Whether she has been tested or not, she regularly races as a professional and knows that she is subject to testing. And we do know that she has not had a failed test that would call the result of THIS event into question.

Perhaps placing some faith in the race director:

"During the 2022 Badwater 135, we consistently saw Ashley Paulson running a fast, smooth, impressive, competitive race. As far as we know and observed, she and her support crew participated in an exemplary manner.

We have nearly 50 race staff who are out on and patrolling the course continuously. Every time we observed her, she was running fast, she was running with exceptional form, and she was smiling, happy, and engaging. She was clearly thriving as she competed against some of the best ultra runners on a brutal course. Living in both Florida and Utah, she didn’t seem to be impacted by the heat, either. She never wavered. From what we saw, she ran a perfect race."

AND

"But innocence need not be proven; quite the contrary, compelling evidence to prove guilt must be presented. So far, we have seen no such evidence and have mainly seen character assassination, hearsay, conjecture, and bruised egos."

The RD also conducted his own character assassination, hearsay, and conjecture, accusing those who questioned the results as being misogynists. LOLOLOL. How come the people asking questions haven't questioned all the other major results and records women set over the last several years. LOLOLOL. This isn't the first time he's knowingly let in people with a checkered past. So he's got emotional baggage he's trying to defend. To have someone who at the very end of the race ran significant outlier splits while at a low heart rate (if the data is accurate), wasn't breathing hard in the finish-line video, and had reports of suspicious behavior from people at the race lodged...with that history...it would be crazy if people didn't ask questions. Now I'm sure there are idiots out there calling her names and being rude, but that doesn't make the questioning and analysis of data unwarranted. The RDs post was in real bad form in my opinion. You don't call people names when they're pointing out legitimate questions. That's just going to throw gas on the fire. But then again the race registration fee is $1,595, so he's gotta defend his wallet I suppose.

RossiCheated wrote:

Whether she has been tested or not, she regularly races as a professional and knows that she is subject to testing. And we do know that she has not had a failed test that would call the result of THIS event into question.

Perhaps placing some faith in the race director:

"During the 2022 Badwater 135, we consistently saw Ashley Paulson running a fast, smooth, impressive, competitive race. As far as we know and observed, she and her support crew participated in an exemplary manner.

We have nearly 50 race staff who are out on and patrolling the course continuously. Every time we observed her, she was running fast, she was running with exceptional form, and she was smiling, happy, and engaging. She was clearly thriving as she competed against some of the best ultra runners on a brutal course. Living in both Florida and Utah, she didn’t seem to be impacted by the heat, either. She never wavered. From what we saw, she ran a perfect race."

AND

"But innocence need not be proven; quite the contrary, compelling evidence to prove guilt must be presented. So far, we have seen no such evidence and have mainly seen character assassination, hearsay, conjecture, and bruised egos."

bReOt wrote:

getrealu wrote:

That only shows that some of the top finishers did poorly in pacing. They could've done so much better, which only goes on to say that the course record is rather soft and has a lot of room of improvement.

It doesn't matter how many really good runners blew up in the last two segment, but still ran an overall good time. All that matters is how the last two segment can be ran if paced better.

Oh I see, so only if the best runners in the world over this races multi-decade history had known to pace better, they could have gone faster? LOLOLOLOL. I'd argue if Ashley ran that fast at the end, then she went out too slow. Ashley ran over 11 minute miles from Towne's Pass to Darwin (a net ~0 elevation differential), ran over 11 minute miles from Darwin to Lone Pine (a net drop in elevation of about 1,000 feet), but then ran 13:30s up a mountain. She left too much in the tank.