Cocodona 250 race report

 There's a new Coconino Cowboy in town, and their name is Cocodona 250.

The TL;DR version of my race report is that I finished the Cocodona 250 race in 119 hours and 6 minutes. I got 86th place overall. Cocodona 250 was my first 200+ mile mountain race. I ran it solo without crew or pacers. It was a transcendental experience and allowed me to suffer on a previously unknown level. I started the race with big goals and everything planned out. Every plan and goal I had or made during the race went to shit except one; I will finish this race.

Background

Cocodona 250 is a 255-mile point-to-point running race in Arizona. It takes runners from Black Canyon City up into the Bradshaw Mountains – an area steeped in gold mining lore – to the historic town of Crown King. The course then traverses more of the Bradshaws, up and over Mount Union, and snakes down into Prescott, where it cuts straight through the town on Whiskey Row and out into the iconic Granite Dells. From Prescott, the course heads up and over Mingus Mountain into the town of Jerome and onward through Sedona, experiencing a mix of stunning red rock formations and high desert vistas. As runners leave Sedona, the course starts to get into the pines of Flagstaff, finishing up and over Mt Elden and into downtown Flagstaff. It is an extraordinary undertaking and gives runners an incredible point-to-point experience through some of the best landscapes that Arizona has to offer.

The Race

I spent the night at the startline campground in a tent. It was windy, warm, and dry all night. I slept great, woke up at my usual 2:30 am, and started getting ready for the race.

