In walks Brandon Joe to Single Speed Coffee and, suddenly, the barista perks up considerably.
“Great race, Brandon,” she said, before turning to her co-worker, frothing away on an order.
“He ran, like, 1:09. Right?”
Joe nods, looking equal parts embarrassed by and proud of the acknowledgment. Then he recovers enough to make his order.
“The usual,” he said, smiling.
The thing is, this was not an isolated incident.
Joe is not a professional runner – not yet, anyway – but you could call him pro-adjacent. He is a recognizable figure around Flagstaff. People see him blazing down Route 66 on group runs, his inky black hair trailing like a jet stream. They see him powering up McMillan Mesa headed to Buffalo Park and wave from cars, sometimes shout an encouraging word. They are often greeted by him, always smiling, when they enter the Run Flagstaff store.
Amazing to think, given how much a fixture Joe, 24, has become in town, that he has only lived in Flagstaff for two years. Using Flagstaffian math, that still makes him a relative newcomer.
He is, however, starting to make a name for himself not only as a man about town, but as a runner. Arriving here in 2022 not knowing a soul and with few tangible running credentials, Joe has made remarkable progress, culminating last Sunday when he finished third in the Tucson Half Marathon in 1:09:55, more than a four-minute personal best.
If his current trajectory is any indication, Joe will continue to improve in his nascent road-racing career and, eventually, tackle the marathon. Competing for Team Run Flagstaff, as well as working at the store and coaching the Tuesday night track workouts, Joe has developed the relationships and nurtured the inner drive to see just how far distance running can take him.
Up to now, it’s already taken him from the tiny Chihuahuan Desert town of Deming, N.M., to what Joe, only half-jokingly, called the “big city” of Flagstaff. It’s taken him from running only when he felt like it in high school, despite success as a prep, to putting in 70 to 80 miles per week, placing high in regional 10Ks and half marathons and hanging out with training partners who actually are full-fledged pros.
Tucson, for him, was validation that the risky move he made as a searching 22-year-old – to hop in his car and drive north-west for about 400 miles for a new life – was worth it.
“Oh, yeah, this was huge,” he said, when asked if the Tucson Half was a breakthrough for him. “It really hasn’t sunk in yet, but it’s starting to. A lot of people are reaching out to me, which has never happened before. Not just athletes in the community but, as you saw ….”
He tilted his head toward the baristas up front at Single Speed, which soon brought him his usual iced coffee.
“It freaks me out that some people will acknowledge me now,” he added, looking genuinely astonished.
Joe didn’t articulate what exactly his running goals were coming to Flagstaff, perhaps because he wasn’t sure of them himself, but he did believe he had some potential. And his recent results, a 1:14 second-place finish at October’s Duke City Marathon in Albuquerque, run at altitude, gave him confidence going into Tucson.
How much better does Joe think he can run?
He paused again, as if considering it for the first time.
“This is really going on year two for me,” he said. “I’ve never run on this level in my life and to even see that I can do that is great. I’m just two years of being at altitude and I’ve met guys here 10 years, racing against guys doing it longer. Really, the sky’s the limit, honestly. I’m definitely in it for the long run now.”
His commitment is notable, because, for much of his teen years, Joe wasn’t exactly the most dedicated runner you’ll find.
Born in Shiprock, N.M., on the Diné reservation, Joe’s family moved south to the agricultural town of Deming, 35 miles from the Mexican border, when he was 4. He didn’t start running until he was 14 and about to enter high school. Before that, he had watched his mother, Rebecca, finish many road races, but never felt compelled to try it himself.
“I was never really athletic at all,” Joe said. “Honestly, it has a lot had to do with my mom. She’s been running half marathons for 35, 40 years. I remember watching her at the finish line. Deming is a big football community, I will say that. My mom kept me away from contact sports. I played public soccer leagues, but it really wasn’t in me. As a kid, I just liked hanging out with friends and playing basketball, not competitively.”
What changed?
“Coming from middle school to high school, I just wanted to look good,” he said, smiling. “I needed to lose weight. I was a bigger kid back then. That was the stereotypical factor – you know, a (boy) wanting to look good for high school. So I just picked up on (running).”
It is, indeed, a common story – taking up running to lose weight – but in Joe’s case it took an interesting turn. Whereas most runners gain motivation from having success running cross country and track, Joe found he was talented but failed to cultivate that talent.
“I did it just to keep busy at the start,” he said. “Wanted to do cross country, thought I could be good but also there’s a cultural thing, too. Natives have a lot of long distance runners, a rich tradition.
“I first signed up as sophomore. I was the fastest on the team. I never even knew what cross country was and how the scoring worked as well. Actually, running with teammates was different and good. I’d never run with other people before. That was an eye opener. My junior year is when I fell off a little bit. I got a girlfriend at that time and sports was on the back burner.
