Rachel Entrekin is an ultrarunner and three time champion of the Cocodona 250, one of the most demanding ultramarathons in the United States. Known as the "Queen of Cocodona," she became the first woman to win the race outright in 2026, covering more than 250 miles across Arizona in 56 hours, 9 minutes, and 58 seconds while setting a new course record.
Rachel Entrekin is an ultrarunner and three time champion of the Cocodona 250, one of the most demanding ultramarathons in the United States. Known as the "Queen of Cocodona," she became the first woman to win the race outright in 2026, covering more than 250 miles across Arizona in 56 hours, 9 minutes, and 58 seconds while setting a new course record.
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Shelby Stanger:
Earlier this summer, the Wild Ideas Worth Living team headed to Denver for Outside Days, where we sat down with a number of incredible athletes and thought leaders. Personally, I was really excited to interview Rachel Entrekin, who just a month earlier was the overall winner at the Cocodona 250, an ultra marathon in the high desert of Arizona. This was Rachel's third time running the race, and she finished seven hours faster than she did in 2025, crossing the finish line after 56 hours, nine minutes and 58 seconds.
Her win went viral, and suddenly Rachel was everywhere: Runner's World, the BBC, The Washington Post, and tons of other publications. Today, Rachel is known as one of the top ultra runners in the country. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production presented by Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard.
A note, this episode contains conversations about eating disorders. Please listen with care.
Over the years, Rachel Entrekin has performed so well at the Cocodona 250 that she's earned the nickname Queen of Cocodona. The course is just over 250 miles long, starting in Central Arizona and heading north to the finish line in Flagstaff. It covers nearly 39,000 feet of elevation and passes through a wide range of climates and landscapes, from the dry desert heat to icy mountain ranges. Cocodona has been described as one of the most challenging ultra marathons in the US. Rachel Entrekin, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living.
Rachel Entrekin:
Thanks. Hi.
Shelby Stanger:
Stoked to have you here.
Rachel Entrekin:
Thanks. Yeah, I was stoked to be asked to come.
Shelby Stanger:
Well, I want to go back to running in the beginning. How did you even get into running? I read that you grew up in Alabama.
Rachel Entrekin:
Yeah, not exactly a run conducive state. Yeah, I guess, I mean, if we want to get really deep into my personal life, when I was in high school, I was overweight. And I mean, my family didn't have the most healthy eating habits and so I wound up, as the fat kid, you have to make yourself, I don't know, something else if you want to go on dates with people or have a boyfriend, which in high school, that's what I wanted. So I developed a personality, I guess, which I'm really thankful for because I have that still.
Shelby Stanger:
I love you already.
Rachel Entrekin:
Yeah. But it was really disheartening to constantly be friends with people who were always getting the people that I had a crush on. You just do that enough and it kind of sucks. So over time, that kind of whittled my self-esteem down to nothing. So my senior year of, or I guess the summer between my junior and senior year, I actually developed a really bad eating disorder. We also had some stuff going on with my family life that just made me want to leave the house a lot, and so got a gym membership and I just lived there.
And that was kind of when I discovered I can do the same thing for a long time and not really get either sick of it or tired. I would do exercise classes for hours, hours. I would jump on the treadmill for hours and I would just be fine afterwards. And of course at the time, I was using it as a means of control, but I also realized that I liked how I felt when I was done, whether it was the adrenaline rush or just the sense of accomplishing something. I really liked that feeling and it made me feel really good, especially important when my life was not so good.
So I eventually went to rehab. I had to take a year off college. So basically I graduated and immediately went to rehab. And-
Shelby Stanger:
You graduated high school and then you went to rehab.
Rachel Entrekin:
High school. Yep.
Shelby Stanger:
How old were you and what year was this?
Rachel Entrekin:
This was 2009, I guess. So 2009 to 2010, I was in inpatient rehab in North Carolina.
Shelby Stanger:
That was also a time when running and working out was really put on a pedestal.
Rachel Entrekin:
Yeah. I mean, it was like the whole thinspiration crap. I mean, I was very much a victim to that type of marketing. But yeah, and so went to rehab. And I do remember when you're in inpatient rehab, they really take everything from you and you aren't allowed to do very much physically or otherwise. I mean, you're doing a lot of eating and therapy and all those, which are very important things to do. But I remember the entire time I was there just thinking, "Okay, but I actually think I like running and I need to figure out a way that I can do this safely when I get out of here."
