Day One

After a fierce day of racing the runners seem to have settled into a sold top 5 on the men’s and women’s leaderboards, the notable overall leader being no other than Courtney Dauwalter. Of course this race is long and there’s still a lot of time for things to shake up.

Notable ‘day one’ developments:

• Due to some road closures the drop bags transported from the starting line to the first aid station were delayed. This affected some of the faster runners as they were forced to either wait at the Crown King aid station or scramble for gear from their crew or volunteers.
• Snow in the desert. That’s a new one for Cocodona, a race that historically had runners do extensive heat training, these colder temps allowed for faster times, but also some runners having to deal with feeling hypothermic. Also notable: This surprising weather forecast forced the race organization to require cold weather gear including a mandatory gear check. So Euro of them.
• Courtney Dauwalter takes the overall lead. Many folks had anticipated this, but with Haroldas Subertas charging so hard in the early miles the top of the leaderboard didn’t change hands until Mile 65-ish.
• No DNFs yet. Last year the heat forced people’s hand in the tough early section and several people dropped. The nature of this long race, with a final cutoff of 125 hrs is that even folks who are hurt or seem to have blown up still have tons of time to recover, potentially even sleep a night in a hotel room and come back to the race course and finish their adventure in the desert.

Posted: 5 May 25 8:26 pm PST