Badwater Cape Fear Ultra Marathon expected to return to Bald Head Island

BALD HEAD ISLAND, N.C. (WWAY) — The annual Badwater Cape Fear Ultra Marathon will return to Bald Head Island next weekend.

The race is set for Saturday, Mar. 21, and has been held since 2014. The race has raised over $160,000 for Bald Head Island Conservancy.

The race has attracted runners from 25 different countries throughout its existence.

The event is presented by Mount to Coast, and is hosted by AdventureCORPS.

The race will start with a twelve-mile warm up, on the car-free roads and trails of Bald Head Island, followed by 19 or 38 miles of running on the sandy beach between Cape Fear and Fort Fisher State Recreation Area park HQ in Kure Beach.

Approximately 190 runners representing seven countries and thirty-three American states and territories will compete this year on March 21, 2026.

Fifty-nine runners from North Carolina will compete this year, twenty-nine of them from the greater Cape Fear region.

Since the first race in 2014 and including this year’s roster, 1808 runners from 25 countries and 47 American states and territories have or will have competed in Badwater Cape Fear. Counting multi-year finishers, 1330 unique individuals have entered, while 1304 individual runners have finished officially.

Two runners, Bob Becker, age 80 of Florida – last year’s oldest runner – and Gerald Tabios, age 56 of New York, have finished all eleven previous races; Tabios will compete again this year, while Becker’s streak will end as he is headed to China to compete in a race that Chris Kostman helped launch there ten years ago. Also returning is Suzanne Tulsey of nearby Oak Island, NC who has seven victories, winning the 50km race six times and the 51.4-mile race once.