Rachel Entrekin kept coming back to one thought as the Cocodona 250 Mile wore on, “Why not you?”
The 34-year-old beat every man and woman in the race on Wednesday in Flagstaff, Arizona, becoming the first woman to win the event overall in its history. She set a course record of 56 hours, 9 minutes and 48 seconds, faster than Kilian Korth’s men’s course record of 57:28:36.
It was Entrekin’s third straight year winning the award, and this time she finished more than seven hours faster than before.
She started early Monday morning and did not finish until Wednesday afternoon. The course included more than 38,000 feet of elevation gain, and its location forced her to deal with the respiratory difficulties of high altitude.
Over three days, Entrekin reportedly stopped to sleep only three times. Each nap lasted less than 10 minutes, for a total of 19 minutes of sleep. Even with those stops, she averaged a 13:20 mile pace.
In a post-race interview posted on social media, Entrekin said she had to push past negative thoughts as she stayed in front.
“If anyone’s going to win this, why can’t it be you?” she recalled to USA Today when asked about her mindset.
Entrekin said she often wondered if she would burn out, or if she was crazy for trying.
“Maybe even especially women, we tend to talk ourselves out of even trying to do things because we think that we’re not qualified or we don’t have the experience or whatever,” Entrekin said. “But why not? Why not try?”
Read more from USA Today.
