Except for the sunscreen smeared over his florid cheeks, the sweat crusted on his bucket hat and the nasty blood blister on his right big toe – yeah, except for all that — Harry Subertas didn’t really look like a guy who had not only run 250 miles through a desert and forest milieu but also ran it more than nine hours faster than the existing course record.
In reality, Subertas, a 32-year-old Alaskan who will be running four 200-plus mile races this year, was hurting indeed Wednesday afternoon on the final climb and descent from Mount Elden and through Buffalo Park to downtown Flagstaff in his first Cocodona 250 Mile race.
But he was not hurting as much as local favorite Jeff Browning, 52, who for the last 12 hours of the grueling ultra had respiratory issues and “felt like I was breathing through a straw.”
So, in a race of attrition, which essentially came down to which of the two dominant runners was hurting less, it was, definitely, Subertas who was able to endure.
His winning time of 59 hours 50 minutes 55 seconds smashed the previous record held by Michael McKnight (69:41:31 in 2023). Browning finished a half an hour later (60:19:57), hand-in-hand with wife Jennifer and trading high fives with the home crowd gathered at Heritage Square. He, too, obliterated the previous record.
The women’s winner, Los Angeles’ Rachel Entrekin, arrived Thursday morning having run the second fastest time at 73:31:25. The first female Flagstaff finisher was Carrie Henderson in fifth place in 83:37:40, one place higher than she finished in 2022.
Starting Tuesday and continuing into Wednesday, Browning ran aggressively and took the lead in the race, which began Monday morning in Black Canyon City. He led through Cottonwood, through Sedona, passed Fort Tuthill and Walnut Canyon.
But he couldn’t shake Subertas. Crossing Highway 89, Browning still had a 1.9-mile lead, but Subertas was slowing, methodically reeling him in. At the start of the Elden climb, Browning’s lead dwindled to 1.5 miles. And at Mile 240, the summit of Elden, the lead was down to a half mile. Browning rallied for a while, on the downhill side, but his breathing problems made consistent running impossible.
Subertas made the decisive pass on the trail wash leading uphill toward Buffalo Park. Both runners knew the race, an epic duel for the last 24 hours, was over at that point.
“We were coming up the trail in back of Buffalo, coming out in a wash, two miles from the finish,” Browning said of the pass. “I was hike, jogging, hike, hiking. I heard he was cramping so I thought maybe he’s hurting, too. I just had to keep going to the finish. When I saw him, sat on a log and waited for him to catch up and said, ‘Harry, you have the win, bro.’”
Subertas seemed almost in shock that he had won the race. Asked when he knew he had it won, he smiled and said, “When I passed him.”
Subertas said he didn’t know what to expect from Cocodona. He’s from Alaska and is accustomed to cold-weather races and training during the winter. So, Cocodona was a new experience. He wound up spending part of his training living in Reno, where he said he sat in saunas for heat adaptation.
“Honestly, I was just shooting for under 60 hours,” he said. “That was my goal. I didn’t know I was going to catch (Browning). This one was the most unknown for me. I’m not used to the heat. I wanted a challenge and I got it.”
Browning’s voice was scratching and weak after crossing the finish line. He hailed Subertas and other competitors.
“Harry and Stringbean (Joe McConaughey) and Arlen (Glick), they were all lurking. It was really fun to get pushed and push other people. Man, what a race. We were like, throwing it down for a long time. Hopefully, it made it interesting. … Dang it, man. I wanted that course record.”
Given his breathing problems, it’s remarkable Browning even finished. How labored was his breathing?
“The last 12 hours I could only breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth,” Browning said. “It got worse and worse. There’s a lot of gunk in there. What the heck. I’m going to have a medic look at me. Pushing at 9,000 feet (up Elden) with someone pushing you didn’t help.
“That’s the problem with (live) trackers, because your pacer tells you he’s only a half a mile behind me going up Elden. With my lungs like that, I felt like I was breathing through a straw. When I started going downhill, I had to stop a few times, put my hands on my knees and said, ‘I gotta breathe through my nose, I think I’m going to pass out.’ Then I’m like, ‘OK, let’s go.’ Over and over. Finally, when we got down on Oldham (trail), I couldn’t do it anymore and started walking and couldn’t breathe.”
Rounding out the men’s podium was Arlen Glick of Ohio, who completed his first 200-plus mile race in 61:46:57.
Entrekin, who crossed the finish line Thursday morning in 73:31:25, the second fastest women’s time on the course. Flagstaff’s Sarah Ostazewski holds the record at 72:50:27, set last year. Entrekin, 32, has won 10 straight ultra races, dating to 2022. This was her debut at thre 200-mile distance.
Last year’s third place woman, Mika Thewes led for more than 200 miles, but dropped out before the Elden climb with an injury. However, later Thursday morning, she consulted with race organizers, who agreed to let her back in the race at the point she dropped. She finished third in 79:44:19. Second place this year went to Spain’s Manuela Vilaseca in 78:04:35. Henderson was fifth, behind Colorado’s Kylee Drugan-Eppich.
In the Sedona 125, Peoria’s Michael Greer was the winner. Greer placed third last year in the 250.
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