A participant in a gruelling 402-kilometre ultramarathon on trails across northern Arizona died after experiencing a medical emergency, race organisers and local law enforcement said.<\/p>\n
First responders attended to a woman in her 40s who was participating in the race and collapsed at a trailhead in the Groom Creek community south of Prescott, Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Paul Wick said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Cocodona 250 ultramarathon co-director Erika Snyder confirmed the death and declined to provide further details at the request of the runner’s relatives.<\/p>\n
Ultramarathons can test the boundaries of human endurance, but deaths are very rare relative to the total number of participants in a sport that has, in recent years, grown in popularity around the world, with races hosted from Death Valley to the Himalayas.<\/p>\n
The Cocodona is one of the toughest ultramarathons in the US, featuring a course that rises more than 1.6 kilometres in elevation twice while passing through Sedona from its start in Black Canyon City.<\/p>\n
This year’s race started Monday (local time) before dawn, and the overall winner, Rachel Entrekin, finished Wednesday afternoon to a roaring crowd in Flagstaff while setting a course record.<\/p>\n
Organisers say they’re moving to a lottery registration system next year because of the race’s popularity.<\/p>\n
Aid stations provide opportunities to eat, hydrate and adjust equipment, with a team of medical professionals stationed across the course, Snyder said. Racers often nap on the ground along the way in a race that can last five days.<\/p>\n
In 2021, freezing rain and high winds were linked to the deaths of 21 runners at an ultramarathon through mountains in northwestern China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A participant in a gruelling 402-kilometre ultramarathon on trails across northern Arizona died after experiencing a medical emergency,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,64,69,213],"class_list":["post-415661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-north-america","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}