So I went to rehab once. I kind of faked it because I think that's what you always do when you go to rehab is you fake it so you can get out and then go right back to doing the crap you were doing. But I did that and I realized, okay, crap, I actually don't want to live this way. I can't do the things that I want to do because I'm not healthy enough to do them. So I need to go back and I need to do it correctly.
So I went back, did inpatient and then outpatient and then the partial program and all the stuff and I tried to follow the steps as best I could. And eventually I got to a place where I was healthy enough to run how I wanted. And then running became a way, it was almost like self-care. It was like this barometer of how well I was doing mentally.
And over the years, I said it took about five years for me to figure out how to do it healthily. I was pretty obsessed for a while where I had to do it every day and I had to look a certain way in order to fit in with the crowd of people I was running with. And I had to get certain times at certain races and I had to do it all on the roads as fast as I could and all the things.
And then at my first marathon in like 2010, I guess. Or no, I don't remember, but eventually I discovered trail running. And trail running and road running are very different things and they can be good for different people. But for me, trail running was the savior that I needed because the people in trail running just seem a little bit more, or I guess less stereotypically runners. I remember the-
Shelby Stanger:
I don't mean to laugh, but I know what you're trying to say.
Rachel Entrekin:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
They're a little bit more chill.
Rachel Entrekin:
A little bit more chill and I wanted... That environment to me, it just felt very inclusive and it felt a lot less invested in things like splits and how many miles per week you're doing and all these... It just felt more like vibes as opposed to spreadsheets.
Shelby Stanger:
I just want to say thank you for sharing your story. I think running and eating disorders, a lot of times-
Rachel Entrekin:
Are probably homies. Yeah. I mean, I think it's a very big part of my story because honestly, the reason, because my parents were very resistant to me running for a long time, for obvious reasons.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah, they were scared.
Rachel Entrekin:
They were scared. And the thing I kept telling them that eventually I suppose they believed is in order to compete at the level that I want to compete at, I cannot slack off on nutrition. It's like a car. If you tried to run a car fast with no gas in it, you're not going to get very far. You have to keep putting gas in the tank if you want to go the speeds that I want to go. And for me, it matters so much less. I couldn't give a rat's ass about what I look like. What I care about is how I'm performing because that is going to bring me a lot more long-term joy than how I physically appear.
Shelby Stanger:
So when did you actually start competing, when you were like, "Okay, I could do this"?
Rachel Entrekin:
I started taking trail running a little more seriously probably in 2017. My first 50K, I think I podiumed. So I wasn't ever really bad at trail running. I mean, I had a lot to learn, but there was some potential, undeniable potential, I think.
But yeah, I moved out to Washington state and then discovered mountains. And that was when I was like, "Wait a second, I like this a lot more than I like everything else that I've ever done." I'd visited Seattle because one of my roommates had a residency or a clinical? Clinical out there. And he was like, "Oh, you would love it out here. You have to come visit." So I went out and I was like, "You're absolutely right. I love it out here."
So I moved out as soon as I graduated. But that was when I discovered the bigger mountains and the seasons and the challenges that are associated with navigating on snow and navigating on glaciers and peaks and stuff. Because in Alabama, you don't really have those things. I mean, you have challenges like rocks and heat, but you don't have potential death from falling in a crevasse. So that was a really fun skill set to kind of hone.
Shelby Stanger:
When Rachel moved to the Pacific Northwest, her skills and confidence as a runner increased exponentially. She had more trails to choose from, more mountains to climb, and frankly, more athletes around her that were pushing themselves hard. About a year after her first ultra, Rachel entered a race in Idaho called IMTUF, which features a 108-mile course with 20,000 feet of climbing. In that race, Rachel found her flow and pulled out an incredible performance.
Rachel Entrekin:
Potentially to this day, that's the race I'm the most proud of with my execution. I started off really conservatively and people blasted past me and I didn't let it bother me. And then I worked my way up to like sixth overall. And I still have the course record. And I remember just thinking to myself, "Okay, I finished the race. I didn't feel like I was dying." And it was a hard race. So that was kind of when I thought to myself, "I think I can make something happen."
Shelby Stanger:
Rachel won the woman's field at IMTUF, and her performance gained her some recognition in the local trail running scene. She was frequently entering 100-mile races, and when she showed up to a starting line, people paid attention. These ultras didn't bring her fame exactly, but they did teach her how to deal with pressure on a small scale. From there, Rachel took on longer and longer distances until one race in particular caught her eye.