Starting at 5 am, wave one cheered as they ran through the start line. Wearing Spot tracking GPS units on our shoulders, we ran onto a beautiful rolling section of single track trails for 11 miles and 2k of vert. I believe this is part of the Black Canyon Ultra course. I had to use a headlamp for 20 minutes. We just conga lined down the trail at an easy pace. At mile 5, I tripped on a rock and lunged forward, I was able to stop from falling but I hyperextended my upper right hamstring. All of a sudden, my right leg was dead, heavy, and I couldn’t properly stride. I started to do a limp shuffle and eventually left the conga line because I couldn’t keep up. My internal dialogue was a healthy mix of fear and anger. Only 250 more miles with a strained right leg sounds great. We got to aid station 1, Cottonwood Creek, and everyone started filling up their water. We had been warned for weeks that there was a 22-mile hot dry section, and we were required to bring 3L of water. I filled up my pack and then ate some bean rollups and pickles before heading up the trail. As advertised, this section was a lot of vert, overall around 8,000’ for the 22 miles. We’d go up several thousand feet and then drop down several thousand. Steep and rocky, most sections were hard to run on. I didn’t want to risk an ankle injury this early on. I strategized I was going to take it easy and not kill myself on this section. I still had a lot of miles ahead of me. The plan was working well until about mile 11. I was halfway through, and I stopped to drink a red bull I had been carrying to rocket me through the section half of this climb. I opened my pack only to realize I had forgotten to pack it. It was a devastating discovery; I was so thirsty and had been conserving water with the rationalization that my body would soon get to drink 8oz. What can you do? I continued, but started to become acutely aware of how little water I had left. I was moving much slower than anticipated and with the lack of water came lack of food intake. I started to feel a little bonky. I basically had to stop drinking water and would allow myself one good sip every mile completed. I would hold that water in my mouth for a minute or so before swallowing it. It was hell. Every minute it got hotter and hotter. The climbs seemed to get steeper and more technical and the descents were unrunnable for my legs. What can you do other than just keep moving forward though. With about 5 miles to go, my friend Danny passed me. We started talking and were able to get into a good rhythm that was distracting and motivating. The last 3 miles the carnage was everywhere. People were taking trail naps trying to reset. You’d hear people dry heaving, smacking dry lips, and overall disorientation. People were hopeless and desperate. With a few miles to go there was a muddy spring. No running water just thick black mud and a couple of horse hoof sized puddles of dark water. Three runners stood looking at it contemplating if they should drink. Another runner went up ¼ mile to see if he could find the source of the muddy spring. He was unsuccessful. With a mile to go a race official met us and offered up some water. We each drank around 6oz and it was the best water of my life. Reinvigorated, I ran into aid station 2, Lane Mountain. Lane Mountain was like a rehab facility for ultrarunners. Everyone was hot and flushed. Trying to rehydrate and get back into the game. I drank 45 oz of cold Coke immediately. Then switched to cold water and drank another 30oz. Immediately I started feeling better. My body needed calories and fluid and responded well to the rapid infusion of both. Everyone chatted up the hell we had just endured, happy it was over. I filled my pack back up and started off to aid station 3, Crown King Saloon. It was an easy 4 miles downhill to Crown King. My legs were heavy from the 10,000’ of vert they had already endured and my pulled hamstring still was burning with pain. I started to recalculate goals and objectives quickly realizing that I was way off my timeline. At Crown King, I had my first dropbag and so I was able to restock my food, clean my feet, switch socks, drink a red bull, and eat a lot of calories. The bean rollups worked well on my stomach and so I continued to eat a lot of them. They were literally just cold vegan refried beans in a tortilla. At this point, it had cooled down a bunch and we were getting closer to dusk. I left the aid station and ran through the quant little town of Crown King. The dirt road was in good shape and was easily runnable. It became cool and I started being able to run much better. I found a rhythm and emotionally started feeling strong again. The ultra rollercoast was on an upswing. It was 14 miles to the next aid station and it went by very fast. There was a lot of downhill and the climbs were manageable. No technicality in the road at all. I had to switch to my headlamp around half way though. With the sun setting the cool desert air started rapidly dropping the temperature. My next problem was rapidly developing. I had packed all my cold weather gear and Kogalla light in my drop bag for the aid station at mile 71. I was in my 1” shorts and a thin t-shirt. I ran into Aid Station 4, Battle Flat, and was cold. Although the last 14 miles seemed easy, I knew this next section was going to be brutal and long. I did remember that I had packed some emergency lightweight gloves and a buff in my pack and so I was able to give myself a tiny bit of extra warmth. Down the fire road I went, on to the next aid station. The runner ahead of me had a bit of a scare with a mountain lion and 2 cubs crossing the road, but lucky for me I was not eaten. This 13-mile section of the race goes down as my least favorite. It had already been a long day after surviving the Crown King climb and now I was heading up an equally rocky technical single track in the cold. Darkness adds a lot of challenges to technical trails and much of this section was just a slow death march. Moving slowly makes the cold worse as your body’s furnace