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On May 12, Dan Green walked up to Robert’s Running and Walking Shop in Huntington, West Virginia, expecting just another work day fitting shoes and gear for local runners. But family, friends, and the mayor were there waiting with a surprise: May 7, the day he won the 2025 Cocodona 250, was now Dan Green Day.
“The homecoming has been insane,” Green said. “My boss went to take his kids to the dentist during the race, and there were people in the dentist office with the [race] live stream on their computers. They don’t even run, they don’t even know who I am. They’re just from West Virginia, and they were watching it because they heard that this guy’s on there winning it.”
Green, 28, had never entered a race over 100 miles. But the Cocodona 250 was his chance to prove himself on a big stage, and he didn’t take the opportunity for granted. Green toed the line between patience and aggressiveness during those 256 miles from Black Canyon City to Flagstaff—while battling snow, sleet, and lots of mud—to break the tape in 58 hours, 47 minutes, and 29 seconds. That’s over an hour faster than the 59:50:55 course record set by Harry Subertas in 2024, this time on an indisputably harder and longer course.
Now officially off the Western States 100 waitlist, Green has just seven weeks total to recover and reconnect with his leg speed before the starting gun goes off at Palisades Tahoe on June 28. Outside Run caught up with Green shortly after he returned home to learn how the dark-horse rookie shocked the ultrarunning world with his course-record victory.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
How Dan Green prepared for the 2025 Cocodona 250:
“A few weeks before Cocodona, I did a little 100-miler in Pennsylvania called Rabid Raccoon. And I thought to myself, ‘Well, I can get to a point where I can run 100 miles and it feels easy, then I can surely compete in a race that’s over 200 miles.’ So I went and did that race and ran 17 hours really pretty easily, and then ran 100 miles over the following week, and I felt fine.”
On the fast Cocodona 250 start:
“Being kind of new to the 200-mile-plus distance, and then also thinking my strength going in was being able to run, we agreed as a team and as myself, the best thing is to get to the second half and still be able to run fast on the runnable sections. And so I wasn’t stressed at all, really, about where anyone was in the first 100 miles, just because there’s still 156 miles left, so a lot can happen there, especially if you feel good.
The first day I was definitely biding my time. I was taking it nice and easy up the climbs, being careful where it was maybe more technical. I was happy it wasn’t as technical as people had made it out to be. But there were a couple climbs that I definitely took really easy. Of course, everyone else was crushing them because they were way ahead of us. But I just took my time to appreciate it.”
On dialing things in with his crew:
“There was a little bit of a learning curve with the crew. It was a little rocky just getting stuff in the hydration vest, but that got ironed out really quickly. Everyone had a job and everyone was prepared. When I needed to use the bathroom, someone took me straight to the bathroom. I had wipes and lube and got everything cleaned up and got out of there relatively quickly and ate some food. Someone had food laid out for me. We were out of the first crewed aid station within 10 minutes.”
On moving up throughout the race:
“I didn’t really think I would catch people as quickly as I did. It was crazy running up on 2024 winner Harry Subertas, because I was like, ‘Who is that guy?’ I hadn’t met him before so I didn’t know what he looked like. He was a little beat up because he had just fallen, but I passed him and just kept hammering because it was a super runnable section.
Coming out of Prescott at mile 77, when we did slowly catch up to Courtney Dauwalter, that was pretty nuts. I mean, just seeing another person in a relatively short amount of time—and knowing that that was the first position—was pretty crazy. My buddy Danny Hayes and I were like, ‘Is that Courtney up there?’ We slowly got up closer and closer, and of course it was. We passed her, we both kind of talked about how crappy the mud was, and just kept moving.”
On rainy, muddy night one:
“It wasn’t the cold, really. The cold got to me maybe for a little bit, less than an hour. But because you’re in the mud, you can’t really run. You know you’re on a runnable section and you can’t, and that’s really depressing and kind of aggravating. I hadn’t done the research, so I didn’t really know how long the fields were, how long I’d be in the mud. My pacer, crew, and I were trying to figure out how long we were in the mud, because I was like, ‘I have to know so I can stay sane.’ Ultimately, we kind of got a ballpark number, and I was like, ‘OK, we got that.’ So we just kind of hammered down, and luckily I had another layer. I think I threw on some gloves, but other than that, I was warm enough.”
On learning Courtney Dauwalter had dropped:
“I’m not really sure when we figured that out, but I know it wasn’t when we were running. But I did know that she had taken a big break and then laid down for a while, like a couple of hours. I don’t think she dropped right away. Either way, it was putting us hours ahead.”
On racing Ryan Sandes:
“Ryan Sandes had started making some gains on us, even at this point. The mud was so bad, and I could not run on it going from Mingus (mile 108) to Jerome (mile 125), I just knew I was losing time. I was super angry about it for a while, and so that was slowing me down. So I definitely was all like, ‘Yeah, we need to push where we can, or at least run where we can.’
