My thoughts and memories one week out from my finishing the 2023 edition of the Cocodona 250 are still tinged with regret about what might have been. Ultimately, the specific concoction of circumstances at the end of my race were mostly out of my control, but for about 215 miles it seemed utterly possible that all my pre-race hopes and dreams were about to be fulfilled. The prospect of a win and a course record in my first 200+ mile finish was an exhilarating thought while it lasted, but it was not to be.
The Build Up
I attempted to finish the Cocodona 250 in 2022, but failed due to a severe hamstring tear suffered while failing to navigate gracefully through the Fain Ranch section of the race. It was my first ever DNF and at the time felt like such an immense failure. Needless to say, the added motivation coming into the 2023 race was palpable for me, and I was totally intent on finishing the race, not to mention totally convinced I could win. Training went well despite a small blip on the radar dealing with a little bit of patello-femoral inflammation. I knew that I was stronger than in 2022, both mentally and physically, and I just felt ready. You know you're ready when the thought of running 250 miles doesn't make you anxious, but instead gives you a warm and excited feeling.
The last month before the race seemed to go by incredibly slow. Days at work dragged on and then during the two weeks of tapering, my overabundance of energy was creating some havoc in my mind. When I was finally on my way to Arizona everything just seemed to fall into place. Always low-carb, I'd shifted my diet a month before the race to focus solely on the foods that made me feel the absolute best: steak and eggs. In the past prior to some races, I'd have questions in my mind about preparation or whether some aspect of my running was truly dialed in. No such second guesses floated in my thoughts this time. I was sure I'd thought of everything and accounted for every possible variable in my control.
During my shakeout run the Sunday before the race, my legs felt loose almost instantaneously. As I ran in the pleasant Arizona morning, past towering Saguaro cacti, my confidence only grew. I don't think I've ever quite nailed a taper like I did for this race, something I'm hoping to carry forward into future endeavors. After simulating a race morning, the rest of the day was spent nervously pacing my hotel room, eating, and I'm sure, annoying my wife to no end. In addition to shifting my diet a few weeks before the race, I also tinkered with my sleep schedule the week of, ensuring that I could fall asleep around 6:30pm or 7pm in order to wake up around 2:30am to have a few hours before the 5am race start to leisurely get everything in order. Thankfully this worked, and I was eager and excited to be heading down for my last sleep before race day while it was still very much light outside.
Race Day
Everything went to plan from the time I woke up on Monday, to about sunset on Wednesday during the race. Toeing the start line, my heart rate wasn't even elevated. Like I mentioned before, I was ready and I knew what I was going to do. The first 11 miles absolutely flew by as I ran and chatted with other runners. I did not want to get in a line at one of the first aid stations so I made sure I was the first runner to arrive and got my business of filling up my 4 liter water capacity done swiftly and efficiently. One of the smartest decisions I made was brining my BeFree Katadyn water filter along for the first 37 miles. A notoriously long, slow, and hot stretch of the race, the first 37 includes a 22.4 mile stretch with no aid stations and around 8k of vertical gain. The BeFree basically gifted me an extra couple liters of drinking water, as we passed streams at mile 22 and again at mile 27.
I spent several of these mountainous miles hiking and chatting with Mike Versteeg, the at the time current (now former) course record holder for the race. He comically apologized as he gave me all sorts of unsolicited (but very welcome on my end) advice about Cocodona. He assured me that my strategy of getting through the hottest section of the course before it was truly the heat of day was the right one and that it would also set one up to be hitting Sedona, another notoriously hot section, at night time when temps would be far preferable. Buoyed by the blessing of Versteeg, I rode my fresh legs and excellent feeling all the way to mile 37, the first crew access aid station at Crown King. I'd told my wife that I was expecting those 37 miles to take around 10 hours and I arrived at the aid station in under 8.5. So my crew was a little late arriving at the aid station. I felt bad when the volunteers were asking what they could get for me in terms of food because my calories are typically pretty unconventional. It seems unreasonable to say "yeah I'd like a medium coulotte steak with mashed potatoes." But as would be the case throughout the race, the folks at Crown King were wonderful and brought me some pulled pork and cheese which I was all too happy to take.
I did make my first mistake of the race at this point. My crew arrived and we had originally planned to wash my feet while in Crown King. Caught up with racing too early on, I decided I'd spent enough time at the aid station and would deal with that later. I definitely dealt with more blister pain than was necessary because of that error. One definitive fact about strategy for 200s: if you have a problem, deal with it immediately because it will balloon into something significant.
I ran solo into the first night all the way to the Whiskey Row aid station in Prescott. Coming into town, Versteeg caught up with me and we entered mile 78 mere seconds apart from one another. We shared a few more miles before his slightly quicker neutral pace on the pavement out of town slowly took him out of sight. The first night was pretty smooth for me, making it through the dreaded Fain Ranch section and to the foot of Mt. Mingus without too much of a hitch. I once again caught Versteeg, and we made the climb to the top of Mingus and strolled into the aid station at mile 110 together. As he settled down to take a nap, I pushed on and would hold the lead of the race for more than 100 miles from this point.
