The Queen of Cocodona

In 1896, the organizers of the first Modern Olympiad decided to honor a run that an ancient Greek courier named Pheidippides (maybe) made after the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE.

The newly coined “marathon” featured a distance that roughly mirrored the stretch from Marathon to Athens, around 25 miles (today, a marathon is defined as 26.2 miles).

This new discipline enthralled the running world. The marathon became the prime endurance distance, a staple of the Olympics and thousands of cities across the planet. While the organizers hit on a fantastic marriage of history and sport, they probably couldn’t have foreseen the fever that runners developed for the distance.

Nor could they have envisioned how humans would continue to push the limits of endurance. Why stop at 26.2 miles? In the 21st century, a runner has numerous options to tackle courses beyond marathon length, the so-called ultramarathons. These days, you can easily hop into 50k, 50-mile, 100k, or 100-mile races. The most prestigious ultramarathon competitions focus on the latter distance, as the biggest names in long-distance running make 100-milers look like an afternoon jog.

In the past decade, an even crazier trend has emerged. We once asked why we stopped at a marathon; now we can ask why stop at 100 miles? Races that exceed 200 miles in length have exploded in popularity. The fastest trail runners complete centuries in under 20 hours, but 200-mile distances require multiple days to finish, straining the human body’s ability to fuel, endure sleep deprivation, and keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Though 200+-mile ultras exist around the world, through some of the most picturesque mountain ranges, none has blasted to the top of the trail-running zeitgeist quite like the Cocadona 250.

This gargantuan race traces 253 breathtaking miles through the northern half of Arizona.

Starting about 45 miles north of Phoenix and ending in Flagstaff, Cocodona is so long that it transports competitors through strikingly different biomes. From deserts to canyons to elevated pine forests to alpine mountaintops, the views never become boring.

To make it all the more daunting, the course contains about 40,000 feet of climbing and nearly 35,000 feet of quad-busting descents. The race saves the toughest ascent for last; over 240 miles in, entrants must scale 9,301-foot Mount Elden.

Finishing Cocodona is a tremendous accomplishment. Runners get 125 hours to complete the gauntlet. Doing the math, to succeed, one needs to average two miles per hour. Humans typically cover three miles per hour as they walk on even ground. This prospect might seem achievable until we factor in the rest of the story. Those 125 hours include your stops to sleep, to eat, to change gear, to use the bathroom, and to quiet those voices in your head that are pleading for you to stop being a crazy person, to quit.

Those who embark upon the course express transcendent experiences; they commune with nature while challenging themselves physically, mentally, and spiritually.

When it comes to ultras, Cocodona is a newcomer, holding its inaugural edition in 2021. In five short years, it has become, possibly, the premier race over 200 miles, and runners have flocked to it in droves.

It’s also beginning to reveal something curious and profound.

Athletics have long been the domain of men, but, in 2026, a rising star produced a performance at Cocodona so stunning that we might need to rethink everything we thought we knew about running ultra-long distances.

Meet Rachel Entrekin.

This 34-year-old from Alabama had won the women’s division at Cocodona in 2024 and 2025, cementing herself as one of the best in the business.

But she was tearing it up elsewhere, too. According to Ultrasignup, she had won 21 women’s ultra-length events in a row before taking third place at a prestigious race in Chianti early in 2026. That contest pitted her against Courtney Dauwalter, who is often considered the greatest women’s ultrarunner of all time. Though the impressive win streak ended in Italy, the distance of that race was only 120 kilometers. As crazy as this statement sounds, Entrekin seems to become a superhuman at 200-mile distances.

Hiding in the data of her massive victory string was a secret weapon.

The streak counted women’s races, but amongst the 21 were six overall wins. As in, she beat the guys, too.

The 2026 edition at Cocodona touted the most competitive lineup ever, including multiple past champions, in addition to Courtney Dauwalter.

The media argued about which legend would take the women’s crown. The GOAT or the heir to the throne?

But, at the starting line, Entrekin stood next to the elite men and thought a bit bigger. Men had won every Cocodona to date, yet this bantam sparkplug asked herself, “Why not me?” Quietly confident that she could perform against the best men in the world, Rachel Entrekin stepped into the early-morning Arizona desert in May for a run with history.

In 2025, Dan Green set the course record at 58:47:18.

That’s more than 2 days and 10 hours on the trail.

This year, for approximately the first 50 miles, Entrekin and a group of the top men ran together. When she pulled into the lead, many of the men must have thought they had plenty of mileage to run her down.

Instead, it was the last time they saw her.

Over the next two days, Entrekin plowed through Arizona on a punishing, methodical pace. She efficiently navigated aid stations, minimizing time on gear switches and eating.

She slept for a total of 19 minutes over three “dirt naps.”

She handled the heat, the cold, the sun, and the snow. She went over mountains like they were downhills.

Rachel Entrekin crossed the Flagstaff finish line in 56:09:49.

It’s hard to oversell this achievement.

Entrekin eclipsed the previous course record by 2 hours, 37 minutes, and 29 seconds.

Not the women’s record. In that department, she was 7 hours and 41 minutes ahead of her own mark from 2025.

She was 1 hour and 19 minutes ahead of second place.

Such a seminal achievement would garner anyone plaudits, but the fact that a woman blew away all the men set off alarms across the sporting media.

In addition to the overall win, three women finished in the Top 10, including Dauwalter in sixth.

While Cocodona 2026 might turn out to be a watershed moment, it wasn’t a fluke. As previously noted, Entrekin has had phenomenal success against men in the past, but she’s not the first to do so.

Dauwaulter, 41, has famously notched numerous ultramarathon overall victories over the boys. Before her was Ann Trason, a trailblazer of the 1980s and 90s.

What’s going on at longer distances that allows the women to beat the men more often than in other sports?

One theory is fat oxidation. When the human body burns fuel, it does so through two main substrates: carbohydrates and fats. Short bursts use sugars stored in the blood to power the body. When we run out of carbs, we switch to fat stores. This changeover is the cause of the famous “bonk” that many marathoners experience. Using carbs is much more efficient, and when we run out, we feel like we hit a proverbial wall. Today, runners ingest as many carbohydrates as they can during races to keep the body in sugar-burning mode, but when it’s time to tap the fat reserves, a woman’s physiology seems to be superior at using the secondary fuel.

Women may simply be built better to withstand the rigors as miles turn into hundreds of miles.

In other words, Pheidippides made it 150 miles from Athens to Sparta and back, but maybe the Ancient Greeks should have sent a woman instead.

Rachel Entrekin has embraced the nickname “The Queen of Cocodona.” Her win in 2026 is one of the most impressive sporting accomplishments I’ve witnessed, but it might just be the first step for women setting records in ultramarathons.

She’s the Queen of Cocodona, and currently the Rachel Entreking of the ultra world.

A regent and a royal, Rachel Entrekin easily breaks the tape on her way into TMAC’s Woman Crush Wednesday Hall of Fame.