Why not you?
Photo by The Washington Post
Someone was always going to win the Cocodona 250. That's what Rachel Entrekin kept reminding herself of while running across 253 miles of Arizona terrain: “Why not you? Why not now? Why not try?” As she later explained, that was the mantra she repeated to herself throughout the race: "Somebody has to win, so ... why not believe that it could be you?”
After winning the women’s race in 2024 and 2025, Entrekin returned in 2026 and became the first woman ever to win Cocodona outright. She not only finished first overall but she set a new course record of 56:09:48 which was over 2.5 hours faster than the previous record and 8 hours faster than her own personal record from the year before.
But this story is not about grit.
It's about leveling the playing field and throwing out old assumptions that women don't belong.
I don't know about you, but I am so sick of hearing statements like 'men are just built stronger, faster, etc. etc'. We say 'it's science, biology, nothing more' and yet here is one of many examples of what a woman can do when she finally has the sponsorship and support to get it done.
We often tell achievement stories as if they are only about personal toughness, as if extraordinary outcomes come from sheer willpower alone. But people are not all running under the same conditions. Men move through the world with more backing, more encouragement, more investment, and more room to focus; women spend enormous energy proving they belong, patching together support as they go, and carrying responsibilities that never make it into the highlight reel.
In 2024, Ultra Running Magazine described her as an “unsponsored physical therapist” when she won Cocodona for the first time. It's not surprising she was unsponsored because the numbers show that while 20% of Fortune 500 companies sponsored men's sports, only 6% sponsored women's; which reflects the general view of women athletes at the time. Then, in 2025, the world started to take women's sports more seriously.
According to Gartner, the number of sponsorships for women more than doubled to 13%. Part of that sponsorship shift has been driven by women’s basketball, where players spent years fighting for visibility and equal pay. While we still have a long way to go, those efforts are starting to trickle down and so by 2026, Entrekin had sponsor support and a far more developed performance system around her. That does not diminish what she did; it helps explain how someone’s potential can become more visible when they are no longer carrying every part of the load alone.
Reports from the race describe a six-person crew, helping her stay fueled, moving, and mentally steady through days and nights on the course. Runner’s World also reported that she worked closely with sports scientist Emily Arrell from Precision Fuel & Hydration, who helped reshape her fueling plan and crew strategy. Entrekin herself said of that partnership, “I’m just the race car. Emily is the mastermind.”
Sometimes the most inspiring part of a breakthrough is not that one person rose above impossible odds. It is that, for once, those odds loosened their grip enough for everyone else to see what had been there all along.
Someone is going to do the thing. Someone is going to finish the race, write the book, launch the idea, make the call, or take the first brave step. Why not you?
