Ashley Paulson is about to win the Badwater 135!!! Overall (Men and Women)!!!!

Her incredible last 2 aid station splits last year which caught people's eyes just got obliterated even further. To whit, the last 4 miles up portal road (Miles 131-135) is a brutal grade. The top men in the world take 1 to 1.5 hours. Ashley did it in 37 minutes. Nearly broke the men's course record.

Looks like while all the chatter about her was going on last year, she quietly circled her calendar for this year.

What a brutal brutal demolition of the field - just flat out ran away from them.

#2 overall time ever for a doper.

Most suspicious athlete ever.

The second coming of Jarmila Kratochvílová.

Convicted drug cheat and admitted course cutter strikes again.

Somewhere the marathon investigator guy weeps.

Must be the shoes (the Vaporflys to be specific)

So, let's review.

After 2022, the Haters said:

"She cheated!"

No credible evidence was ever presented and every objective analysis concluded the opposite. She had a great rookie run, finishing third and winning the Women's Division. Not a shred of reasonable evidence contradicts that, and the Race Director agreed.

"She'll never run another ultra. It would expose her!"

She ran in and won the Women's Division at the Zion 100. She had a great year, running several 2:4x marathons, and had some great triathlons. She is hoping to qualify for the Olympic Trials, so that drove her agenda for a lot of the year.

"She'll definitely never show her face at Badwater again!"

She just did. And she not only became the first female winner in twenty years, but she paced it perfectly, ran with the pack for a long time before moving up, picking off the leaders, and winning handily. All while being observed and very clearly "on the radar."

"She could never run that fast!"

Not only could she, but she just ran even faster. She crushed the field with a 21:44:35, about 44 minutes ahead of the top man and far better than her previous time (24:09:34). Her time would have won every iteration of the race except one (Ishikawa ran 21:33 in 2019).

"She could never beat legends of the sport like two-time winner Harvey Lewis!"

Yeah, she can. And did. She just beat him by 5 hours and 42 minutes. Yes, he did put in a huge effort in a race in Australia a few weeks ago. But the point remains. She can put him in her back pocket and smile while doing it.

"A rookie can't do this, especially a woman!"

Sonia Ahuja, at age 47, just finished 4th in her debut. The reality is that rookies, including women, can do very well at this race. Simen Halvik (the top man) was also a rookie.

"She failed a drug test!"

Yep, that's still true. It was a tainted supplement, her ban was reduced to the time it would take to clear her system, and this could happen to anyone who ever bought a supplement at GNC or had a protein shake from Jamba Juice. And as the winner of Badwater, they certainly could test her if they care to. Frankly, I hope they did.

So, she did just serve the haters that steamy mug of Shut the F Up. Let's see if they're smart enough to drink it. I kind of doubt it.

Still a convicted drug cheat and admitted course cutter.

More reasons to eliminate the women's categories of sports.

Oh, I forgot this gem:

"You can't finish looking that fresh and with a smile on your face. Impossible!"

Hope everyone gets to see the finish line video from this year's victory.

She's cruising in, huge smile on her face, and her legs still look pretty amazing.

Your post is great and offers further proof that the majority of LRC posters know jack squat about any aspect of the sport. Most are former JV scrubs from a bygone era and hobby joggers looking for clout. Most should stick to arguing politics or discussing personal relationships. They aren’t experts in those fields either but they can copy and paste the work of others or post YouTube links to appear smarter.

Doper. Course cutter. Liar.

+ Overall Badwatwer 135 winner.

Um no. This could not happen to anyone just having a shake from Jamba Juice or GNC anymore that eating a burrito from a food truck. You have to go to great lengths to find tainted supplements. Hint, they have hilarious claims on the packaging.

We both know Badwater will never test her. The ultra scene is the Wild West. If you test positive and admit to course cutting after being pressed, sorry your results will always be suspect.

Um, yes.

634 products tested by the IOC.

The final results of the study showed that 94 contained substances that not only were not listed on the label, but that would have led to a positive doping test for athletes who took them. Of those 94, 23 contained building blocks of both nandrolone and testosterone, 64 contained precursors of testosterone alone and seven contained precursors of nandrolone. Both nandrolone and testosterone are banned substances under IOC rules.

Another 66 samples returned borderline results for a number of unlabeled substances, according to an IOC release.

The IOC selected the 634 non-hormone nutritional supplements from 215 different manufacturers in 13 countries, buying most of them in stores or over the Internet. A few were obtained from manufacturers. Then the IOC-accredited laboratory in Cologne, Germany, tested them.

Of the supplements tested, 240 came from U.S. manufacturers and nearly 19 percent were found to contain substances not listed on the label. The Netherlands had the most tainted substances in the study, 25.8 percent.

_______

And since that study was done, nothing has been done to clean up the supplement industry. If you are purchasing a product from GNC, you are rolling the dice. If you purchase something like a protein shake and they are putting a powder in it, you are rolling the dice.

And here's the release from USADA (2016) that affirms that they tested the supplement and it was determined that the contamination of the supplement was the cause of the positive test.

usada.org

US Triathlon Athlete, Paulson, Accepts Sanction for Anti-Doping Rule Violation

Hailey Horwath

Ashley Paulson of Pleasant Grove, Utah, an athlete in the sport of triathlon, has accepted a 6-month sanction for an anti-doping rule violation.

Link:www.usada.org/sanction/ashley-paulson-...

Conversely, the course records at badwater really aren't that strong... Pretty much all of the faster ultra runners haven't done the race. Ashley will always have a cloud following around, but she ran a tough race and got her womens record and win. The men's record would probably fall easily, and by quite a bit, if some of the better ultra runners wanted to go for it.

I asked this in the other thread, but who are the fastest marathoners to ever attempt this thing? Without going way back in the history of this race, surely in recent memory it had to be prime Mike Wardian right? Anyone faster?

What about females? Surely Paulson has to have one of the top female marathon PRs to ever attempt this thing. I can't remember what the lady from Japan (former CR holder I believe) ran for the marathon.

I don’t follow ultra running but saw her name popping up on thread titles the last couple days. Thanks for sharing context on who she is and why several anonymous posters are saying she’s a doper and/or course-cutter.