The miles were decidedly and happily uneventful pulling into Jerome at 128 and picking up Cody, my first pacer of the race. I was really excited to be running with a friend and the morale boost from sharing miles with a familiar face cannot be overstated. Jerome through Deer Pass felt like kind of a slog and my previously unaddressed foot problems were becoming more of an issue. Heading through Dead Horse State Park, I did discover that I could put just the tiniest bit of oomph on top of my neutral pace and speed up from 13 or 14 minute miles to 11 or 12 minute miles pretty easily. It was heartening approaching mile 150, my previous longest distance ran, that I felt good enough to still be able to push the pace a little bit.
I took my first sleep at Deer Pass TH, mile 148. My crew also addressed my blisters which at that point were fairly significant. But leaving that aid station, I was elated to be dealing with much less pain in my feet and that I was going to hit mile 150 almost 4 hours faster than I had in the Cactus Rose 150 two years previously.
The next section of the race coming into Sedona was my favorite of the whole 250 miles. I felt good, apart from a little bit of wheezing and shortness of breath that I dismissed as a minor irritant upon it disappearing shortly after it arrived (MISTAKE NUMBER 2!). These miles were flow state personified. Everything I did from hiking to running and transitioning between the two on technical terrain felt fluid and right. Cody and I were steaming through tough miles, the trail lit only by our headlamps. I'm sure that Sedona is worth seeing in the light of day, but I was pleased to be dealing with the much more pleasant temperatures of night.
When we pulled into the water station at mile 155, people were waiting there. Much to our confusion, it took us a second to realize that this husband and wife were not actually with the race, but had taken it upon themselves during their vacation to come and see me, the race leader, as I made my way through Sedona. It was so humbling and rewarding to know that someone was paying attention to my effort and I'll never forget the feeling of the gentleman making it clear that I was the reason they had ambled over to this random Sedona parking lot at 10pm. Pretty cool.
Cody and I breezed through the Sedona aid station feeling good and started on to the climb up Casner Canyon onto the Coconino Plateau. The climb was a bad place to enter a low. I started feeling tired and sleep deprived and on the way up I took a ten minute dirt nap in the first flat spot I could find. The hours Cody and I shared leading up to the plateau were brutal and I think both of us will always remember Casner Canyon and the challenge it presented at that time.
When I do Cocodona again, one of my biggest goals for the race will be to arrive on the plateau at the top of Casner feeling good enough to run. In a low and feeling sleepy, the flat miles on dirt roads to Schnebly Hill at mile 180 felt endless. I pulled into that aid station a zombie and immediately fell asleep for a glorious, but all too short, half hour.
And We're Racing
I'd said to my friend Blake before the race that I'd hoped to be in the hunt when he started pacing me. Well I'd rolled into Schnebly about 4 miles ahead of second place and rolled out just as the next guy was arriving. The race was indeed on. Running with Blake in the section from Schnebly to Munds Park my race totally turned around. Starting out at barely a shuffle and almost completely silent, I pulled into Munds running 9:30 miles and feeling great. This section really illustrates for me the importance of sleep. I may have arrived at Schnebly with a 4 mile lead and left with a 0 mile lead. But I actually arrived at Munds with about a 4.5 mile lead. Sleep was totally revitalizing and left me in a great position.
Munds Park to Kelly Canyon continued the positive trend. At some point, running on endlessly flat, or just slightly uphill jeep roads, I told Blake to run behind me and make me go faster should I slip below a 1230 pace. Sounds slow, but running about 5 miles an hour at this point in the race felt like I was making great time.
I started entering another tough point in the race going into Fort Tuthill. My legs were feeling tight and I was once again feeling tired. I think if I were in the same position again I would try to forget about the guys trying to reel me in, and do what was in my best interest and take a nap at Fort Tuthill. But I didn't and so strode out like an automaton to tackle the long section to Walnut Canyon.
These 17 miles started out travelling slowly but relatively efficiently. Blake was running behind me and would intermittently say things like, "Kilian, I know you've got another gear man. This pace is not going to win you this race." And I knew he was right. But the thing about finding another gear more than 50 hours and 200 miles into a race is that it literally requires searching. I felt like I was combing the depths of my soul trying to find this mythical next gear. "McKnight isn't different than you, he doesn't have something that you don't," Blake said to me about my competitor gaining on me from second place. And I knew he was right. But for several of these 17 miles I couldn't find the gear. I'd be trying to search through some chasm of my brain and time and time again I was coming up empty handed. Until all of a sudden I struck gold.
I'll always remember this magical moment even though it would shortly lead into disaster. The ability to run faster just appeared. Like an oasis rising out of the desert, I was all of a sudden running multiple minutes faster per mile than I had been 1 second previously. Like the long sip from a draught of never ending water in midsummer sun, I felt like I would be able to ride this sudden wave of energy through the Walnut Canyon aid station, over Elden, and to the finish in Flagstaff. Whether it was enough to hold the lead, I didn't know but I knew that I'd at least found the gear.
