Women's Badwater Salton Sea: Drei Badwater Veteranen Wire-to-Wire, Veggie Tales Storm the Back Half

• Drei Badwater Veteranen (Kasow & Leisher) win in 17:38:31 — holding the top two women's spots from the first checkpoint to the last, with Kasow posting the fastest women's split on the USN Tower→Borrego segment and Leisher the second-fastest on the same stretch.
• Veggie Tales (Lyons & Negri) charge from 11th/12th to 3rd/4th — the biggest move in the women's field, climbing steadily through every checkpoint to finish in 22:05:55.
• Put The Kettle On (Harris, Skinner & Chan) hold firm at 5th–7th, finishing in 22:21:51 — just 15:56 behind Veggie Tales — with the 4th-fastest women's split on the Henshaw→Finish stretch.
• Triple Tide (Hardy, Kooiman & McKeehan) bring home the only three-person women's team outside the top four, crossing together in 24:10:30 at 17:54/mi.

Drei Badwater Veteranen — Lindsay Kasow (36, Hemet, CA) and Ashley Leisher (28, Jacksonville, FL) — owned the women's race from start to finish. Their place progression tells the whole story: 1st and 2nd at every single checkpoint, never challenged for the lead across 81 miles of California terrain, from 234 feet below sea level in Salton City all the way to Palomar Mountain at 5,500 feet. Their shared finish time of 17:38:31 at a 13:04/mi average is a remarkable effort over more than 9,000 feet of total elevation gain. Kasow's fastest women's split through the USN Tower→Borrego segment, with Leisher right behind in second on that same stretch, underlines just how locked-in this pair was.

The race's most compelling subplot belonged to Veggie Tales — Emily Lyons (35, Castle Hayne, NC) and Victoria Negri (39, Brooklyn, NY). Starting 11th and 12th among women, they were methodical and relentless: 8th and 9th by the second checkpoint, 6th and 7th by the third, and steadily into 3rd and 4th by the halfway point, where they held firm to the line. Their 22:05:55 finish at 16:22/mi was a full 4:27:24 behind the winners but a clear statement of back-half strength — they posted the 3rd- and 4th-fastest women's splits on the USN Tower→Borrego segment. For Lyons, this was a marked improvement on her 2025 finish of 24:18:00 at this same race.

Put The Kettle On — Emma Harris (45), Amanda Skinner (39), and Susie Chan (50), all from southern England — were steady throughout, sitting 4th as a group into the middle stages before settling into 5th–7th by the finish in 22:21:51. Their Henshaw→Finish split was the 4th-fastest among women, a sign they were still moving well on the long climb to Palomar. Chan, at 50, was the oldest finisher in the top seven women. Further back, Elizabeth Perez (61, Victoria, TX) of Three's Bad Company wrapped up the women's field story — returning from her 2025 finish of 24:36:12, she crossed in 25:24:39, a meaningful improvement on her prior time at this race.