Dakota Jones
Melia Coury: I’m standing here with Dakota Jones after he just won the Kendall Mountain Run 2016. What were your first thoughts?
Dakota: I feel lucky to be able to run. I had a stress fracture in my foot for most of last year. I wasn’t able to compete as much. I feel really lucky to run really hard on that downhill and not have any pain.
M: Nice.
D: It’s always super fun up here in Silverton and this kind of low-key race is my favorite I love being out here with all of these people, but not too many. I just like to go for a hard run and hang out with a bunch of friends.
M: At the top you were still in second and then you passed Daniel on the way down. What was the story there?
D: Yeah, well I was just trying to hang on the uphill I didn’t feel super strong going up the mountain. I mean I felt okay but just kind of alternating running and hiking. I was in fifth place for a lot of it but at that last section maybe 300 feet of that real steep scramble section and the third, fourth and fifth place we kind of all bunched up. And I guess I sort of pulled ahead. Literally the third, fourth and fifth pulled to the top together but then the downhill I just cut loose. And just felt awesome. I caught the second place guy before we got off the scramble second and then another mile, mile and a half down the road, right before tree line I caught the first guy. I knew he was a better runner than me so I knew I needed to get him on the downhill, this is my chance. So I flew down as much as I could and then I kind of panicked to look behind me on those flat sections. But I managed to hold him off for a minute maybe, not that long.
M: Yeah, it was pretty close at the end.
D: Yeah I was falling a part there.
M: Well you held it together well.
D: Thanks it was really fun to be out here, good workout.
M: You just did Broken Arrow and won that one.
D: Yeah, I did the 50K in Squaw Valley, a few weeks ago.
M: So do you have plans to do any more Sky Races?
D: Yeah, I think I am going to do a Canadian Sky Race, I think it is in the series. The Squamish 50 mile up in British Columbia and that will be August 20th. And then my plan after that would be to run the Wasatch 100 so I’m not really on the Sky Running series but I will jump in there whenever I can.
M: Cool. Is there anything in particular that attracts you to the Sky Races?
D: Yeah, I mean Sky Running are like the best races out there: most technical, the steepest, the biggest mountains. I mean what I like to run is in the mountains and I feel like Sky Running is the most mountainous courses.
M: Yeah, sums it up. Thanks and awesome job out there.
D: Thank you.