Last night when I was about to go to bed, I saw the post of Camille Herron on her Facebook Page that “she is jumping for joy and gratitude that the Badwater 135 got the green light as a “GO” race in two weeks time”. I was surprised about her post because I did not know that she is one of the listed participants for this year’s edition basing from the last update that I saw last week on the website of the event.
I personally met Camille Herron during the Racing Briefing for the 2017 Tarawera 100K Ultramarathon Race in February 2017 in Rotorua, New Zealand. She won the Ladies Championship Trophy for that edition. From that simple meeting and “selfie”, we became friends on Facebook and from time to time I would leave a comment on her FB posts since then. I even went to the extent of sending her a copy of the Ultrarunning Magazine (courtesy of Badwater Ben Gaetos) where she was in the Cover Page being the Ultrarunning Magazine’s Ultrarunner Of The Year in 2017 for her autograph. I still have that signed magazine in my collection of Ultrarunning Magazines. Last year, she went back to Rotorua, New Zealand and joined the Inaugural Tarawera 100-Mile Endurance Race and she won again as the Female Champion with a new course record of 17:20:52 hours. On the same year (2017) when she won the Tarawera 100K Ultra Race, after four months, she won Ladies Champion of The Comrades Marathon in South Africa which brought back a US athlete in the Event’s Podium after an absence of 20 years! She is the 3rd US/American to win in this prestigious event.
Being the President of the Philippine Association of Ultrarunners which sanctioned National Federation of Ultrarunning of the country with the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU), I have been monitoring all the IAU World Championships Races where I was always been invited. Camille holds the record for being the FIRST to win all three of the IAU’s 50K, 100K, and 24-Hour World Championships. At present, she holds the following best performances:
50 Miles (Road)—–5:38:41 hours
100 Mile (Road & Trail)—-12:42:40 hours
100 Miles (Track)—-13:25:00 hours
12 Hours (Track)—–92.66 miles (149.12 kilometers)
24 Hours (Track)—–167.842 miles (270.116 kilometers)
She was voted as IAU’s International Athlete Of the Year in 2015, 2018, and 2019. I voted for her as I am one of the members of the IAU Nominating Committee in those years. Her performance in ultrarunning speaks well and she is deserving to get the award, winning over the Europeans and the Japanese women’s runners.
It will be a very exciting competition among the top athletes in this year’s Badwater 135 Ultra. Mike McKnight, a friend of mine also on Facebook, is one of the competitors in this year’s event and I came to know him when he ran solo (as an experiment) in a 100-mile route without taking any solid food where he finished in 18:40 hours. He is also holds the 2019 Course Record and Champion of the 200-Mile Triple Crown in 161:20:10 hours where he broke his own record the previous year by 46 hours. The Triple Crown consists of three 200-mile races: Bigfoot 206-Mile Race; Tahoe 205-Mile Race, and; Moab 238-Mile Race, a total of 650 miles.
Since there are no Men’s and Ladies’ Categories in the history of Badwater 135-Mile Ultramarathon Race, this will a good fight who will be the Champion and First to cross the finish line at Mt Whitney Portal. Good luck to these two fine and very friendly athletes!
I will be posting updates in this blog for this year’s Badwater 135-Mile Ultramarathon Race.
Bald Runner 