With the 2024 Cocodona 250 Mile frontrunners having crossed the end line in Flagstaff, Arizona, Rachel Entrekin and Harry Subertas are winners of the ladies’s and males’s races. Each prevailed via really dramatic and engaging race tales.
The race started at 5 a.m. native time on Monday, Might 6, and concludes on Saturday, Might 11. This version marked the race’s fourth operating.
The purpose-to-point route begins in Black Canyon Metropolis and finishes in Flagstaff. The course adjustments from 12 months to 12 months, however this 12 months’s course is claimed to be 249.4 miles lengthy with roughly 40,000 toes of climbing and 35,000 toes of descending.
On the course, runners expertise the range of Arizona’s terrain and local weather. Within the low desert, runnable singletrack and doubletrack give runners terrain simplicity, however that’s difficult by warmth and lack of shade from the solar. The course additionally visits a few mountain ranges, which offer shade and funky temperatures however can carry the challenges of altitude, important elevation achieve and loss, and extra technical terrain.
It seems like Rachel Entrekin stopped to odor the flowers on her option to successful the 2024 Cocodona 250 Mile. Photograph: Howie Stern
A 250-mile-long race presents practically infinite logistical challenges, with runners needing to remain on level with hydration and fueling, sleep and different types of relaxation, gear administration, foot care, and a lot extra.
Whereas the course has modified considerably in most earlier years, the information for the present course are Sarah Ostaszewski for the ladies at 72 hours, 50 minutes, and 27 seconds, and 69:41:31 for the boys by Michael McKnight, each run in 2023, the one time a considerably comparable course was used.
With all these variables, the Cocodona 250 Mile was certain to ship surprises for all runners, together with these on the entrance of the race.
Rachel Entrekin, an ultrarunner since at the least 2013, championed the ladies’s race. After operating for a lot of the distance in second place, Entrekin took over the ladies’s race management late to safe the win. This adopted longtime girls’s race chief Mika Thewes’ sudden — prolonged, however short-term — cease round mile 233.
The lads’s race got here all the way down to the wire between Harry Subertas and Jeff Browning. Browning, a veteran of at the least 150 ultras, led for a lot of the race. Subertas, winner of the 2022 Tahoe 200 Mile, began the race extra conservatively. Subertas’ sensible pacing allowed him to cross Browning to take over the lead with only a few miles to go — in a 250-mile race — to win and set a brand new course report.
Runners continued to trickle over the end line on the time of this text’s publishing, forward of the 125-hour time restrict. Learn on for extra of the race story.
2024 Cocodona 250 Mile Girls’s Race
Phew, what a girls’s race. Rachel Entrekin took over the race management late to win after longtime race chief Mika Thewes out of the blue stopped through the third evening of racing, round mile 233. Entrekin has received a number of 48-hour races, together with most not too long ago the 2023 Throughout the Years 48 Hour, the place she completed with 212 miles. She’s additionally a 100-mile specialist, as UltraSignup reveals she’s received at the least eight 100 milers.
However let’s again as much as the race begin.
When the ladies settled into the early miles of racing on Monday morning, Mika Thewes, who has at least twelve 200-plus-mile race finishes, together with two Cocodona finishes, with a 3rd place in 2023 and a fourth in 2021, ran because the race chief. Over the course of that first day, different prime girls’s runners, Entrekin, Aliza Lapierre, and Liz Canty, intently chased.
Throughout evening 1, nevertheless, Entrekin handed Thewes to imagine the ladies’s lead. As of mid-morning on Tuesday, round 26 hours into the race, Thewes trailed in second place by about two miles, and Lapierre was the third girl.
Rachel Entrekin en path to the 2024 Cocodona 250 Mile win. Photograph: Howie Stern
Round 32 hours into the race, on the afternoon of day 2, Thewes retook the ladies’s lead, which she would maintain for over 100 miles. The cross occurred on the Jerome help station, mile 126 — the race’s midway level mileage-wise — when Entrekin arrived first, and Thewes arrived second, however Thewes left first whereas Entrekin stayed within the help station for a few hours, prone to take a nap.
At this halfway level mileage-wise, Lapierre maintained third place, regardless of sharing with the race group that she was having a tough race so far. The Brazilian residing in Spain, Manu Vilaseca ran a few miles behind Lapierre in fourth place, wanting like she had the potential to maneuver up within the rankings.
As evening 2 arrived, Thewes opened her lead on the ladies’s discipline to seven miles, whereas Entrekin and Lapierre continued to occupy positions two and three.
By dawn on Wednesday morning, the race’s 48-hour mark, Thewes handed mile 175 and had elevated her result in about 9.5 miles. Entrekin ran in second, whereas, in a single day, Vilaseca assumed the ladies’s third-place place and was now operating proper behind Entrekin.
Throughout the day on Wednesday, Thewes elevated her lead by lots. When the race hit 60 hours elapsed on Wednesday night, Thewes was slightly below 220 miles into the race with a virtually 20-mile lead.
Behind Thewes, Vilaseca and Entrekin have been locked in an in depth duel all day Wednesday, vying for second and third locations. Arising on Wednesday evening and 60 hours elapsed, Vilaseca put a ways between her and Entrekin, operating 2.5 miles forward of her.
Manu Vilaseca took second on the 2024 Cocodona 250 Mile. Photograph: Howie Stern
However this trio nonetheless had a good bit of actual property to cowl, and something can — and did — occur. In a single day on evening 3, the panorama of the ladies’s race completely modified. Entrekin handed Vilaseca to take over second place as soon as once more. Then, round mile 233, Thewes out of the blue stopped, and it was thought that she’d dropped from the race. Entrekin assumed the ladies’s race lead, which put Vilaseca in second place. Kylee Drugan-Eppich moved up into third place.