is not engaged. I was in a downward spiral and the ultra rollercoaster was now full steam ahead down. What could get worse? Never ask that question during Cocodona because the ultra gods will let you know. I started to get sleepy. Very very sleepy. I wanted to take a trail nap and reset but in just my shorts and t-shirt I was too cold to stop moving. Add that to the 3-inch black centipedes that were blanketing the ground and I made myself push through. The last couple of miles I was falling asleep while running and I ended up kicking a couple of rocks with my left foot quite hard. It would wake me up for a little bit and then I was back to dreaming while I shuffled forward. Mild hallucinations were starting and I stumbled into aid station 5,  Kamp Kipa. I had been up 27 hours, I had been running for 24 hours and I had only completed 64 miles. I could not believe it. At Kamp Kipa there was a fire pit with chairs surrounding it. They were filled with equally cold and exhausted runners. Although not a sleeping station, they had 2 cots with a small cotton blanket. I collapsed onto the cot, wrapped myself in the blanket, set my alarm for 10 minutes and passed out instantaneously. I woke up feeling better and while warming myself by the fire I proceed to eat several cups of hot vegan ramen. The sun was rising and the combination of nap, food and warmth woke me back up and I headed off to aid station 6, Camp Wamatochick. This was an easy downhill fire road into flowing single track. It was only 6 miles long and although an easy section my body was still in a bit of revolt. My right hamstring was still quite mad and my big toe on my left foot was screaming from kicking multiple rocks. I was planning a longer nap once I got to the Camp as it was a drop bag location and sleep station. Towards the end of the 6 miles, I was falling asleep again as I ran. Even in daylight I was exhausted and could not keep my eyes open. I was handed my dropbag and pointed toward the direction of the sleeping cottage. It was a camp bunkhouse with 6 bunkbeds. A couple of runners were passed out inside. I plugged in my watch and phone to charge, used my pack as a pillow and slept soundly for 2 hours. It was glorious. I woke up and started my morning routine. I ate breakfast, reapplied sunscreen, more lube, caffeine, ibuprofen, bathroom, filled my pack with water and food. I headed out down the trail around 10:30 am on to the next aid station feeling like a new man. I in fact was not a new man and the hot sun quickly reminded me. As I left the camp I ran into another runner limping down the road. We quickly spoke and he told me that he was going to drop. I told him that a friend had told me that if I ever wanted to drop that I should just go take a nap and then reevaluate. A good nap solves most things during a 200-mile race. He thanked me and I continued down the trail melting away in the afternoon heat. This was a 9 mile mostly downhill, very runnable section of fire road, single track and paved road that took me into the heart of Prescott to Whiskey Row. I made it to aid station 7, Whiskey Row, without any issues. I just went a little slower than normal due to the heat. I still felt a bit fatigued and after eating multiple vegan hummus sandwiches I decided another 10-minute nap would be perfect. This sleep station was in a large room with probably 30 cots. It was dark and cold and I slept hard for 10 minutes and then finished getting ready for the next section. As I sat organizing my gear and refilling my bag another runner sat next to me. He thanked me profusely and told me that taking that nap saved his race. It was the runner I met who was going to drop! Leaving Whiskey Row I ran down through Prescott for several miles before entering a wilderness park with a flat double track through the middle. Prescott offered superior cell phone service and I was able to call my wife and chat her up. I missed her tremendously. Normally she is my crew chief and helps me through these adventures but her last semester in nursing school has her too busy to disappear with me for a week. The flat trail led to Watson Lake and the trail became more of a bouldering expedition through granite cliffs. Follow those white dots! The view was beautiful and it was hard not to stop and take pictures every couple of minutes. It was difficult to follow the trail though and I did get off course. While navigating through the boulders I ran into Karla, who I knew from Badwater. We started running together and the next miles went by so quickly. We arrived at aid station 8, Iron King, right as the sun set and I filled up on Coke and Ramen. The last couple miles had me back on the upswing of positivity and I started to wonder if it was just the cool air and lack of burning sun that had me running well again. The next 10 miles were through Fain Ranch and at times it was hard to follow the trail. This is the first spot I really used the map on my watch to navigate where we were going. I was able to help others who were getting lost and soon we were a party of 5 all running together so we wouldn’t get lost. We got to a white wood ladder that went over a bob wire fence on the other side we found a 5-foot diameter steel pipe that ran under the highway. After a little debate and consulting my watch we determined this must be the way. And so we started down the dark 100 yard tunnel. We were rewarded with the red polka dot flag at the end that let us know we were going the correct way. Karla started to get really sleepy and I watch first hand the struggle that I went through the previous night. She hadn’t sleep yet and had been up for almost 40 hours. A couple more flat ranch miles on infrequently used tire tracks and we arrived at aid station 9, Fain Ranch. It was cold. I had all my warm gear on and was still shivering. They had a roaring fire going and I sat there and ate vegan ramen while warming myself up. The next aid station was going to be a grind, 8 miles and a couple of thousand feet of vert up Mingus Mountain. I was still feeling pretty good and