Originally created by Ken and Stephanie Rubeli in 2014, the Jackpot Ultra Running Festival in Henderson, Nevada, is now hosted by Aravaipa Running. Organized by Jon Bullock and Lee Robinson, the event features several fixed-time and distance categories over a weekend of running, and the USATF 100-Mile Championship has served as the marquee race at Jackpot since 2019. On an unseasonably cool Friday morning in February, at Cornerstone Park, the 2026 roster of competitors would take advantage of favorable conditions and the race would turn in some of the fastest recent times on American soil, including two new world record runs in the women’s race, as well as a men’s champion running the fastest 100-mile time by an American in several years.
Leading up to the event, 2024 USATF 100-mile champion Ashley Paulson made no secret of her goal for the race. Paulson, 44, of St. George, Utah, declared her intention to try and establish a new world record in the 100-mile race on social media posts for several weeks. The mark was recently reset in November by Ireland’s Catriona Jennings who ran 12:37:05 at the Tunnel Hill 100-miler (Jennings’ result is still pending ratification per IAU, and the current ratified record is 12:42:40 by Camille Herron, set at Tunnel Hill in 2017). Paulson’s previous 100-mile personal best prior to her Jackpot appearance, a time of 14:04:40, made her target an extremely ambitious goal – one that she not only matched, but exceeded with room to spare.
Matt Paulson, Ashley’s husband and crew, confirmed early in the race that her target was 12 hours and 30 minutes (7:30 pace) for her 100-mile effort. Paulson went out significantly faster, as she held a 7:02-per-mile pace at the 25-mile mark, and sustained a 7:09 pace for the first half of the race, reaching the 50-mile mark in just under 6 hours. From there, she was able to hold a 7:35 pace for the second half of the run, finishing in 12:19:34 (7:21 per mile), a full 17 minutes and 31 seconds off Jennings’ previous record.
Rounding out the USATF 100-Mile Championship women’s podium were Kaylee Frederick (14:49:08) and Jenny Arnzen (15:01:20). Despite being just 21 years old, Frederick has shown she is comfortable competing at the highest levels of road ultrarunning, having recently placed 12th at the 2025 IAU 24-hour World Championships, where she was the youngest competitor by over seven years. Arnzen’s result was a massive personal record, having improved her best 100-mile time by 11 hours.
Paulson wasn’t the only woman who was able to capture a world record at Jackpot Ultras this year. Stella Springer, who recently placed 14th while representing Team USA in the 2025 24-hour World Championships, made her intentions clear during an interview in late 2025 that after her 55th birthday in January 2026, she would be aiming for the 55-59 women’s mark in the 100-miler held by Canada’s Bernadett Benson (16:54:18) since 2024. Early in the day, it was obvious that Benson’s mark was on the line, as Springer’s early splits would put her on pace for improving upon the world record by multiple hours. Springer hit the halfway point at about the 7:15 mark, and while she slowed down as nightfall approached, she still held on for a final time of 15:41:02 (fourth woman), improving the previous women’s 55-59 age-category world record by a staggering 1 hour, 13 minutes and 16 seconds.
The men’s open field at Jackpot featured several experienced competitors, headlined by Jackpot course-record-holder Rajpaul Pannu. Pannu set the pace early, as he and co-leader Ruairi Moynihan held a 6:44-per-mile pace for the first 40 miles, but Pannu would pull far ahead of the pack, and finish in 11:38:56 (6:57 per mile), winning the USATF 100-Mile championship for the second time in three years (2024 was his first win). Pannu remains only the second American (the other is Zach Bitter) to have multiple 100-mile runs in under 12 hours.
Second-place Scott Munson charged through the field over the course of the day and would claim runner-up honors with a time of 13:37:03. Like Arnzen in the women’s race, Munson’s Jackpot effort eclipsed his previous personal best by several hours. Las Vegas local Edher Ramirez finished third in 13:44:38. Last year, Ramirez won the Jackpot 24-hour event with a course-record 131.63 miles.
Full results here.