Within the mushy gentle after daybreak on Thursday morning, Rachel Entrekin easily bumped into downtown Flagstaff, to win the 2024 Cocodona 250 Mile in 73:31:25. On the end, she took a seat, shook her head, and mentioned, “Really easy.”
Manu Vilaseca took second in 78:04:35. Vilaseca has an enormous extremely resume relationship again to earlier than 2011. Her prime races in recent times have included a win on the 2022 Bryce Canyon 100 Mile and fifth place on the 2019 TDS. It seems like that is her first end of a 200-plus-mile race.
In opposition to all odds, at across the 77-hour mark, mid-morning on Thursday, the race group shared on the occasion livestream that Thewes had stopped within the evening as a result of an harm from a fall, sought medical consideration, and was cleared by each medical and the race group to restart the race the place she’d stopped. So, roughly 12 hours after stopping, she rejoined the race, assuming third place, with Drugan-Eppich shifting again to fourth place.
Mika Thewes completed third, for a second 12 months in a row, in 79:30:12, with some super-fast ultimate miles.
Kylee Drugan-Eppich was the fourth girl in 80:04:55, wanting contemporary and robust throughout her run to the end line via the streets of Flagstaff. This seems to be Drugan-Eppich’s first 200-plus-mile race, and it additionally seems like she has only one 100-mile end to her identify, a win of the 2022 Zion 100 Mile.
Carrie Henderson was the fifth girl to complete in 83:37:40. This seems to be Henderson’s second Cocodona end; she was sixth place in 2022.
2024 Cocodona 250 Mile Girls’s Outcomes
- Rachel Entrekin – 73:31:25
- Manu Vilaseca (Brazil, lives in Spain) – 78:04:35
- Mika Thewes – 79:30:12
- Kylee Drugan-Eppich – 80:04:55
- Carrie Henderson – 83:37:40
2024 Cocodona 250 Mile Males’s Race
Speak about a closing effort: Harry Subertas received the 2024 Cocodona 250 Mile males’s race by taking on the lead within the race’s ultimate miles to set a brand new course report. Listed below are the dynamics of how this performed out.
From the beginning line on Monday in Black Canyon Metropolis, Joe McConaughy took the boys’s race out, main for a lot of the primary day and evening. McConaughy was the 2022 Cocodona champion, and he holds the present males’s supported quickest identified time on the 817-mile Arizona Path.
Trailing McConaughy all through the primary day of operating have been prime males Jeff Browning, Arlen Glick, Michael Versteeg, Jeff Garmire, Michael McKnight, and others.
In a single day Monday evening, on the primary evening of the race, Browning overtook first-day chief McConaughy to imagine the lead of the boys’s race. And as evening turned to dawn on Tuesday, and the race clock ticked previous 24 hours, Browning had constructed an roughly five-mile lead.
Browning maintained the identical approximate hole on second place throughout day 2, passing the 150-mile mark with roughly a four-mile lead. Round midafternoon on day 2, some 33 hours in, McConaughy ran as second man, and Glick in third place, just a few miles aside from one another. Nonetheless, very near Glick have been Versteeg and Harry Subertas, the latter wanting tremendous contemporary and like he might transfer up after a extra conservative first day and a half of racing.
Harry Subertas received the 2024 Cocodona 250 Mile through a come-from-behind efficiency the place he solely took over the race lead with a couple of miles left within the race. Photograph: Howie Stern
When the solar set on day 2, Browning’s hole on second place McConaughy was roughly three miles. By now Subertas had moved as much as third place.
At dawn on Wednesday, because the race clock ticked previous 48 hours, Browning handed the race’s 200-mile mark. In a single day, he maintained his lead by about 4 miles. Subertas, in the meantime, continued to maneuver up, assuming second place, with McConaughy now in third at round 9 miles again of second. Glick was now in fourth, simply behind McConaughy.
Throughout the third day of racing, on Wednesday, Browning’s lead shrunk quickly as Subertas in second inched nearer. On the ultimate help station, at mile 242, Subertas was solely about 17 minutes in arrears. Then, lower than an hour later, when the duo got here off the ultimate descent for the ultimate three-mile run from the outskirts of Flagstaff to its downtown end, Subertas led by roughly 5 minutes, operating at a strong clip, whereas Browning appeared to be strolling it in.
Jeff Browning is all smiles after ending second on the 2024 Cocodona 250 Mile. Photograph: Howie Stern
Harry Supertas arrived to the end line in Flagstaff, Arizona, the boys’s 2024 Cocodona 250 Mile champion, setting a brand new course report in 59 hours, 50 minutes, and 55 seconds.
Jeff Browning took a brilliant strong second, ending in 60:19:57, slightly below half-hour behind the winner.
Glick made quick work of day 3, shifting solidly into third place. At mile 235, he was 4 miles behind second place, and 7 miles forward of fourth place. Regular ahead motion would guarantee him the ultimate males’s podium spot, and that’s precisely what he did. When all was mentioned and accomplished, Arlen Glick took third, in his first 200-plus-mile race, in 61:46:57.
Within the night hours of evening 3, Joe McConaughy, the 2022 Cocodona champion, completed in fourth place in 64:03:02. Inaugural 2021 Cocodona champion, Michael Versteeg, took fifth in 65:45:20.
2024 Cocodona 250 Mile Males’s Outcomes
- Harry Subertas – 59:50:55
- Jeff Browning – 60:19:57
- Arlen Glick – 61:46:57
- Joe McConaughy – 64:03:02
- Michael Versteeg – 65:45:20