moving well. Not fast by any means but with a purpose. There were several miles of slight uphill to get to the base of the mountain before the big climb started. The climb reminded me of any mountain in California, rocky but not overly technical. Lots and lots of switchback and some sections that were quite steep. The trail brought me comfort and I started thinking about the happiness my local mountains brought me and all the miles I had adventured on them. Shit, I was asleep again, dreaming while I stumbled up a single track with a cliff to my right. Well, that escalated quickly. Luckily the last few miles were on a buffed-out fire road. I was hallucinating extremely vividly for the last several miles. Living in a cartoon version of reality. Every rock was a face and I was able to focus on hundreds of rocks all at the same time while taking in the faces staring at me. It was surreal but having experienced similar hallucinations before I just knew that I needed to reset the brain with a little sleep. I entered the Mingus Mountain aid station completely out of my skull and was let to another bunkhouse with beds. I got my own room and quickly fell asleep, this time for 3 hours. I awoke to texts from my wife asking if I was alright. My tracker said I hadn’t moved in hours. I did my morning routine and headed to the aid station to check out. Onward to aid station 11, Jerome. 13 miles of mostly downhill with a climb at the end. I started off out of the Mingus camp and felt absolutely great. I couldn’t believe how fresh my legs felt. I actually felt better at the start of day 3 than I did at the start of day 1. My left hamstring felt good and I think the strain was on the mend. The trail off the top was similar to the backside that I came up the previous night. It was a switchback single track with slight technicality but mostly a good flow that reminded me of my local mountains. And so I flew down it with a renewed sense of purpose. And then that fun ride ended and I was treated to multiple miles of horrible rocky jeep road down the mountain to Jerome. When I say rocky what I really mean is unrunnable. It was also warming up and at some point, I almost stumbled into a beehive. Luckily the bees weren’t aggressive. I kicked a rock hard with my left foot and felt instant relief as the big toe nail split open and all the blood that had been pressurized under the nailbed leaked into my shoe. Well, I’m definitely going to lose that toenail. According to race staff, getting the permits in Jerome had been very contentious and there were several rules that all revolved around being quiet. We couldn’t use our poles, talk, stop in town, take pictures of the town (if we took a picture we were banned from Aravaipa races for life), and crews couldn’t buy anything in town. Whatever, I moved through the town filled with bustling tourists until I reached the aid station that was located at state historic park. Aid station 11, Jerome, was on another level. They had so much good energy going on and were making a lot of different food. I was treated to black bean tacos with a delicious Mexican slaw. Happy Cinco de Mayo. Adding lots of ice to my hydration pack, hat and bandana I headed out into the blistering heat to tackle another section of the course. Out of Jerome you’ll run the worst half mile of your life, a 40% grade downhill rock pile. Let me just say, fuck that section. From there it’s a mixture of road and single track. Easy miles except for the heat. Luckily we had a river crossing 6 miles in that cooled us down. My watch said 97.6 degrees when I hit the water and I stood there washing my legs and splashing cold water on my face. It felt great. What didn’t feel great is it filled my shoes with sand. Damnit. Now I had to figure out how to get wet sand out of my shoes. I was fairly unsuccessful and just suffered the last 2 miles until aid station 12, Dead Horse Ranch. What an inviting name. Dead Horse Ranch was another amazing aid station. They were cooking up equally delicious vegan tacos. I spent about 30 minutes cleaning my feet, my shoes and retaping all my toes. I was over half way to Flagstaff and wanted to keep my feet happy. I ate 4 tacos, drank a red bull, iced myself up and headed out. The next 11 miles was rolling single track. The trail was beautiful and smooth. Had my legs been feeling fresh it would have been a pleasure to run this section. As I entered aid station 13, Deer Pass, I caught a stunning sunset that illuminated the entire western sky. This aid station was not as well equipt as previous stations and I ended up taking a full can of refried beans and putting it in a tortilla and eating it cold for dinner. You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit. I spent a little time helping a fellow runner fix their blisters before heading out down the trail. This section was going to be hard and I knew it, 15 miles with thousands of feet of technical vert. Even still I underestimated the sufferfest that was about to occur. It was a dark night and I had both my headlamp and kogalla light blazing the trail to daylight conditions. I was able to talk to my wife on the phone for the first couple miles and she distracted me. Then the single track started. It was hard on my tired legs and I was struggling. We eventually dropped into Sedona at mile 7 and I thought everything was going to be alright. It got so much worse. I’ve had some lows in some races that really tested your sense of strength but this was on a whole other level. Just as quickly as I entered the city I jumped on a fairly technical singletrack. I have no doubt that with fresh legs and sunlight this trail would be one of my favorites but in the dark after 65 hours of running it just about sucked my soul out. As I stumbled through the darkness contemplating the meaning of life I was passed by 2 runners. I asked if I could tag along and they graciously allowed me to join their caravan. We started talking and although time did move a little faster we were still stuck in a never-ending trail system that seemingly just