Who runs Badwater ultra in Death Valley Heat? These 10 characters help define the 135-mile race.

In a few hours, 94 runners who haven’t lost their minds – at least, not yet – will start the most grueling footrace starting at Badwater Basin in toasty 118-degree temperatures and finish 135 miles later at Mt. Whitney Portal.

The first wave of runners start at 8 p.m., followed by another group at 9:30 p.m. and the final runners at 11 p.m. Check here for race updates.

Why traverse 135 miles while going up and down three mountain ranges with 14,600 feet of elevation climb and 6,1090 feet of elevation descent.

Why put up with road temperatures that soar up to 200 degrees? Why risk lack of sleep? Midnight hallucinations?

The reward: A unique belt buckle and the right to say you conquered the Badwater 135 Ultramarathon.

I have watched, chatted, photographed and written about the runners, their crew members and the organizers since 2011. Other than the pandemic casualty of 2020, I have covered 10 races. Here is my list of the 10 most interesting runners I have met.

Oswaldo López: The Madera runner has become the Pied Piper of the Badwater clan, easily one of the most popular runners based on demand for his photos or autographs. In his third Badwater in 2011, after finishing second the previous two years, the mariachi singer/trumpet player won the race with a time of 23 hours, 41 minutes, 40 seconds.

What made his 2011 victory special (he has run 11 times with two DNFs) was that his crew used a Mexican musical band’s 1991 Ford Econoline van that overheated on its way to the race. Race director calls López “the world’s thinnest mariachi.”

López, who is not in this year’s field, is a Hazmat worker who began running while in the Mexican military in Chiqsuilistán, Jalisco.

“I want to dedicate this race to México,” said López following his 2011 win.

He is the second-oldest of five children of mariachi musicians, and began playing when he was 8 years old.

“We played all over the country,” said López, whose favorite mariachi song is ‘La Pelea de los Gallos’ because of its lesson that only the fittest will survive in a cockfight.

Yoshihiko Ishikawa shocked the field that included two previous champions and broke the course record by clocking 21 hours, 33 minutes, 1 second for the 2019 title.

The engineer from Japan grabbed the lead at Stovepipe Wells, the 42-mile mark, and never looked back. The only difficult part of the course, he said, was the downhill stretch from Darwin because it wasn’t scenic.

What made his record-breaking triumph impressive is that he did not have a pacer. His girlfriend, Miki Matsushima drove the support van. Her reward: A proposal at the finish line. She said yes.

Pete Kostelnick will miss Badwater for the first time in nine years, but that doesn’t mean his name won’t get mentioned several times. The two-time winner (2015, 2016) owns the second-fastest finishing time and has proven to be a running machine as evidenced by a 98-run from Kenai, Alaska to Key West, Florida in 98 days.

In 2016, shortly after winning his second Badwater title, the financial analyst set out to break the trans-America record. Kostelnick ran from San Francisco City Hall to New York City Hall in a record 42 days, 6-and-a-half hours.

His next goal: On July 25, he will set out on a solo adventure in Alaska to run 50 miles on 50 consecutive days in each state in the country. Then, Kostelnick will try to be the first runner to average 80 miles running per day for 30 days in a run from Perth to Sydney in Australia.

“The bar I’ve set for myself will be the most difficult and challenging one I’ll probably ever attempt,” he said.

Patrycja Bereznowska finished second to Ishikawa in 2019 and won the women’s title in a record 24:13.14 to shatter the old mark of 25:53.07 set three years earlier by Alyson Venti.

The Polish runner is no stranger to ultra records. She won the 2017 Spartathlon, a grueling 153-mile race from Athens to Sparta, in a still-record time of 24:48:18..

Bereznowska finished the Badwater race more than 5 hours ahead of the second woman, Maryland’s Gina Slaby.

Brenda Guajardo didn’t have a great experience in her first Badwater race in 2017. Less than a mile into the race, she stepped on the edge of the pavement and suffered a foot injury. The following year, the Texan redeemed herself by winning the women’s race, and finishing fourth overall in 28:23.10.

Guajardo went into the race as a feared ultrarunner, having won ultras in Europe against both men and women.

Ray Sánchez, a mechanical engineer from Sacramento, will be attempting to finish his 14th consecutive Badwater. Only four runners have finished more consecutive races.

The former Golden Gloves three-time champion (he lost in the second round of the 1996 Olympic trials) didn’t try ultrarunning until 2006 when friends convinced him to run the Sacramento International Marathon.

“I didn’t prepare for that race. I didn’t practice, and I certainly didn’t train,” said Sánchez, who completed the race.

He now runs an ultra almost every week to promote Be Change, a non-profit organization dedicated to securing equitable education for inner-city children in Sacramento’s toughest neighborhoods.

“I run for a reason. Every stride I take is a possible step up for a child who has never seen a doctor or a dentist,” he said. “I was raised with very little.”

Jennifer Nissen is pictured on the cover of this year’s Badwater program, but the Texan is no longer running. She lost her battle to cancer.

In 2018, she was given a standing ovation during the traditional pizza party at Lo-Inyo Elementary School after Nissen was the last of 66 runners to cross the finish line less than 23 minutes before the cut-off time.

“This has changed my life in many, many positive ways. I mean, don’t get me wrong, cancer sucks!” she wrote on Facebook a few days later. “But I’ve gotten to experience so much because of my diagnosis.”

Harvey Lewis, a schoolteacher in Cincinnati, is the defending champion. His first win, in 2014, was memorable because shortly after crossing the finish line he got down on one knee and proposed to his girlfriend Kelly ODell. She is among 62 Badwater rookies (first-time runners, or those who have not finished the race).

Lewis will also be going for his 10th consecutive finish. In 2004, he suffered a broken neck in a car accident and got back into shape by running.

Ed ‘The Jester’ Ettinghausen is probably the reason motorists along the Badwater race route have done a double take. Ettinghausen runs in a jester cap and wardrobe to match.

He has also completed 10 consecutive Badwater races. But, his ultrarunning history doesn’t stop there. Ettinghausen has finished more than 200 marathons and more than 250 ultramarathons.

He identifies Badwater as one of his all-time favorite races.

“The best way I can describe the magical experience of Badwater 135 to a ‘non-Badwatermuggle’ is to imagine Harry Potter at Hogwarts, or Dorothy Gale in the land of Oz, or Neo outside the matrix,” he said.

OK, I haven’t watched Modesto resident Adrian Crane run Badwater. But, he did try to get me to try distances greater than a marathon when I worked alongside him at The Modesto Bee … and failed.

Crane has not officially finished Badwater, but you have to give him kudos for creativity. In 1988, he tried to take a shortcut across the Badwater salt flats but his legs kept breaking through the ground.

In 1989, Crane got some cross country skis and set about to take a shortcut (about 30 miles) across the salt flats. He was disqualified.

You can keep up with the race at Badwater® (@badwater) / Twitter