Huntsville native Rachel Entrekin finished second on Saturday at the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc endurance event in Chamonix, France.
Entrekin, 35, made her debut at the legendary trail festival with a superb showing. She finished in 22:15:54, a super time for her maiden 103-mile trek around Mont Blanc. Entrekin has run professionally for several years and lives in Colorado. Earlier this summer she smashed the Cocodona 250-mile desert endurance race in Arizona with a record time. Dubbed the Queen of Cocodona, she also won in 2025 and ’24.
Entrekin was pursuing women’s champ Blandine L’Hirondel of France, who won the women’s crown in record time. She finished in 21:54:49. She is a practicing OB/GYN and is a two-time European champ.
“Those last climbs were so hard,” Entrekin said in Runner’s World. “And it didn’t help knowing that Emily was an indeterminate short amount of time behind me. But, in a way, it was kind of fun, and we do these things to make it hard. Now that I’m done running, it’s nice to say, ‘Oh that was wonderful,’ but while I was out there, I was like ugggghhh!
Runners start and finish in Chamonix, a commune and ski resort in the French Alps. It played host to the first Winter Olympics in 1924. It is north of Mont Blanc, the highest peak in western Europe, bordering Switzerland and Italy. The course has about 10,000 meters of elevation gain.
“My original plan was to stick with people who knew what they were doing, ‘cause I didn’t,” she said. “I wanted to run at my own pace while gauging what those people were doing. But then I actually had a mini panic attack to Lucy Bartholomew and said ‘I don’t know what I am doing!’ and she said, ‘Yes, you do!’ and I said, ‘OK, you’re right!’ So I just decided to stick my nose in it and see what happened from the beginning.”
It was a year for the US runners, with Entrekin leading the women’s field that included Emily Schmitz of Wisconsin in third third (22:17:28) and Careth Arnold of Colorado in fourth (23:05:20). Schmitz has lived in Chamonix for four years. Seven more Americans were among the Top 25.
American runner Ben Dhiman, 34, won the overall title in a course record 18:16:29. He is the first runner to break 19 hours and the second American man to win the event. Dhiman currently lives in France. Caleb Olson of Utah was third in 18:48:24.