went in circles. At one point I started marking cactus with my poles because I was convinced that we had been going around the same circle for over an hour. Eventually, I could not keep up with their pace and I was left to my own devices in the dark while hallucinating and falling asleep. If a helicopter would have landed in front of me and offered me a ride off that trail I would have taken the DNF happily. Sounds like a standard Cocodona night for me at this point. Just as fast as we had entered the trail system we exited onto a paved road and headed uphill to the aid station. My watch said 2 miles and I couldn’t understand how we would get that distance while running on road. Well, we dropped into another trail system in some sort of wash and snaked our way back and forth throughout the city on this trail. Finally, with a quarter mile to go I got back on the road and made it to aid station 14, Sedona. The zombie walk into the aid station was met by a cheerful volunteer. It was 4am and I asked to be taken to the sleep station. I was lead into a room with 20 cots mostly filled with semi dead looking runners. I quickly plugged in my devices and fell fast asleep for 2.5 hours. I awoke feeling tired. My body begged me to let it sleep more, but I forced a red bull down it’s throat and started my morning routine. I had a 14 mile stretch ahead of me and it was already feeling warm despite it being early. Three days of exposure makes all temperatures feel worse. I filled my pack with ice and water and headed down the trail with several other runners. By day 4 it seemed the same group of runners stayed together. There was about 10 of us that played leap frog and shared miles together while meeting up at the aid stations to discuss our latest highs and lows. It was helpful to see that we were all in the struggle together. As we ran through beautiful Sedona on perfect tourist filled trails it was hard not to stop and take pictures. Eventually the trail spilled out into a dirt road and we ran a few miles up it to aid station 15, Huntley Tank. Despite a full pack of water when I left Sedona I had run out of water on my way to Huntley Tank and without water I hadn’t taken in much food. The heat was in full force and I felt terrible as I entered the aid station. The volunteers were amazing though and they quickly worked to put me back together. Avocado wraps and copious amounts of Coke were consumed and I came back alive. Onward to aid station 16, Black Tank. Finally a short section, although it was mostly dirt road or off road vehicle trail and it was busy with tourists in rented side by sides speeding back and forth. Side note, if you’re going to rent an off road vehicle, wear a helmet. Despite taking in extra dust and sand in my ears, nose and mouth I was able to make it to Black Tank without any problems. Black Tank was a big aid station and it was packed with runners. I knew the next section was long with a 4,000 foot climb and so I spent extra time eating and hydrating. The good thing is it was almost dusk and the crippling heat was starting to lose it’s grip on the valley. In the distance I could see the power line switch backs carved into the large plateau. It was ominous and I found myself trying to count how many switch backs I was going to have to climb. Black Tank had amazing avocado and hummas sandwiches and I ate many of them. They were delicious. Three of us started up the trail as we mentally prepared ourselves for the climb ahead. Luckily it wasn’t as bad as anticipated. The road was in good shape and despite being quite steep it was not overly rocky or rutted. At the top we were treated to the golden hour highlighting the red/green plateaus of Sedona in the background. We continued down the road seeing many Elk tracks and watched the sunset on a thin saddle before climbing another thousand feet. At the top, I switched to my headlamp and warm gear. The next miles to the aid station were smooth and rolling. It was nice to just cruise down the road after a long hot day and big climb. Arriving at aid station 17, Turkey Butte, I filled my belly with hot vegan ramen and chatted with several runners. Despite being a small aid station it was packed. Things were going well and I just had 10 miles to the next aid station were I planned on sleeping. Several of us left the aid station together and started the trek to aid station 18, Cinder Pit. We were on the same rolling road that we had been on for the past 10 miles. It was very dark but according to the map I was running on the top of the large plateau that I climbed earlier. I was running with Karla with about 4 miles to go and we both started losing our minds. We both started having vivid audio and visual hallucinations. This lead to many conversations of, “did you hear that or did you see that.” Then we started falling asleep. It’s amazing how far 3 miles becomes when you are so tired you can’t keep your eyes open. Because the road was so wide we were able to run and sleep at the same time. Occasionally we’d have to yell at the other person that they were running off the road or you’d awake to find yourself a couple feet into the rocks. It was surreal but I now know that it is possible to be asleep and dreaming while running. Could the situation get worse? With only a few miles to go the temperature rapidly dropped into the 20s. It happened so fast that my body felt shocky and I started to shiver. Despite all my warm gear on and running my body was in revolt. The huge swing of high 90s during the day and now 20s at night really hurt me. And of course despite shivering uncontrollably now, I was still falling asleep and hallucinating at every thing I saw. Karla, do you see that fox? Why does it have a basket in it’s mouth? Did you hear those people talking? Wow, look at all these nice campsites. All lies my brain was telling my eyes. Finally we arrived at aid station 18, Cinder Pit. I was so tired and knew they had a sleep station, however it stated in the guide that it was unheated. What this meant was open tents with no fly. The wind