Ian Cox Memorial Dick's-A-Thon Hits 26.3 Miles

Connor Cox's Goodbye Run, April 21, 2018

Connor Cox was leaving Seattle in 2018, and on April 21 he and his twin brother Ian ran one last loop between all five Dick's Drive-In counters in the city. How far they went depends on who tells it. The organizers' own history page and a post on Washington's National Park Fund both put the loop at 20 miles, and an older version of that history page, still live on the same domain, gives the same date and the same distance. A syndicated Yahoo News feature on the family calls it roughly 22, and nearly a perfect circle. The two figures have never been squared. Eight years later, on Saturday, October 17, 2026, that same loop runs as the Ian Cox Memorial Dick's-A-Thon, a 26.3-mile event with a $135 entry, a start line at The Mountaineers Seattle Program Center, and aid stations that are still fast-food windows. The distance grew. The reason changed entirely.

Ian Cox Went Missing in the North Cascades in August 2022

Washington's National Park Fund, in a post credited to the run's own marketing director, records that Ian Cox instructed for The Mountaineers and was an Eagle Scout. On August 20, 2022 he walked into the North Cascades alone to attempt a loop over West McMillan Spire and Mount Degenhardt, in what that same post calls a solo technical objective. He has not been found. Sixty-three days later his family held the first memorial edition of the run, on October 22, 2022, the date of Ian and Connor's shared 30th birthday. That is not long. The organizers put that first field at over 100, and Yahoo News counted roughly the same and named Ian's parents as Marla and Duncan Cox. That first year raised $32,000 for Washington search and rescue organizations.

The Full Dick's-A-Thon Is 26.3 Miles and Five Menu Items

The Full Dick's-A-Thon covers 26.3 miles and 2,064 feet of gain. Public listings put the five counters in Wallingford, Capitol Hill, Queen Anne, Crown Hill and Lake City, and that second number is the cost of stringing them together. Each of the five Dick's Drive-In locations is a checkpoint, and each carries a required order: fries, a milkshake, a deluxe burger, a special burger, a cheeseburger. Five stops, five items. The Half asks for three. The unit of measurement is an order at a window. Full runners set off at 10 in the morning, the Half at 11:45.

The Half Is 14.5 Miles, or 14.7

The routes page lists the Half Dick's-A-Thon at 14.5 miles and 971 feet of gain. The sign-up page for the same 2026 entry says 14.7. Neither figure is wrong by much. Two tenths of a mile, and the site does not say which page is current. The FAQ says the event is run by "a small, amazing group of volunteers," and gives that as the reason prices rise every September 17, as costs climb closer to race day. Both numbers belong to those volunteers. A chain event would print one figure, checked by somebody whose job is numbers, and it would say nothing at all about who is typing the pages.

Eat Only Costs the Same as Running the Marathon

A still-live 2023 page for the run describes a 22-mile loop starting and finishing at Meadowbrook Playfield Park, priced at $50 for the full and $30 for the partial, with proceeds going to Washington Search and Rescue. The 2025 product page put the Full at $150. For 2026 the Full is $135, fifteen dollars less than last year's, so the line does not run straight up. Four categories sit on that same $135: the Full, the Half, Eat Only and Virtual. Eat Only is exactly what it sounds like, and it is priced level with running the whole 26.3 miles. The Victory Lap is $60. Volunteering is listed at $0. Registration is non-refundable and non-transferable, in the flat sentence the checkout page uses. What moved most since 2023 is not the price. It is who the money reaches.

The Money Now Splits Three Ways

In 2023 the proceeds went one place, Washington search and rescue. The homepage now names three: the Mountaineers Access Fund Scholarship, five Washington search-and-rescue organizations, and Washington's National Park Fund. That list is a biography. Ian Cox instructed for The Mountaineers. He went missing on a technical objective in the North Cascades, and search and rescue is the work that goes out when somebody does not come down. Net proceeds, not gross, is the wording the homepage uses, and it is stated plainly. Both the scholarship line and the national parks line are new since 2023. The start and finish is 7700 Sand Point Way NE, the Mountaineers Seattle Program Center, which belongs to the organization he taught for. The address is a choice, not a convenience.

The Victory Lap Is 5.4 Miles and One Menu Item

The F45 Victory Lap is the shortest route on the page: 5.4 miles, 103 feet of gain, out and back from The Mountaineers, one menu item to finish, off at 1:30 in the afternoon. It is the version that does not require a marathon, and a memorial only marathoners can enter would be a smaller memorial. The Victory Lap and the Full share a start line and almost nothing else. One is 103 feet of climbing. The other is 2,064. Bib pickup happens the Wednesday before, 3 to 7 p.m. at Brooks Trailhead on Stone Way N, and that is the most conventional thing about the whole week. Everything after it is a counter and an order. The route has been 20 miles, or 22, and it is 26.3 now. The five windows have not moved.