The Cocodona 250.
Rachel Entrekin:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
What made you decide to run that race? Tell me about this race. What makes it special? Where is it? What's it like?
Rachel Entrekin:
It's a long answer. So I did all those 100s. I decided that I can do this, and so I spent the next probably three years doing mountain races or event, not events, but like fasted on times around the Wonderland Trail or around the base of Mount Hood. So I was doing these more and more increasingly challenging things, usually with minimal to no support. And then I discovered, or I guess discovered is a wrong word because I'd been doing fixed time racing also, which is basically where you're given an amount of time on a closed loop and you just basically run circles for that time, so 12 hours, 24 hours, that kind of thing.
So around the time where I was feeling much more confident on 100-mile courses, pretty much any type of 100-mile course, I decided, well, the way that I can increase the challenge so I can scratch that itch is to go up in distance. And there weren't a lot of 200s at the time, and I wouldn't have been ready for them anyway. So the way that I did that was going up into 48-hour racing. So you literally run in a circle for two days.
And the first time I did it, it was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. I think I only made it 150 miles in 48 hours, which is really good, but not going to win. Although I think I maybe did win. I don't remember. But I mean, I made a lot of mistakes and I left a lot of miles on the table. And knowing that I had so much room to improve drew me to want to do them a lot.
So I did a couple more. Eventually I was able to crack the 200-mile mark during a 48-hour race, which is really, I mean, quite good. And that was when... I did that maybe twice. I got 200 plus miles in 48 hours. And then I was like, "Okay, well, maybe now I'm ready. Because now 200 mile trail races are much more of a thing, so maybe I'm ready to try one of those."
And the one that I really wanted to try was Cocodona. It looked really interesting because you run... It's a point point. So you run from just north of Phoenix all the way up to Flagstaff and you pass through Sedona and Cottonwood and Jerome and all these really cool little towns. So it was almost like a tour on foot of Arizona. And it just seemed really intriguing to me.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay, so the first year, 2024, you won the women's race.
Rachel Entrekin:
Yeah. And I was about an hour and a half off the course record for the women that year. Yeah. But the entire race, I was in second pretty much. I bonked really hideously. I didn't know how to fuel correctly. I don't know, I didn't know salt really very well. And so I wound up bonking really hard at the halfway point, having to take five hours off. And then-
Shelby Stanger:
What does bonking feel like?
Rachel Entrekin:
You just can't move. And your brain, my brain gets really negative. And it's like in that moment, I was thinking to myself, "You're only halfway through and you feel like you're dying. So how are you going to do this for another 125 miles?" It was a very dark time.
So my crew consisted of all of my homies who knew me really well and they recognized, okay, you need a snack and a hard reset. So they just shoved me in the van and said, "Don't come out for two hours basically," or three, I don't remember. And it was great, it worked. I mean, I reset, I got some sleep, I ate some stuff. And then I think I wound up over-salting because I basically spent the next 10 hours throwing up really bad. But my head space was better, so it didn't matter because I knew that I wanted to finish.
But yeah, I was in second or third most of the race. I passed the second place woman sometime around mile 200. And then the first place woman actually wound up, I don't really know what happened, but she had to take a considerable amount of time off course, and so I wound up winning.
But it was ugly. I just mentally fell apart. I was really negative. I finished with a really bad attitude despite the fact that I won the race my first time. But I just didn't care about that, I was just miserable. So yeah, I returned in 2025, mostly because I wanted to rewrite the narrative of how I finished.
Shelby Stanger:
In 2024, Rachel Entrekin won the women's field of the Cocodona 250, an ultra marathon that winds through the deserts and mountains of Arizona. She won the women's field again in 2025, this time setting a new woman's course record. But she wasn't done yet. This year in 2026, Rachel didn't just win the women's field, she beat every single runner, men included, and set a new course record.
So what changed between 2025 and 2026? First, she finally had sponsors, including a nutrition company that helped her dial in her fueling strategy. Second, Rachel found ways to stay positive even during the most challenging moments of the race.
What were some of the lowlights and some of the highlights of this race besides winning?
Rachel Entrekin:
Winning, I don't even think. I mean, that was nice, but it was certainly not the highlight.
