Last year, my wife and I followed along live on YouTube all week as runners made their way from Black Canyon City, AZ 250 miles all the way to Flagstaff, AZ at the Cocodona 250. Aravaipa was providing live coverage of the event almost 27/7 until the last runner crossed the finish line in Flagstaff. When they offered a small discount to register for the 2024 event during their live coverage, that was all I needed to pull out my credit card and sign up for the 2024 edition. After all, it would take place during the week of my birthday or there abouts, so this would be my birthday present to myself.

The Cocodona 250 is a point to point endurance event that takes runners through the high desert of Arizona and into and across the mountains in Northern Arizona. The first 38 miles, Mount Mingus and Mount Elden are probably somer of the most frequently uttered words when runners discuss the challenges of this race. I would add the extreme heat, but also the amazing beauty of the entire course with just a couple of the highlights being the Granite Dells just outside Prescott, AZ and the entire Sedona area.

Luckily, I was able to not only convince my wife to crew me yet again after having just done so during the inaugural Southern States 200 Miler point to point race just 3 weeks earlier, but I also had my local buddy Malcolm Davenport jump in for a taste of crewing and pacing. He had never crewed or paced at an ultramarathon before, let alone a 200 miler that would take close to an entire week. Finally, I was able to rely on my O.G. crew chief Jay Hagan, who had also crewed my at my first and second ever 200 mile finishes at the Moab 240 and the Tahoe 200. He flew in from Washington, while my final piece of the crew puzzle , Tobias Sørensen, drove in from Utah to help my out as crew and pacer for the second time at a 200. With a seasoned crew like this there would be no excuses for not finishing. However, ultramarathons and ultramarathon courses of 100+ miles often have a mind of their own and a finish is never ever guaranteed.

An event this big deserves proper attention, so when I ended up with more than 10 hours of race footage from both my crew and myself, I decided to create two parts to document this personal journey of highs and lows. This movie documents my early race miles from the race start at Deep Canyon Ranch just outside Black Canyon City all the way to the top of Mount Mingus.

Please be sure to subscribe to my channel to ensure that you are notified as soon as I release the second part of this amazing journey that covers the race from the top of Mount Mingus all the way to the finish in Flagstaff, AZ.

P.S.: I also intend to release a short video sharing this adventure solely from my crew's perspective. They had an adventure all of their own beyond the usual hurry up and wait game that crewing is known for.

I hope you enjoy this chronicle of my Cocodona 250 experience. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows by any means as you will see and hear in my commentary, but I am so thankful I got to experience this as "the juice is always worth the squeeze" when it comes to these types of endurance events.