TALES FROM THE MID PACK | 2023 Black Canyon 100K

On February 18, 2023, I toed the starting line of the Black Canyon 100K at Mayer High School in Spring Valley, AZ. The race utilizes a large part of the 80 mile Black Canyon National Recreation Trail north of Phoenix. While it is a net downhill race, it does feature more than 6000 feet of elevation gain and is fully exposed to the sun for the entire duration of the event. Nearly 1000 runners separated in three waves lined up at the High School track to start the race with a single loop around the track before making their way through town to ultimately hop onto the Back Canyon Trail about 3 miles into the race to continue their journey south towards the town of Rio Vista, AZ for the finish 8.5 to 20 hours later.

As it turned out, nearly one third (300+) runners would eventually drop from the race (DNF) for various reasons, heat and exposure likely to be one of the main reasons.
My buddies, Nick and Ted joined me on a road trip to race in Arizona, the two of them in Nick's van and me in my own camper. After camping at a beautiful free spot in the Coconino National Forest just east of Sedona the night before packet pickup, we headed to Black Canyon City to check out the race expo along with picking up our race bibs. Afterwards, Nick and Ted headed to a hotel in Phoenix while I headed north to Bumble Bee Ranch which not only hosted one of the major aid stations at mile 19 of the race, but also offered runners a really cheap camping option for race weekend with access to both a bathroom and a shower. On the way, I passed the Gloriana Mine Aid Station at mile 24 of the race. From the ranch, it would just be a 30 min drive to an Outlet Mall in Phoenix, where runners would jump on a shuttle to the race start in the morning. We would jump on a shuttle again at the finish line to retrieve our vehicles.

While the race did not pan out at all as I had planned due to some "technical" issues, it ended up being just the adventure I had hoped this bucket list race would be. In the end, I got to run the entire second half of the race with Nick before we would catch up to Ted around mile 50, which made the experience even more fun.

Please check out the beauty and challenging terrain of this amazing race in its entirety. To jump to the various chapters, please see below and please remember to subscribe to my channel and like any video you enjoyed. It really helps my channel and lets me know if anyone is watching and enjoying this content:

0:00 - Title
0:20 - Intro
1:13 - Bib Pickup & Runner Expo
3:22 - Start Line Shuttle
4:51 - Start Line - Wave 2
11:24 - Antelope Mesa AS
17:32 - Hidden Treasure AS
23:49 - Bumble Bee Ranch AS
28:00 - Gloriana Mine AS
31:40 - Soap Creek AS
36:17 - Black Canyon City AS
43:30 - Cottonwood Gulch AS
45:10 - Table Mesa AS
45:42 - Doe Springs AS
46:33 - Finish Line