[Editor’s Note: This article was written by NNormal athlete and co-founder of the nonprofit organization Footprints, Dakota Jones.]
On February 14, 2025, I’ll run 100 miles on a flat course of 1.17-mile loops outdoors Las Vegas, Nevada, on the Jackpot 100 Mile. I’ll do that to attempt to elevate cash for my nonprofit Footprints, which helps individuals who create local weather motion tasks for his or her communities. We host a camp annually in Vermont that brings 10 tasks to life underneath the steerage and assist of a crew of specialists in science, enterprise, communications, and lots of different disciplines. Here’s a video from our 2022 camp.
Dakota Jones addressing a captive viewers at a Footprints camp. Picture: Ryan Thrower
A Lofty Objective
To boost the stakes, I’ll attempt to break the American document for the space.
I’m a path runner, so a flat and paved ultramarathon is new for me. However I wish to attempt new issues, and one thing is intriguing about eradicating all of the variables that might complicate a race, so all that’s left is the query of my functionality. Once I ran the 2022 Javelina 100 Mile, I discovered that I may, actually, run each step of a 100-mile race. And should you’re additionally an ultrarunner, you might recognize my tendency to take every little thing to absolute extremes. If I may run quick at that race, then possibly I ought to attempt to run even quicker at an excellent flatter race!
So, this purpose has been in my thoughts for some time. However I wanted one thing extra to encourage me for this. Racing is tough, and the time and vitality I put into making ready for an enormous race takes away from that which I would in any other case commit to household, group, or different work. The thought to run the Jackpot Ultras in Las Vegas got here to me throughout our Footprints camp final fall. We spent loads of time on the camp discussing methods to make use of our numerous circumstances to deliver local weather motion to life. The camps are all about figuring out your distinctive abilities and connections that may allow you to deliver to life a collective challenge in your group.
Dakota Jones coaching to run flat and quick. Picture: Martina Valmassoi
Bringing Local weather Motion to Life
That’s really how the camps started. I felt helpless and scared about local weather change, and I needed to attempt one thing, something, to make a distinction. I did a number of private tasks that took benefit of my platform as a runner. Then, I requested a bunch of smarter individuals to assist me arrange an occasion to empower anybody to make use of their private platform to create optimistic change.
My abilities and connections are almost all within the operating world. The truth that I can rapidly write an article for iRunFar is a transparent instance of the attain I’m given as a result of, I suppose, I can typically win races. And earlier than I can not win races, I need to leverage this place for one thing bigger than my very own profit. Thus, the Jackpot Ultras and my try to interrupt Zach Bitter’s American document for 100 miles — 11 hours, 19 minutes, and 13 seconds, set on the 2019 Six Days within the Dome occasion. If I’m profitable, my effort will create a dialog about local weather change and the work we will all do for it. Footprints allows significant work on the difficulty.
Dakota Jones after incomes his second win on the 2023 Transvulcania Ultramarathon by UTMB. Picture: Transvulcania Ultramarathon by UTMB
A few of that significant work consists of The Canandaigua Mile, a operating race that addresses water high quality issues in New York’s Finger Lakes. It features a firm that turns ocean plastic into socks for all events.
A challenge from final yr’s camp has offered bikes and bike classes to children and adults in Virginia, with a specific emphasis on ladies’s driving occasions. Total, Footprints has supported almost 40 climate-action tasks round america — and two in different nations! — in our 4 years. Our purpose is to proceed to assist these tasks after every camp whereas making ready to assist 10 new ones this fall. See extra about our work right here!
Can You Assist?
So right here’s my pitch: Are you able to assist me elevate $30,000 for Footprints? Observe alongside on February 14 as I attempt to preserve a 6:47 per mile tempo for 100 miles within the desert, and should you assume that’s worthwhile, please think about contributing to our group. All the cash will assist our camp this October — the prices of utilizing the house, feeding the individuals good meals, getting us all there, and discovering the most effective mentors to deliver these tasks to life. And I’m not operating alone — a crew of Footprints graduates and mentors can be becoming a member of me to run a 12-hour relay the next day. They’ll assist my race, after which I’ll assist theirs: collective motion in a microcosm.
In a time of loss and concern for the environmental motion, when the political tides are set towards offering a steady basis for the sources all individuals have to survive and prosper, Footprints supplies group and assist. This work helps individuals do extra than simply particular person motion with out anticipating every particular person to vary the entire world. It helps individuals first, and particularly these most impacted by the consequences of local weather change. The operating world is our basis, as a result of this group has helped me really feel like something is feasible. Together with your assist, we will show that something is feasible, which goes nicely past racing.
Nevertheless it consists of racing, too! Try our Instagram feed on February 14 and 15 to cheer on myself and our Footprints relay crew in Las Vegas. If you wish to get entangled with the group, right here is our web site. It is best to join our weekly publication, which brings you tales, information, and alternatives to develop your individual tasks from dwelling. I really like you, iRunFar group!
An outside gathering at a Footprints camp. Picture: Ryan Thrower
Particulars
Name for Feedback
- In what time do you assume Dakota can run 100 miles?
- Have you ever heard of Footprints and the work that the group does?