The course
The Sedona Canyons 125 is a 125.9 mile point to point that runs the back half of the Cocodona 250, starting up in the old mining town of Jerome and finishing in downtown Flagstaff. Most of it is singletrack and double track, with a smaller share of pavement through the towns. Cumulative gain runs around 14,000 feet, with about as much descent, and the course swings from roughly 3,300 feet down in the Verde Valley up over 6,400 feet on the Coconino Plateau.
Jerome down to the Verde Valley
The race starts high in Jerome and drops hard off the mountain right away, one of the biggest sustained descents of the whole day, on steep, loose, dusty trail. From there it works through the Verde Valley near Cottonwood, with riparian sections along the river and lower desert trail. This early stretch is the lowest and hottest ground on the course, so even though your legs feel great, the smart move is to run it controlled, protect your quads on that big first descent, and start managing the heat before you think you need to.
The valley miles are runnable and they will tempt you to push. Do not. You still have well over a hundred miles and many thousands of feet of climbing in front of you, and the heat down low is exactly where blowing your early pace quietly sets up a brutal back half.
Sedona red rock and the desert heat
The middle of the course climbs up into Sedona and the red rock country, mixing technical singletrack with exposed terrain under those multicolored cliffs. This is some of the best looking running you will ever do. It is also some of the most dangerous for pacing. The Sedona sections are wide open with almost no shade, and by the afternoon they get hot, so heat and hydration are what decide your day through here.
Treat the hottest exposed miles like a survival game. Keep your core temperature down with whatever the aid stations have, ice, cold fluid, a wet bandana, drink to your sodium plan, and just accept a slower pace in the heat instead of fighting it. Runners lose this race in the Sedona afternoon all the time by pushing the open red rock too hard.
Canyon climbs onto the Coconino Plateau
After the red rock, the route crosses Oak Creek and grinds back up out of the canyon onto the higher Coconino Plateau, a long sustained climb of a couple thousand feet that is one of the defining efforts of the race. The terrain turns from desert into pine forest, with two-track and singletrack rolling toward the Flagstaff area. The air gets thinner and cooler as you gain the plateau, and at night the high country can drop toward freezing, even in spring.
These big canyon climbs are where good power hiking pays off. Settle into a strong steady hiking effort instead of trying to run grades that do not run, and use the cooler, higher air to start eating and drinking yourself back to full after the heat down low.
The pines, the night, and the run into Flagstaff
The last stretch threads forest trails toward and around the Mount Elden area and into downtown Flagstaff, usually with a sleep stop available at Munds Park and rest options at later stations. The trail here can be rocky and lumpy underfoot, and because the race runs across multiple nights, this is where sleep deprivation and piled-up fatigue, not your fitness, decide whether you keep moving. A lot of finishers will tell you the last forty miles are a mental game run on caffeine and willpower through cold, dark, rocky trail.
Plan your sleep strategy ahead of time, know which stations you mean to rest at, and keep eating overnight when your appetite is gone. The finish at Flagstaff Heritage Square is earned by managing the low hours, not by surviving any single hard climb.
Aid stations and cutoffs
The course is supported by a series of aid stations plus a couple of water-only stations, with food, electrolyte fluids, hot meals, and vegetarian and vegan options, and crew access and drop bags at the major checkpoints. The overall time limit is around 75 hours, generous enough that you can walk a lot of it, but the multi-day clock still rewards steady forward progress.
Because the cutoff is long and the race runs across multiple nights, the real risk is bleeding time slowly to heat, sleep, and sore legs, not missing one tight cutoff early. Pull up the official Aravaipa aid-station and cutoff chart for the current edition, then build your pacing and sleep plan backward from those times with a comfortable buffer.
Pacing strategy for the Sedona Canyons 125
A 125 mile point to point with around 14,000 feet of climbing, real desert heat, some altitude, and multiple nights out rewards patience and punishes ego. Pace this course by effort and by grade, not by the flat-ground numbers from your home training runs.
Pace the climbs by grade, not by clock
With around 14,000 feet of gain spread across canyon and plateau climbs over and over, your moving pace is going to swing all over the place between the descents, the runnable forest, and the steep grinds. That is fine, that is how it should look. Power hike the steep pitches and run the gentler grades. Trying to hold one minutes-per-mile number across terrain like this is a fast way to cook the climbs and have nothing left for the late nights.
Use our free grade-adjusted pace calculator to turn your flat fitness into honest effort targets for the steep Sedona Canyons climbs, so you know whether you are pacing the vert sustainably or burning matches you will want back at mile 90.
Bank patience in the heat, protect your quads
The lowest, hottest miles come early in the Verde Valley and through Sedona, right when you feel fresh and want to go. Ease off the early pace on purpose in the heat, and run the big descents off Jerome controlled and light instead of letting gravity hammer your legs. The runners who finish strong are the ones who still have working quads and a cool head when they reach the long climb onto the plateau.
To set a finish goal that actually accounts for all that vert and a multi-day clock, use our vert-aware race time calculator. It works the climbing into your projected finish so you are not stuck on a flat-course estimate that the canyons will quietly tear apart.
Respect the altitude, plan the nights
The high country above 6,000 feet makes the upper climbs feel harder than the same grade would at sea level, so pace the plateau and Flagstaff sections by your breathing and effort, not by your lowland numbers. Then plan for sleep. Across multiple nights, a short planned rest at a station like Munds Park can be faster in the end than slogging forward in a deepening fog. Know your sleep plan before the gun, and run the day-one heat conservatively so the night does not catch you wrecked.
If you want to see how your fitness from a recent race lines up with a 125 mile mountain effort like this, our race equivalent calculator helps you reality-check your goal before you commit to a finish time.
Fueling strategy for the Sedona Canyons 125
A hot, exposed, multi-day effort makes fueling and hydration matter just as much as fitness. The desert heat down low and the appetite-killing night hours are what wreck most well-trained runners, so plan for both.
Carbs: ramp to the high end, on a trained gut
For an effort this long, aim for roughly 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrate per hour, pushing toward the high end once your gut can handle it. Use a glucose-plus-fructose blend so you can absorb more than a single sugar would let you, and rehearse your exact hourly carb number on long runs so 80 to 90 g/h feels normal by race day, not like an experiment. Over multiple nights, leaning on real food at aid stations and easy calories overnight keeps you eating when gels stop sounding good.
The heat makes this harder, because a hot stomach takes less, and the night makes it harder again, because your appetite craters in the low hours. Practice fueling in race-like heat, and keep forcing calories in through both the hot afternoons and the cold dark stretches. Your engine still needs the fuel even when you do not feel hungry.
Sodium and fluid: built for the heat and the long haul
On the exposed Sedona and Verde Valley sections you sweat out a lot, so bias your sodium toward 500 to 800 mg per liter of fluid and carry enough to cover the long, hot gaps between aid stations. Cramping, a sloshy stomach, and that wrung-out late-race feeling are usually a fluid and sodium problem, not a fitness problem, and over a multi-day race they pile up on you if you let them.
Dial in your own plan with our free ultra fueling calculator. Put in your weight, your goal time, and the heat you expect, and it gives you a carb, sodium, fluid, and caffeine plan per hour built for the Sedona Canyons 125 duration and conditions. Then go test it in training.
This guide is for planning and training purposes and reflects publicly available information about the Sedona Canyons 125. Race details, including the date, course, aid stations, and cutoffs, can change year to year, and the exact route is adjusted periodically for land permits and wildlife habitat protection. Always confirm the current specifics on the official Aravaipa Running race website before you train or travel.