could just blow through. I had no sleeping bag or anything to keep me warm. I went into the medic tent and sat down next to a propane heater trying to stop shivering. I desperately needed sleep and the medic lent me two cotton prison blankets and pointed me toward the freezing tents. I got my emergency space blanket out of my pack. I put one cotton blanket on the bottom and one on the top and sandwiched myself inbetween with the space blanket wrapped around me. It was tiny and I had to get into the fetal position in order for it to cover me. I did feel some warmth but not enough to stop the shivering. I lay there, exhausted and freezing for an hour willing myself to sleep. Unsuccessful I finally gave up and returned to the medic tent to warm myself and start my morning routine again. Day 5 was going to be a shit show I thought. A runner next to me was getting his feet fixed by the medic and his crew was bringing him warm food. I sat there trying to motivate to stand so I could walk over to the aid station and grab something before heading out down the road. I settled on some oatmeal and then left with a purpose. I decided I needed to get out of there as quickly as possible before I froze to death. I was moving faster than I had in days, the sun was coming out and the temperature was rapidly changing. Four miles in and I was warm enough to shed all my warm gear and was back in just shorts and a t-shirt. I had survived! We then entered a perfect single track section for around 10 miles. It had a great flow and wasn’t overly rocky. I made it several miles before I was hit in the mouth with fatigue. The adrenaline of getting out of the cold had worn off and the reality of a sleepless night 4 caught up to my body. Trail nap time, I found a spot devoid of ant pits and passed out for 10 minutes. It was enough to get me to the aid station 19, Fort Tuthill. Fort Tuthill seemed like a cool place to hang out if you lived in Flagstaff, as I ran through the giant county park there were multiple groups doing ropes courses, archery, and riding horses. The aid station was top notch. Tons of motivated volunteers worked on me like a nascar pit crew fixing their car. They made me four avocado/hummas sandwiches and I ate all four. The volunteer looking at me with a puzzled look and asked, “Do you know how many calories you just ate?” Having basically skipped eating at the last aid staion due to hypothermia I needed to make up for the calorie deficit I was currently in. It felt hot but probably was only in the high 70s. My hypothalamus was clearly completely broken by this point. Day 5 of constant exposure and 70-degree temperature swings had me in a bad place. My mouth had started to break out in canker sores and my tongue was swollen with blisters. My throat was dry all the time and only felt slight relief while drinking. My nose was so dry that it had been bleeding for days. Every couple of hours I would have to break up the large blood boogers and pull them out so I could breathe. Sound glorious I know. Leaving Fort Tuthill I started down some flat equestrian trails before entering another single-track trail system. This one was equally as nice as the last one and despite moving slowly I was enjoying the trail. There was one climb in this section and halfway up I decided another trail nap was necessary to life. This time I did not set my alarm and figured I would wake when I was ready. I guess I like to live dangerously. Twenty four minutes later I stood up and continued up the trail. I met up with several other runners for the last 6 miles and we ran in together to aid station 20, Walnut Canyon. Almost done! 20 miles to go! We were told that the next/last aid station was basically only water and sat on top of Mount Elden at 9,300’. Apparently it had been extremely windy all day and we were warned to bring extra warm clothes. Several of us left together and we started heading toward the last aid station 21, Mt. Elden. Again we were treated with nice Flagstaff trails that were in great shape. Mostly flat for the first 6 miles they started going uphill slightly for another 4 before we got to the Mount Elden trailhead. We had around 2 miles and 2300’ of vert to go. It was very steep and required a lot of strength and balance. Good thing I was 247 miles into the race with less than 9 hours of sleep over 5 days. It was cold but not freezing and no wind for the first mile and a half. But I knew that Cocodona wouldn’t let me go without one last terrible sufferfest. As my pessimism predicted the wind started to howl. It started coming down off the mountain in gusts. You could hear it coming and I would crouch down low in order to minimize it’s impact. At the top though the wind was constant and there was no avoiding it. At the top, I ran on ridgeline of the mountain while it beat and froze me. I could hear the distant rumble of music and voices and looked forward to aid station 21, Mt Elden. Mt. Elden was a full blown party! They had a full aid station and the 2nd place finisher Peter Mortimer had brought up a ton of ribs and chicken he had smoked at his house. I had hot vegan ramen. You know who was at the aid station when I got there. The runner I had told to take a nap instead of DNFing 3 days earlier! After food and warming up we left the comfort and warmth of the aid station tent and started down the windy and cold single track for a mile. We then ran a few miles on a fire road before rejoining another single track. It was surreal that it was almost over. Everything in my body started to hurt. My brain knew we were almost done and wanted to remind me how messed up I was. My feet hurt the worst. Definitely had some untreated blisters and just overall soreness from 250 miles of pounding mixed with millions of rocks. But none of it mattered. With 2 miles to go we entered the city and I just took off. I felt as if I was running a 6 minute mile. Strava will confirm it was a 10 -11 minute mile. Eventually I made the turnoff into the downtown Flagstaff alley and crossed the finishline. It was incredible. 

