Words by Like the Wind – Photography by Tomás Karmelo Amaya
For such a small word, ‘home’ carries a huge amount of meaning. In life we refer to ‘home sweet home’, we talk about how home is where the heart is and call some people a ‘homebody’. In sport, there is the home run or home advantage. And in our sport – running – we have the home straight, the leg-burning last few metres at the end of the track (we’ll come back to that soon). Home is a place of sanctuary. It’s our castle – the place that keeps us safe from the dangers the world presents.
But home is also the place that we need to leave if we want to expand our horizons. For the Navajo people, home has an especially important meaning – there is a deep connection to the land and community is a crucial part of Navajo people’s lives. Still, in many cases Navajo people do leave the place they call home and this is something Brandon Dugi knows first hand.
In many ways, Brandon makes the decision to set out on adventures so that he can lead his community by example. It is why Brandon will be heading out for a 100-mile journey at the Western States Endurance Run: so that he can come home full of new experiences, knowledge and inspiration.
Brandon was born into the Diné community in 1996 and grew up in LeChee, Arizona, a small town in the Navajo Nation – an area of 27,000 square miles covering parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah that is home to around 300,000 Navajo people. But the place that Brandon and the people of which he is a part call home, has only been that for less than 200 years. And its existence points to an act of ethnic cleansing and brutality that resonates to this day.
In the mid-1800s, the United States government sanctioned the relocation of Navajo people from their traditional homelands to reservations in what is now the Navajo Nation. The Navajo people were forced to make the 300-mile journey by foot in what became known as The Long Walk, during which thousands of Navajos died from starvation and illness, while the US Army enacted a scorched-earth policy: destroying crops, irrigation infrastructure and villages to ensure the people they were driving away could not return.
The United States leaders knew that one of the most effective ways to subjugate the Navajo people was to take away their home.
Nevertheless, despite the history of his people, Brandon thought of LeChee as home.
“I grew up in a hooghan – a traditional Navajo dwelling,” explains Brandon, “with no running water or electricity. I lived with my Nálí which is the name for a grandmother on our dad’s side. My Nálí didn’t speak much English – just Navajo. And it was from her that I learned all the Navajo teachings.”
One teaching was very important to Brandon – the importance of being outside.
“We were raised to get outside and to move early in the morning,” says Brandon. “We were taught that right around sunrise is when Mother Earth and Father Sky are present. So we’re told to be outside during those moments. To greet the creators and celebrate the birth of a new day. We get outside, we say our prayers and we run to the east because that is where the creators are.”
As Brandon was growing up in LeChee, he and many of his friends went to high school in Page, AZ where there was a strong tradition of track and cross country.
“Page has really dominant cross country and track teams, constantly winning state titles,” explains Brandon.
It was from this early introduction to track and cross country that Brandon saw he had a talent – and that there was a huge world beyond the borders of the Navajo Nation that he could start to explore through running. Still, realising his talent and following the path of being an athlete would not be straightforward.
“Through me being competitive in the races I did, without doing much training or knowing much about the sport, my eyes were opened to an idea: ‘Let’s see if we can take this a little more seriously.’”
At the same time, Brandon saw that others from the Navajo Nation had tried to take their running seriously and not been able to make the most of their talent.
“You know, the running community on the reservation is so big and there are so many running events that happen,” says Brandon. “There were so many talented athletes that went to college before me. They ran and they did the best they could, but they just didn’t have the support. Partly because the Navajos are really family oriented. They believe in family and being at home and taking care of the land. That’s how we are taught: to take care of our elders. We’re taught to give back – to come back home. We go to get educated, do what we need to do and then we come back home to take care of our own people.”
In the context of the persecutions that the Navajo people had endured just a few generations before, this independence and self-reliance makes sense. And the sense that Diné people should not stray far from the reservation persisted. Brandon saw that the generation coming up behind him appeared to lack an attachment to running as a way to expand their horizons, perhaps because they didn’t have the role models that he had as a youngster. So he took it upon himself to address that.
“Some Navajo runners did go out and make a name for themselves. They impacted the running community back on the reservation. But I feel like it’s not like that any more,” Brandon explains.
One source of inspiration for Brandon came in the form of the Martin twins – brothers Tim and Theo.
“They’re local legends,” says Brandon.
