Deciding You Belong: a UTMB race recap

It’s Monday, August 24, and Will and I are doing a last-minute jog from Vallorcine to Chamonix. I’ve already done this section 3 times BUT I continue to hate it, and optimism says running it one more time will be the solution. This has worked for every other section of the course I’ve disliked or…

UTMB Training for Idiots

Bonjour ! I’m in France, where I’ve been for 15 days now and will be for another 30 (thirty!), all in preparation for, and ultimately to race, the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc. I spent the months leading up to this trip in Colorado doing a remarkable amount of… not planning. I was too busy living in…

The Best Race Is the One You Don’t Run: A Perspective from Crewing the Scout Mountain 100

I don’t tend to utilize crews or pacers very often. In fact, until Cocodona 250 in 2024, I’d never had a planned crew or pacer at all – just the occasional nearby friend who would jump in to help if requested (or, sometimes, not requested). Likewise, I haven’t spent much time on the other side…

“Incredibly Admirable and Confusing”: A Cocodona 250 Recap

Well, holy shit guys. I would’ve much preferred finishing this up last week; however, in a strange turn of events, my week has mostly consisted of going viral, becoming a bewildered figurehead for women’s athletics, and talking to the freaking New York Times and ESPN (twice) instead of like, relaxing. Talk about a weird recovery…

Chianti Post-Mortem

This past Saturday, I ran the Chianti Castles 120k by UTMB. To say that it was a wild ride would be an understatement, BUT seeing as during my research of the course I found exactly no useful information, I’ll add in my two cents – plus a race recap for those interested in how my…

“Sooo, how are you?”

Chianti 120km is on Saturday.  This will be my first big-time trail race in Europe, and the first one in which I’ve earned the classification of “elite,” which is insane.  And I’m not doing it as an unknown, or with expectations that consist of “let’s just see how she does!” That’s fine – I’m a professional…

“What the Hell is this?” A Burrito League Post

It’s Monday. I woke up, laced up my shoes, and grabbed my headphones, assuming the 2 hour run I was about to do would be a relatively solitary and boring affair. I drove over – not to a trailhead, but to the start of the Salida Burrito League segment.  Three and a half hours later…

2025: A Year in Review

Okay, okay. So 2025 isn’t over technically. But with the correct number of races on the calendar (uh, zero) for the remainder of the year, I’ll call it done enough. Since I’m not training, running, or traveling quite as much*, I have more time to do another hobby I love: read. *this is almost laughable,…

Who Decides What Matters?

An Opinion. Don’t COME AT ME. Some backstory for this: I wrote this originally about 5-6 weeks ago, just after Mammoth but before Javelina. I was (and still, honestly, am) fully entrenched in the Trying To Get a Contract game, and was having some very big thoughts about it all. I tend to start out…

Mammoth 200: Go Big or Go Extinct

I am exactly one week removed from the inaugural running of the Mammoth 200. What a ride that was. A race this long deserves a long blog post, so grab a cold one and let’s get started. Background The Mammoth was originally not on my to-do list for this year. After Cocodona, I planned on…

How to Run a Multi-Day Race

Let’s cut to the chase (ha!) here. No one is talking about this topic. And yeah, you can hold onto your flimsy idea that “200s aRe jUsT fAsT HiKiNg” all you want, but a) this doesn’t necessarily have to be true, and b) shut up. Below, you’ll find Rachel’s Nearly Foolproof Guide to Running Your…

An Open Letter to Dale Garland

From one Rachel Entrekin, PT, DPT, OCS, COMT, BAMF. To the Esteemed Keeper of the Hardrock Endurance Gate, Let’s skip the small talk. You, my friend, have the power to make dreams come true. And my dream is simple — let me, pretty please, toe the line at Hardrock. I know, I know. The lottery.…

“So, how’d I do?” – High Lonesome 100

Let’s talk about HiLo, and I don’t mean the Hawaiian city. This past weekend, I ran the 8th annual High Lonesome 100 miler through the Sawatch range, just outside of Salida/Buena Vista. The race is put on by dynamic Freestone Endurance duo Caleb Efta (aka D. N. Efta, which is the greatest nickname of all…

Musings from the sky

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” – Mary Oliver While en route to go on an epic and very necessary trip to visit my friend in Ojai for an extended weekend of (you guessed it!) running, I noticed the bookmark tucked into my carry-on novel…

Best Epic Routes of the Eastern Sierra*

*Not a complete list, as I’ve not done everything. (Yet.) Don’t say I didn’t ever do anything for y’all’s ungrateful asses. Disclaimer Alert!! You guys have seen what I enjoy doing. Assume everything is at least moderate difficulty level, considering most everything on this list eventually gets well over 10k feet and is, well, a…

How to run Spartathlon

By someone who failed to complete it.  “Overcome by giddiness while flying, Icarus disobeyed his father and soared higher into the sky. Without warning, the heat from the sun softened (and melted) the wax. Icarus could feel melted wax dripping down his arms. The feathers then fell one by one. Icarus kept flapping his “wings”,…

WE INTERRUPT COCODONA RAMBLINS TO BRING: A Crazy Mtn 100 post

I did the Crazy Mountain 100 this weekend!  This course consists of, by my guesstimating, 80% single track, 10% road/double track, and 10% “what the fuck is this, what is happening and where am I going?”. It is very hard, with four major climbs back to back (to back), and three smaller climbs sprinkled in…