“I was never really good at it because I wasn’t going to practice sometimes. I’d rather hang out with friends.”
So, again, what changed?
How did Joe go from a casual runner doing well off sheer natural talent more than training to a guy so motivated by running that he moved to Flagstaff to pursue it?
“I’d have to say it was after I’d broke up with my girlfriend (in Deming),” he said. “That was a huge driving force.”
Does that mean that Joe turned to running for solace, a way to cope about the end of his relationship?
“Potentially,” he said.
A simpler explanation, though, is that Joe matured and found a passion relatively late. He said he knew he couldn’t stay in Deming if he fully wanted to see how far running could take him.
He knew, through reputation, that Flagstaff had to be his destination.
“I always say this place is like the Hollywood for athletes,” Joe explained. “People move to L.A. for acting. If you’re a runner, you come to Flagstaff.”
Joe is close to his parents, Rebecca and his father, Alex. They supported his idea, at 22, to pack up and ship out to follow a dream.
“My parents motivated me more to go pursue this because I’m still young,” he said. “They don’t want me to have regrets. It definitely is risky, trying to pursue this. But you’re only in your 20s once in your life.”
Joe comes off, initially, as soft-spoken, but his quiet charisma quickly becomes evident. When he got to Flagstaff in the summer of 2022, he looked for a place to live, a job and started running far more than the 30 miles a week he had logged.
Asked how he seemed to blend in so quickly with the Flagstaff road-running scene, Joe said he turned to social media.
“That’s a huge marketing tool for everyone,” he said. “And I used it. Also, I’d participate in every group run I could find, Monday through Friday, trying to make connections.”
It took, he said, about a year before he really felt a part of the community, though others recognized his worth earlier. One of those people was Run Flagstaff owner Vince Sherry, who pulled aside Joe after a Team Run Flagstaff workout and offered him a job on the spot, as Joe remembers it.
“Four months after I moved here,” Joe recalled. “I got hired on my mother’s birthday. I talked to Vince and built a connection. He reached out to me at the end of practice, and at that point I didn’t even know who owned the store back then. Run Flagstaff definitely opened up the biggest doors for me.”
Not only was Joe working at the store, he was sponsored to run for the sub-elite Team Run Flagstaff group. That’s where he met noted Dine marathoner Hosava Kretzmann, and the two started training together. Later he would run with others, too, such as Josh Ramirez and Greg Fehribach, but Kretzmann seems to be Joe’s biggest influence.
“He’s definitely a lot faster than me, but he’s my role model,” Joe said of Kretzmann. “He’s such an approachable person, too. I try to be that way. Sometimes, I forget I’m in such a huge talented town where it’s common to see so many pro athletes. When first met (Hosava), we clicked immediately. I think I was in shock that someone at that level would even reach out to me. It’s like asking a high schooler to train with an NFL player.”
Working at Run Flagstaff gives Joe the flexibility of getting his 70 to 80 miles per week in without sacrificing work. But it also has opened up some endorsement and “ambassador” opportunities, including modeling assignments for sports apparel brands.
Joe does have a distinctive model’s look: the chiseled cheek bones, flowing hair and brooding eyes. He’s done photo shoots for Kahtoola, Topo, Mount to Coast, Ibex Outdoor Clothing and Canyon Coolers, among other brands. He tends to downplay his modeling, preferring to focus on his running, but he said he’s grateful for the business opportunities. And he added that such exposure in advertising and the media helps raise the profile of the strong indigenous running scene.
“As time continues and I continue to improve my performance, maybe I’ll get some sponsorship,” he said.
The Tucson race is a jumping off point, perhaps. It was the seventh half marathon Joe has run and by far his best. He’s still learning the distance and wants to get better before making a jump to marathons.
Joe is still fine tuning his race strategy with coach Chris Goode, who recently moved from Flagstaff to Folsom, Calif. In Tucson, Joe said, “I initially just held on to that first gentleman leading the race. We were going about five (minute) flat (pace). Maybe it was the overall excitement of the race that did it.”
Though he went out faster than his plan, Joe found he had the fitness to hang in there. The hard times, however, came about the halfway point.
“Mile five is when you start to feel it,” he said. “I was running times I haven’t run before and it was a huge shock to the body. It was amazing that I was able to maintain that for the full 13-mile course.”
Joe doesn’t yet have a race plan heading into 2025. He plans to hunker down over “the harsh winter” and build “more strength and mileage,” then start racing again in the spring. “It’s just a huge focus for me to be here,” he said.
Cover photos by Matt Shapiro @shapirothehero
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