I don’t think Ryan slept really until later in the race. I had laid down at the Jerome aid station (mile 125) for a little bit, so that aid station probably took me 20 minutes or something. We never really ran together. We kind of ran behind him for a little bit, to see what speed they were moving at, real strategic-like. And then we just kind of picked up the pace and went around him and ran into Sedona. I passed him that one time going into Sedona (around mile 162), and that was probably the only time that I ran next to the guy. But we never really talked to each other at all during the race, mostly because we just didn’t really have any time when we were running.”
On night two:
“The weather wasn’t really anything of a surprise. At that point in the race, I had zoned out so much that the day and the night blurred together. It’s just the passing of time. It just felt like one big day. It didn’t feel like two-and-a-half days.
I was pretty happy to be on my own. I was like, ‘OK, first objective, don’t get lost.’ I just took off out of there and I was like, ‘Let’s see how fast I can get the segment done and get back to the crew.’ It was pretty smooth for a while, I had no hiccups.
I didn’t get lost. I never hallucinated. My mental clarity was pretty darn good the whole time. I just got a little sleepy at times, but other than that I was honestly fine that way. My mind was pretty good. One time at night, towards the 200 mile mark, I was with my pacer Logan, and he had a headlight and was looking at his phone to get the directions and looking around and looking up and down a bunch, his light was moving around. I was a little dizzy from it for a second, and then I just sat down on the ground for a minute, and then got back up and I was fine.”
On the final climb up Elden Mountain:
I couldn’t find the caffeine gels in my vest going up and over Elden (starting around mile 237), which I was kind of banking on because I was like, ‘OK, I’m gonna wait until that last day, and then I’m just gonna start hammering caffeine gels.’ I had probably five caffeine gels, maybe less than that even, throughout the whole rest of the race. It wasn’t much. Whatever caffeine is in Coke, and that was it.
I had almost no caffeine the first day and a half. My plan was for the last five hours of the race, I’m just gonna push the caffeine to the absolute maximum, because it doesn’t really matter after that. But I couldn’t find the caffeine gels, so I was just so sleepy at that point, which was hilarious.
Going up that thing was tough enough, because it’s such a long approach. And then it was snowing and sleeting, and then you’re going down the super rocky descent. But when you get down to the bottom and you hit a little trail that’s a bit more runnable, we started picking it up. I looked at my brother, we kind of both had this realization, like, ‘Dude, we’re gonna win it. Unless I get hit by a bus, we’re gonna win.’”
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On his feelings at the finish:
“I wasn’t really pushing for time. I was pushing just to get the best time out of myself. It was crazy. It was release, excitement, disbelief. We just kept saying, ‘We did it! Who would have thought?’ It was kind of unbelievable.
I met my crew at the end of Buffalo with about a mile to go, I had already been running with my brother and we just ran in all together. I wish I had been more tuned in, but I had just tuned my mind out so much during the race that I was slightly disconnected from the whole situation. That was good for the race because I didn’t really care what was happening or what time of day it was. Looking back, I wish I was a little more in tune with the finish, but it was still awesome.
They kept asking me if I wanted to call my girlfriend before I got to the finish. I was like, ‘No, I’ll wait till I’m done.’ So I finished, called Sydney, and talked to her for a second, which was awesome. She’s kind of shared the whole journey with me to this point. And it was over.
Shout out to my crew, as everyone would and should, but it’s so much more true in a multi-day event. Those people have devoted a week of their lives to getting you to the finish line. They took such good care of me, and it was great. You can’t compete at a multi-day race without a stellar crew. It’s just impossible.”
On how he’s changed since the race:
“I feel the same as a person. I still want to work hard, I still want to go run. I’ve gone to a bunch of races and been really close to doing good. But it doesn’t matter what you do, what time you run unless you win. I went to Javelina last year and ran sub 13 hours, and essentially got nothing from it, which is fine. You don’t win money at the race, you go there to test yourself and to do something you love, not for validation for anyone else.
I finally was able to put together a race I really wanted to do with the right crew, and the right gear, with the right training, and not get hurt, and make it to the start line, and then finish and win. And it was just a really good feeling to finally put it all together and win something, win a large race. The fact that I had, like, no issues is mind-boggling.”
On returning home and future plans:
“It’s the beauty of a race this long, it captivates people. The people here, at least in my small town, were hyped up. I’m at work, and people just come in and just want to talk. They watched the livestream for two-and-a-half days straight. And the cool thing is a lot of them got interested in other people’s storylines, too. Whether that be the story of women’s race winner Rachel Entrekin or discovering Courtney Dauwalter and her whole lore. Some people got into the sport itself, and they’re not even like ultra people, they’re just regular folks.
I definitely love the 200-mile distance. I love a good 100 miler, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve always kind of thought that I would like a 200-mile-plus distance, and this race went too good for me to not still think that. So yeah, I think it could be the distance for me. I can’t wait to do another one.”