Sadly at this point, the wheezing that had only slightly bothered me in Sedona returned in an aggressive and terrifying manner. We started up a short, steep climb and all of a sudden I was light headed, short of breath, and about to pass out. My audibly distressed lungs couldn't take it any more and my pace slowed to a crawl while I attempted to keep my breathing and my heart rate under control. Shortly after, Mike McKnight passed me. I just want to take a moment to tell you how much I admire McKnight. He's the reason I've been interested in 200 milers and his story, determination, and achievements are awe inspiring. I've been asked multiple times now what the moment was like when he passed me and I've always given the same answer. He was congratulatory on my race so far and totally concerned with my health and safety when he heard the wheezing. He is a stand up guy, an admirable competitor, and an absolute beast of a human being. Thanks for being you, Mike.
The breathing problems precipitated a mental breakdown. First, I was totally convinced my race was over as I couldn't even imagine scaling Elden in the cold and the wind while also struggling to breathe. Then as the miles became ever more agonizingly slow, sleep deprivation and cold took its toll. I curled up for a short dirt nap wrapped in a space blanket, only mutely aware of the other runners passing me by. But who cares, I told myself, my race is over anyway.
Thanks to Blake for suffering through those miles with me. I'm not sure I've ever been in a low that deep, even including the time I tore my hamstring. At least this one was less physically painful, but still I hobbled into Walnut Canyon aid and whimpered as I was brought to the medical tent. I puffed on a nebulizer albuterol treatment and took an oral dose of the steroid prednisone before I crawled into the back of my car and slept for five hours.
Waking up, I was feeling unmotivated and grumpy. But thanks to my crew, I got ready for the remaining 22 miles, eating breakfast, drinking coffee, and taking care of my feet. My mood and motivation improved drastically, as had my breathing. Coming into Walnut Canyon the night before my oxygen saturation was a lowly 82% and when I left it was back up around 98%.
Happily, the last 22 miles were uneventful. In some ways it was a relief not to be racing and I tried to enjoy running on the beautiful trails on the edge of Flagstaff. Climbing up Elden was a nice change from the endless flat jeep roads of the previous 50 miles and when Blake and I reached the top another small group of people was waiting for us. To this point I was feeling disappointed in myself and that I may have disappointed those who had been cheering me on previously. But this little group of individuals had come to the top of Elden, once again, to see me! They were up there in the howling wind and cold to cheer me on and I was almost brought to tears by the kindness.
After enjoying some excellent grilled meats courtesy of the Elden Aid Station, Blake and I coasted slowly down the last eight miles and into the heart of Flagstaff for a satisfying finish. Crossing the finish line was emotional. I'd given up on myself the night before and due to both the medical expertise of my crew, and their absolute unwillingness to let me call it off I had actually completed the full 250 miles.
Post Race
In some ways the real excitement didn't start till the night following my finish. I couldn't sleep and I couldn't catch my breath so around 2am my wife and I rolled into the ER to discover my oxygen saturation sitting at 72%. No wonder my vision was blurry and I had a headache. I ended up staying a night in the ICU with multiple tests and scans revealing that I tested positive for pneumonia, developed pulmonary edema, and on top of that the right side of my heart had become inflamed. It's likely, according to the doctor, that I started the race with a mild form of what's called Walking Pneumonia. Often people don't know they have it and obviously, running 250 miles with it probably made the infection progress more quickly and become much worse. As a result of the pneumonia, fluid built up in my lungs causing the wheezing and low oxygen saturation. And then as the right side of my heart, the side that pumps blood into our lungs, worked harder and harder to deliver blood to diseased lungs it developed its own inflammation.
I'm not sure what I could have done to avoid all of this. Not having pneumonia is probably a good start. But I am sure that I will have methods to address wheezing when I first start to feel it in a race. If I'd taken puffs off an albuterol inhaler in Sedona, could I have prevented it becoming so serious? Maybe, but hindsight is 20/20 and I am simply determined to learn from this point on.
Conclusion
Writing these race reports is a good way to discover how one really feels about the accomplishment. The tinge of regret is still present for because I feel I was so close to success. But more than anything, I am walking away from the Cocodona 250 knowing I have the ability to be competitive in these long races. With the Bigfoot 200 on the calendar for August, I feel totally confident declaring that my goals are to win and to break the course record. An 11th place finish wouldn't normally be such a boon to my confidence, but the way my story unfolded at the 2023 Cocodona simply wasn't normal. I managed to finish, totally thanks to my crew, but more than that I managed to push myself through true adversity. Was it wise to continue onto those last 22 miles? Again who knows, but having that mental capacity for suffering in my pocket is an advantage I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
Plus, I found the gear. I know that the next time I go searching in my soul for the treasure that is moving just a little bit quicker, I'm going to find it faster. Like a diver returning to a shipwreck to loot Spanish galleons, I'm going to comb the shoals of my mind and come upon gold with expedience, rather than stumble blind through the wasted coastline of a sleep deprived brain. These 250 miles have been a gift of experience that I will use to great effect in the near future.
Thanks to those of you who followed along. Thank you to Aravaipa and all the volunteers that make the race possible. And thank you to my crew Amber, Blake, Cody, and my wife Susie. Without them I would have been down and out and stuck in a dark place. You all got me out of it and to the finish and I am so indescribably grateful.
See you the next time out!
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