Masters Women: Drei Badwater Veteranen Wire to Wire

• Drei Badwater Veteranen (Kasow & Leisher) won the Masters Women race in 17:38:31 at 13:04/mi, leading every single checkpoint from start to finish.
• Put The Kettle On (Chan, Skinner & Harris) claimed 2nd in 22:21:51 — a three-person squad from England that held 3rd through the early miles before settling into 2nd place among teams by the finish.
• Triple Tide (Kooiman, McKeehan & Hardy) ran a steady 3rd-place effort in 24:10:30 (17:54/mi), finishing as the deepest team in the field at three members.
• Elizabeth Perez of Three's Bad Company finished 4th in 25:24:39 — nearly 48 minutes slower than her 2025 finish here of 24:36:12, showing just how much this 81-mile, 9,000-foot-of-gain traverse can vary year to year.

Drei Badwater Veteranen — Lindsay Kasow (36, Hemet, CA) and Ashley Leisher (28, Jacksonville, FL) — never relinquished a step of ground across the entire race. Their gender standings read 1-and-2 at every single checkpoint, a metronome of dominance across 81 miles from Salton City's below-sea-level flats to Palomar Mountain's 5,500-foot summit. Kasow posted the fastest women's split on the USN Tower→Borrego segment; Leisher was right behind with the second-fastest. Running together the entire way, they crossed in 17:38:31 — a time that slots in just four minutes behind the 2025 overall winning time of 17:34:30, which itself came from a mixed team. That is a performance worth sitting with.

Put The Kettle On — Susie Chan (50), Amanda Skinner (39), and Emma Harris (45), all based in southern England — made the trip count. The trio held positions 3rd, 4th, and 5th among women through the early checkpoints, then consolidated into a unified 2nd-place team finish at 22:21:51. All three recorded top-five women's splits on the Henshaw→Finish segment, showing they found their legs late on the mountain climb. Their 16:34/mi average across more than 22 hours reflects just how unrelenting this course becomes past the Anza-Borrego singletrack.

Triple Tide (Andrea Kooiman, Melissa McKeehan, and Jessica Hardy) rounded out the podium in 24:10:30, running a consistent 17:54/mi to hold 3rd place through the full race. Behind them, Cheng 2026 — Huiyu Cherry Cheng running solo — was the only single-member entry in the Masters Women field, finishing 4th in 23:11:15 at 17:11/mi, ahead of Triple Tide's clock but placing 4th by division order. Salty Milers (Jennifer George & Anne-Claire Podlipski) finished 5th in 25:31:37, and Stars & Samba (Odara Maria Thomas) completed the field in 26:47:40. Lost in Pace's Xandi Meixner (54, St. Martin) crossed in 24:45:54 to round out 14 Masters Women finishers on the day.