The twins came from a large LeChee family, where their parents – Allen, a coal miner and Lisa, a nurse – insisted their boys ran.
“Our dad was very traditional. So we were up every morning running before the sun came up,” Shaun told the Navajo Times in 2010.
Theo agrees, saying, “We either got up and ran or had water dumped on us and [were] kicked out the door.”
Every year that Theo and Tim competed for Page High School, the team won the state cross-country title – four wins in a row, which were the first occasions the school had ever achieved the state title.
In 1999, the Page cross-country team – containing the twins – was ranked second nationally. Theo and his younger brother Shaun were two of the athletes that Brandon saw leave home to pursue their running dreams, both of them graduating from Northern Arizona University where they had won running scholarships.
But that was then. Now Brandon sees a different story.
“I grew up hearing about [the Martin brothers] and thinking ‘Oh, wow. I want to be like these guys.’ But now while [Theo] coaches the Page High School cross-country team, I feel like this next generation doesn’t really have the same role models.”
So that is what Brandon is setting out to be: a role model for younger runners. Indeed, he has been helping the Martin brothers out as an assistant coach at Page High School, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with his heroes. And now Brandon is aiming to inspire with his own running achievements. Not on the track or cross-country course. But in the world of ultra trail races.
“After I have been away racing, it’s amazing to come back to the reservation and meet people I don’t even know, who come up to me and say, ‘Oh, you’re that HOKA guy. I run and it would be cool to do [what you do] someday.’”
People continually ask Brandon about trail running and what it was like to travel to Chamonix, France for the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc.
“That’s my big goal – going out to this unknown space of trail running and doing the best that I can. Sharing my story of where I come from and who I am as a Navajo. And hopefully that inspires the next generation of Navajo native runners to go out into these spaces and to do even better than I’m doing. That’s what I hope for.”
Throughout all the racing Brandon has done, one race has taken up lodgings in his mind and just won’t leave.
Brandon first heard about the Western States Endurance Run in 2014. Then, after hearing Jim Walmsley’s story from the 2016 event, Brandon’s interest in the race really took off. That year Walmsley had been in the lead and well ahead of the course record, when he took a wrong turn and ran two miles before realising his mistake. That allowed a relatively unknown 20-year-old, Andrew Miller, to take the lead and eventually the win as the youngest ever victor. Brandon just happened to be 20 years old at the time Miller won.
The following year, Brandon went to see what the race involved up close.
“I went to Tahoe in 2017. I didn’t really know anybody other than Jim [Walmsley] and I was kind of like a lost dog. I drove from Arizona all the way out to Tahoe. I slept in my car and just spectated the race. I went two days before the race so I could just immerse myself in it. I didn’t know anybody, didn’t talk to anybody, but I just wanted to know what this race was all about.”
In the years after that first in-person experience, Brandon has been back many times. He has paced and crewed for other athletes including Hellah Sidibe, Hayden Hawkes, Jared Hazen and – of course – Jim Walmsley.
Now, it is Brandon’s turn to experience the Western States 100 race for himself.
“Western States is so special to me,” says Brandon. “Whenever I go back, it just feels like home in a way. I’ve gotten a really good relationship with the people, especially some of the locals who live in Auburn.”
Having gained a place to join the 369 runners on the start line for the 2025 race, Brandon has gone all in: he has “put everything on the line” giving up his freelance work as a photographer and reducing his coaching role at Page High School so that he can dedicate all his time and energy to training for this first attempt.
“What am I hoping for at Western States?” asks Brandon. “Well, first of all, having a really good time and a really good result. Just continuing to be the best version of myself for my people back home. And not just for the Navajo people. Because, you know, Navajo is one tribe. But there are many other tribes around the country and I feel like they’re all in the same situation as us: having the potential, but not showing it.”
Brandon Dugi undoubtedly has the potential to have a great run and, all being well, at some point shortly after 7pm on 28 June 2025, he will pass through a gate in a low chain-link fence and step onto the track at Placer High School in Auburn, CA after 100 miles on the trails. He will have one bend to run, after which he will hit the home straight towards the finish line. And in more ways than one, Brandon will be home. Auburn will feel more like home than ever. And he will be even more of an inspiration to Navajo runners, back home in LeChee and throughout the Navajo Nation.
That will be perhaps the sweetest home coming ever.
