Just past midnight somewhere along the long road between Darwin and Lone Pine, California, driving a car littered with Cheez-It boxes, baby wipes, and crushed cans of energy drinks and coffee, Andrew Boyd tried to decide if he should tell Kaylee Frederick something important. As the crew chief of Frederick’s third consecutive Badwater 135 run, Boyd was the keeper of the pace secrets. Not even Frederick knew whether she was on pace to achieve her goal of besting the 20 to 29 female age group record of 32 hours and 31 minutes. She had spent the previous day listening to Boyd’s encouragement, and now, in the darkness outside of Death Valley, she was just hours away from breaking 32. She would need, however, to dig deep—to run most of the way up Mount Whitney’s Portal Road. The margins were too close; she didn’t have time to take a break or a quick nap. Every step, truly, had to count.

Boyd knew this. I noticed the mischievous, whimsical shift in his tone that I had come to recognize over the past two days. He turned to the other two members of Frederick’s crew: Liz Myers and Marissa Sisson, his thought-partners in crime.

“Should I tell her?” he said.

“It’s time,” Myers said.

Two years ago, Frederick became, at 18 years old, the youngest ever Badwater 135 finisher. Since then, Frederick, who is sponsored by the performance running brand Mount to Coast, has amassed an impressive resume of ultramarathon finishes, including a second-place, 136-mile total at the USA Track & Field 24-hour championship in 2024. But it is Badwater that holds her gaze. She has returned annually since that initial finish, each year improving on her time from the year before. She holds the age group record for females under 20 years old, and, at 20 years old this year, was targeting the next female age group record. She is half the age of the current female record holder, Ashley Paulson. Andrew Boyd has been there for each of Frederick’s Badwater races, encouraging her from the support vehicle, running alongside her as a pacer.