Part III: JAKE

In January of 2021, I moved to California. For love, for a change of scenery, or just in a weak moment of post-apocalyptic false urgency, who can say. Nonetheless, I found myself in Los Angeles, a city I never could’ve imagined myself in a billion years. I quickly decided I hated it. I discovered the…

Part II: THE DECISION TO SIGN UP

Full disclosure, I am fully and painfully aware of what a privilege it is to be in a position where I complain about spending thousands of dollars on a fucking hobby. It’s a HOBBY. I’m not a professional here. I’m not doing anything with any sort of intention of getting paid to do this. It’s…

Part I: DAN

I moved to Seattle in the summer of 2017, right after I graduated from the Uni of Alabama-Birmingham with my doctoral degree in physical therapy. I packed my bags for the Great American West and was keen to discover the outdoor space there, having acquainted myself with it the summer prior while visiting a fellow…

Cocodona Ramblin’

Intro For those of you not fully aware how insane a human being can be, Cocodona is a two-hundred and fifty (written out because it deserves the length, honestly) mile race that people traverse, on foot and as quickly as possible, from Phoenix to Flagstaff. The course climbs peaks up to nearly 10,000 feet above…

Hell yeah, let’s do a *~*recap*~* – delayed post from March 2024

I’ve been MIA since last March, and there’s some serious ground to cover.  Buckle up and get a snack.  So, Starting end of March I developed pretty severe iron deficiency! Learned the hard way that it’s more important to prophylactically manage that particular nightmare as opposed to what I did, which was ignore it until…

How to Have Fun Road Running

ATTENTION, ATTENTION: THIS IS NOT A RACE REPORT Maybe, possibly, I could use this corner of the internet to actually write shit? What a thought! (It will all, likely, be satirical. But maybe not! Who knows, certainly not the author in question.) So, most people who run (or “jog” as I like to call it,…

A Working Title Will Come Later (or, apparently, not)

Well. I do Jackpot in some capacity yearly, and this year decided to try the 48h again after taking a “break” and just doing the 24 last year. Things I did not consider:1) I have never done two 48s this close to each other 2) I have never done two 48s this close to each…

ATY 48Hr: Circular Logic

why helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! For those of you wondering (which is no one), that is 180 o’s! That’s the same number of laps I ran at this year’s Across the Years 48hr. Why? Unsure. I guess it’s definitely a type of fun, but by the same token, why does anyone do anything? Surely running in a circle…

Fifty Shades of Chafe: Wonderland Edition

Well. It’s only been 3 years since I’ve logged onto this website, and thank goodness my computer is smarter than me and remembers passwords. (Unrelated: if my computer ever gets stolen, immediately I am fucked.) Recently, I signed up for the Plain 100K (fun fact: I finally did get my feet wet with the 100M,…

IMTUF and other stuff

Hello again! Check out how productive I am with writing these blog posts!! Someone give me a goddamn award. This weekend, I did the IMTUF 100M! I actually hadn’t really heard much about this race, but sometime in December (DECEMBER!! That was like 9 months ago!!!) a giant crew of my old running gang back…

Can’t spell “Fuck it” without FKT: A Wonderland Story

NOTE: I wrote this post riiiight after completing the Wonderland in mid-July but am, of course, just now actually putting it anywhere. My b. Just kidding. But I guess I’ll do a post on my recent go at the fastest known time (FKT) this past weekend. (Also, hello readers of the blogosphere! Sorry it’s been…

Just Plain tough.

Hi. I did a thing. Lets discuss. So the Plain 100M/K is a race that’s, essentially, designed to see if you can go a minimum of 100kms with …no aid. Or trail markings. Or anything. Just you, alone, in the woods. With bears (I mean, probably). The good news is that the local Search and…

Inaugural Oregon Adventure

Hello! It’s been a while, sorry. Been slackin’. Also, exciting news, I moved across the country and started a new job. I also did ….two(?) additional races in the meantime: Run For Kids 12hour (2ndOA/1stF) and a 50k in my new home state of Washington called Oyster Dome Challenge (2ndOA/1stF). So, ya know, that’s been…

Springing and Flinging for 12 Joyful Hours

So apparently I don’t know how to quit, and once again find myself status/post 12 hour race. This time, the fun was had in Kennesaw, GA, at Maria’s Spring Fling. This event is put on by Mark Vescio and his company, Run for It!, and raises money for his daughter Maria who was diagnosed with…

Operation Chaffing

Hello! Back again, because I am a sadist. This past weekend was the Operation Endurance 6/12/24 Hour at Ft Benning, GA. It’s an event put on by GUTS (the infamous Georgia Ultra Trail Society), specifically Vikena Yutz and her gaggle of volunteers. It’s been a thing since 2011, and takes place at Stewart Field on…

The Delano Circle Fest

Hi, back again for those of you bored enough to read a half-assed blog. So this weekend was the Delano 12-Hour/50 Miler at Delano Park in Decatur. The race is put on by these super nice guys, Eric Sholtz and Jon Elmore. They’ve been doing the race for I guess at least 10 years, since this…

Can’t spell “Snope” without “nope”

This is the excerpt for your very first post.