I think the lowest point I had was... I guess there were two things that could be the answer. A point that was almost like an inflection during the race was when I took the lead at about the 100K mark. So you're 65 miles into a 250-mile race. You have 200 miles to go. And I was running with a very talented group of multi-day athletes and some of the best 100-mile runners that are out there. And I'm deciding that I want to be in front of everyone. That was a very imposter syndrome-y moment for me. It's like, well, who am I to be in front of... Who am I to lead the race this early? In my brain, I was just envisioning the internet going crazy. If something happened and I didn't hold onto the lead, like, "Oh, she started out too fast," or all the dumb internet troll crap, I was thinking about that.
And then I'm glad I was able to kind of pull myself out of that and be like, "Okay, I've won this race every single time I've done it." And for the women, but I've improved on my time each time. I've learned a lot about myself each time. I've done another 200 miler in which I got second. Why can't I lead this race? I have the experience. I have potentially, out of all the front-runners, I potentially have the most experience on this course. So this mantra that I kept in my head for the rest of the race was, why not you? It's got to be somebody, and why can't it be you? So that was a hard part that turned into a great part.
And then I got into another low point around 150, which is when you're going into Sedona. I was running with my pacer, Addie, who's one of my best training partners. And it just, I mean, God, it got really hard. I wasn't probably fueling as much as I needed to. So mentally, my brain just kind of short-circuited and my feet hurt and my quads were tired. And it was like, I still have 100 miles to go. And the second place guy, Kilian Korth, very talented, very strong athlete, also really good at multi-days. And I just, I don't know, in my brain, I was picturing him just passing me while I'm not in a position to respond. And I just got really negative.
And my pacer was able to kind of recognize, because when things are hard, I just get quiet because voicing doesn't really help. So she was able to recognize like, "Hey, what's going on back there?" So we made a plan to deal with some of my physical discomfort and get some caffeine, put some salt, bandage your feet, and then that will fix things.
And I was like, "Ah, yes, that will fix things." So now my only objective is get to the aid station and everything will be fine. And that's just what I told myself for the next like 10 miles. And then we got to the aid station, did those things, and everything was fine. So had a great rest of the race.
But those were definitely the two hardest parts. But Addie actually said something that I thought was really profound. And I'm going to paraphrase it because I don't quite remember, but she said, when you're doing something that's never been done before, it's going to be hard. And that just felt so logical to me because in that moment, my brain wasn't being logical, it was being very negative. And yeah, I mean, a woman has not won Cocodona before outright and nobody had run as fast as I had run to that point ever. So of course it's going to be hard. Doing unheard of things is not easy or people would've done them already. So it really felt logical and it made me feel a lot better.
Shelby Stanger:
You said something that just hit me really hard. Why not me? Why can't it be me?
Rachel Entrekin:
Yeah, why not? We tell ourselves all the time that it won't be for reasons that are dumb. So why don't we tell ourselves that it could be for reasons that are actually sound? I mean, I had the experience, my resume dictated that it could be me. So I just needed to listen to that instead of listening to the other side.
Shelby Stanger:
I want to know what it was like coming across a finish line. That must have been so fun. You are telling jokes and having fun with everyone.
Rachel Entrekin:
Yeah. It's funny because everything has really blown up since... I don't know. I mean, since I finished. It almost felt like it was happening to somebody else. I remember hitting, because I did not... One thing I think I do to protect myself is I don't assume I'm going to win until I see the finish shoot. And at Cocodona, everything is expanded. So for me, I was not going to assume I was winning until I hit the pavement in Flagstaff because I'm probably not going to get bit by a snake. I'm not going to trip and fall and die. I'm probably going to finish in the place that I'm in once I hit the streets of Flagstaff.
So I just remember once I hit the pavement, it was just like, holy crap. We stuck the landing. And it felt like half the state of Arizona was lining the streets and it was nuts. And I knew, my crew was telling me at that point, because we didn't really discuss the fact that I was in the lead for the entire race because I don't want to discuss that. I just want to run and I want you guys to help me do that. But that was obviously when they were like, "You're about to win. And you're not just going to win for the women, you're going to win for everybody and you're setting this course record." And it was so cool to be a part of that team that made that happen.
Shelby Stanger:
I have tears in my eyes. It's so weird, but we're just in a hotel room in Denver. You're making me cry.
Rachel Entrekin:
But yeah, I mean, it was insane.
Shelby Stanger:
It couldn't have happened to a better human.
Rachel Entrekin:
Well, thanks.
Shelby Stanger:
You really deserve it.
Rachel Entrekin:
Well, thank you.
Shelby Stanger:
I hope you're enjoying all of this that comes from it.
