Dakota Jones made his debut as a teenager, and he wasn’t just a feel-good finisher, he was winning races.  He has competed and won, or finished on the podium, in races as diverse as the Hardrock 100 in Silverton, CO, the Lake Sonoma 50 in California, and the Transvulcania Ultramarathon in the Canary Islands.  He began directing his own race, the Telluride Mountain Run, at age 22.  He is now at the forefront of promoting Protect Our Winters, in which many notable athletes are using political activism to help attack the threat of man-made climate change.  Putting actions behind his words, in 2018 Dakota rode his bike 250 miles from Durango to Colorado Springs and then won the Pikes Peak Marathon, before loading up his bike again and riding back to Durango.  He has even resumed his schooling so he can better speak to the critical issues of climate change with the goal of earning a mechanical engineering degree at Montana State University in Bozeman.  I hope you’ll enjoy this conversation with this fascinating young star of trail running.

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