Thanks

A huge thanks to all the volunteers helping at the aid stations, race organizers, course markers, sweepers, medics, and anyone else who helped make this race possible. Thank you to all the runners I met and shared miles with throughout the race. All of you helped me succeed in my goal of finishing this race, and I would have been unsuccessful without you.

Side notes

No crew, No pacer

I decided early on that I was going to attempt this race solo. My wife is in her last semester of nursing school and couldn't come, and despite multiple offers by friends, I thought that going solo would help add to the challenge. Mistakes were made. Although offered help numerous times by other runners and their crew, I never took any help. I did this because I am stubborn and stupid. I would not recommend doing this race solo. It was challenging managing everything by myself, and life would have been much better having people help me. When doing it solo, you have to manage a lot of factors multiple times throughout the day. This gets increasingly more difficult with fatigue. You need to try to keep your feet as healthy as possible. Yes, they ended looking like I stuck them in a blender but had I not constantly attended them, it could have ended my race. I changed my socks and washed my feet 14 times throughout the race. I started with my toes taped up and had to retape them at the halfway point. This helped reduce blisters. If I got a blister, I lanced it and taped it. I was constantly putting on sunblock throughout the day. Sunburned skin is painful and can lead to heat stress problems. Take care of your skin. Managing your hydration and electrolyte is probably one of the most important factors during a hot, dry race. Dehydration and electrolyte imbalances can lead to dangerous medical conditions. Making sure you consume enough calories. Simple enough, with no fuel, your car will not drive. You need to monitor your urination and bowel movements. These are good signs of your body’s overall health. Ignoring anything can cascade into much larger race-ending problems. The summary is without a crew and pacer, this all becomes much more difficult.

Poles

I would highly recommend poles for this race. Poles allow you to tackle the high amount of steep uphill and technical downhill sections easier and utilize different muscle groups. I would recommend you train with them beforehand and realize that holding poles for five days may lead to blisters on your hands.

Sleep - you have to find what works for you while maintaining cutoffs. Sleep is important.

Day 1 - zero

Day 2 -10 min nap x2 and a two-hour nap

Day 3 - three-hour nap.

Da4 4 - two-hour nap

Day 5 -  2 x 10 min nap and a 24 min nap

Food

I tried to eat a lot of calories at every aid station. Mostly I ate bean rollups, avocado rollups, avocado and hummus sandwiches, ramen, mashed potatoes, bean tacos, potato chips, pickles, and oatmeal. I drank a lot of Coke and always had one of my hydration flasks filled with Coke. I used the GU electrolyte pills and tabs that were at the aid stations. I ate vegan fig bars that I had brought with me and left them in drop bags during the run. I also ate peanut butter and granola after I would wake up from my nap. It doesn’t sound like much, but I did eat a lot of everything. I also attempted to put on a couple of extra pounds before the race started to have more fat to burn.

Epilogue

Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

“Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.”