On Thursday, New Hampshire’s Brody Chisholm made history as the youngest-ever finisher of the Cocodona 250, a 250-mile ultramarathon in Arizona, clocking a time of 76 hours, four minutes for the 402-kilometre race from Black Canyon City to Flagstaff.
The former hockey player is no stranger to ultra-distance running, having completed an 800-mile journey by foot from Mexico to Utah in 2023.
This year’s race is the fourth running of the Cocodona 250, which sees runners travel north from Black Canyon City (outside Phoenix), passing through multiple towns before eventually making it to Flagstaff, 1,500m higher above sea level than where the race started. In total, the race features close to 13,000m of elevation gain, which is the equivalent of running the height of one and a half Mount Everests. The point-to-point course comprises almost equal parts single- and double-track trails, with very little shade and a range of temperatures from desert heat during the day to below freezing at night.
Both the male and female winners, Americans Haroldas Subertas and Rachel Entrekin, recorded the second-fastest times ever on the course. Subertas, who won the Tahoe 200 Endurance Run in 2022, took the win in a time of 59:50:55, with Entrekin, the only female finisher so far at the time of publication, clocking 73:31:25. As of Thursday at noon, 15 runners had finished the race.
Jeff Browning, 52, was second, adding to his remarkable near 200 career ultramarathons, including wins at Colorado’s Hardrock 100 in 2018 and Moab 240 in 2022, among others. Arlen Glick, who won the Javelina Jundred in 2021 and was third at Western States in 2022, finished third.
The inaugural race, held in 2020, was won by Michael Versteeg, who took fifth place on Thursday.
With hundreds of runners still out on the course, there is sure to be much more excitement ahead. The live tracker for the race can be found here.