Rachel Entrekin:
Yeah. I really love the story arc of this race and me particularly, because the first year I did this race in 2024, I had to GoFund my way here. I had to set up a GoFundMe in order to afford the race. But I wanted to do it, and so of course I'm going to figure out a way to do it. And then in 2025, I rewrote the narrative around my attitude and I learned that I can control so much of that negativity. I can choose to do something else with that.
Shelby Stanger:
If you watch the video of Rachel coming across the finish line at Cocodona, she looks like she's having a blast. She's chatting with her crew, cracking jokes, and responding to onlookers who are cheering her on. During our conversation, she told me her mindset comes down to one overarching idea. Hard and fun don't have to be mutually exclusive.
I love that you're the fun runner. That's such a good thing to be known for. I'm curious, when you're in these mind states where you can get negative, it happens to all of us. For me, it happens right before I get my period. I just become such a salty Sandy. How do you take the pressure off? How do you push the little release valve and make it fun and not make it so serious?
Rachel Entrekin:
One of the things that I think helps is identifying that that is what's happening is I am being negative right now. And that is okay because what I'm doing is hard and I haven't been sleeping and whatever. But particularly, I would say with running, because that's just going to be the metaphor I use, I'm choosing to do this. I'm choosing to do this race. I'm choosing to have this life. And it feels really dumb to complain about something that I'm choosing to do.
So logic for me is very good when it comes to combating negative energy. It's like, well, just, okay, logically, again, I'm choosing to be here. Logically, I have the resume to do this. Logically, I'm doing something that no one's done before, so it's going to be hard and that's okay. A lot of negative feelings really don't last much longer than 20 minutes.
So I have this kind of joke that I call it the 20-minute rule where if something hurts or if I feel a certain way or if my stomach is going south, give it 20 minutes. And I will literally, I mean, again, I don't use a watch a ton, but I will look at my watch when I notice something and I will give myself 20 minutes for it to subside before I decide that it needs to be something I address. Because a lot of times, I mean, I remember in Cocodona, my foot was killing me at one point. My toe felt like I had a knife in my toe or something. It was just really very painful. But I'm not going to let that bother me because I don't yet know if it's something I need to concern myself with, so I'll just give myself 20 minutes. And I mean, I didn't even need to look at the clock again because within 20 minutes it was gone. And it's like, all right, well, cool. Guess we'll keep going.
Shelby Stanger:
What do you think that was? That's so weird.
Rachel Entrekin:
I have no idea. Just body being like, "Meh." I mean, you're running a long time on no sleep and questionable carbohydrates. But there's a lot of red herrings in life where you think something will be problematic and it actually winds up not being a big deal or making your story that much more interesting.
Shelby Stanger:
Is that how you think about your story? How do you feel like your past relationships with food and exercise has influenced your running?
Rachel Entrekin:
I mean, I had some pretty bad issues and I felt like I became known as being the girl with the eating disorder. And I think the biggest thing that I am proud of is a lot of times in rehab, and I'm sure there's a lot of reasons for doing this, but they tell you that eating disorders are going to be something that you have to deal with your whole life. And that feels really negative and that feels very restrictive and it feels like that's putting a kibosh on... I mean, ultra running's extreme. It's a very extreme thing. And it feels like that puts a kibosh on anything that's extreme. And I think that you can get to a place where those intrusive thoughts and those unhealthy behaviors are no longer ruling your life and you can get back into doing, or you can get into doing extreme sports if you want to.
Like I've had a bunch of, especially recently, I've had a bunch of people from rehab reach back out and be like, "Wow, this is so cool that you figured out how to do this." And people, just random strangers on the internet sending me DMs being like, "This is something that I struggled with too. And seeing you excelling over it is so inspiring to me." And that is incredible because I wish that I had that type of, I don't know, person in my life when I needed it, because I was just kind of out there whistling in the dark basically, hoping that I was doing the right thing, but not seeing an example of it being done. Particularly in my case of struggling with mental health, struggling with body image, having an eating disorder, deciding I wanted to run, and then figuring out how to do it in a way that is not going to compromise my health.
Shelby Stanger:
To find out what Rachel is up to, you can find her on Instagram @rachel__entrekin. That's R-A-C-H-E-L, underscore, underscore, E-N-T-R-E-K-I-N. If you liked this episode, you also might like our interview with ultra runner, Courtney Dauwalter. We'll link it in the show notes.
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. Thank you again to our partner, Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard. As always, we love it when you follow the show. Take time to rate it and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.