‘Women Are Dominating’: How 3 Women Swept the Overall Podium at This Mountain Marathon
Brier Youngfleish had no idea she was leading the Aspen Backcountry Marathon on August 1 in Colorado—even at the moment she crossed the finish line.
And not just as the top woman in the race but as the overall winner. Youngfleish covered the 26.2-mile course in 4 hours, 8 minutes, and 16 seconds, easily beating the other 55 runners in the race—39 men and 26 women.
“I never really thought I was in the lead,” said Youngfleish, a 28-year-old physician assistant from Grand Junction, Colorado. “I really didn't know, because the race started and a few dudes sprinted off, and I didn't know who they were, and they just ran off pretty quickly. And I was like, ‘OK, bye!’ and just started running my own race.”
The Aspen Backcountry Marathon is no walk in the park. The 26.2-mile course is 90 percent on trails and has a cumulative elevation gain and loss of 5,512 feet. It starts and finishes at 7,886 feet above sea level and sends runners over a high point of 10,385 feet.
Youngfleish ran strong from start to finish, eventually catching and passing the two early speedsters to earn the top overall finisher distinction. But the outcome of this race was unique because she and two other women swept the entire podium.
After she finished, Youngfleish took a dip in the Roaring Fork River to cool off, so she didn’t see Jessica Parry finish second overall 13 minutes later in 4:21:41 or McKendree Hickory take third overall (4:32:06) ahead of Gil Allgood, who finished fourth as the men’s winner (4:35:56).
Youngfleish, Parry, and Hickory celebrated the rare distinction an hour later during the awards ceremony.
“It’s pretty awesome,” Youngfleish said. “I think it's one of those things that probably takes a few people setting an example to some extent for other people to be like, ‘Wait, we can all do this? Or a lot of us can?’”
How the Race Played Out
Youngfleish was excited to run the race after a stress fracture interrupted her training in the spring. She had logged several weeks of solid training and was confident she could be among the top women in the field. After the two guys went off the front, she soon settled into a groove with Allgood, a 35-year-old Colorado Springs runner who she had previously met at other Colorado trail races.
Allgood was intent on following a more controlled racing strategy and was happy to let the first two guys go and run with Youngfleish.
“Those two fellas that took off pretty hot, that would have been me in the past,” Allgood said. “I was trying to work on my pacing, and at that moment, I thought, ‘This is probably a good opportunity for me to run with Brier for a while.’”
Youngfleish and Allgood ran together through the first half of the race, chatting about running and their mutual love of the trails in Colorado Springs, where Youngfleish ran cross country at Colorado College.
“I really admired her race strategy,” Allgood said. “She ran really, really smart, really controlled. She seemed like she was taking care of herself and not pushing too hard in spots that maybe she didn't need to push too hard, too early.”
Although they were running fast, they never saw the two guys off the front, but they also thought nothing of it. They were occasionally aware of Parry, a 35-year-old runner from Crested Butte, Colorado, running her first marathon, who always seemed to be a few hundred yards behind them.
Youngfleish was feeling stronger as the miles went on and eventually began to gap Allgood after mile 17. She slowed to wait a couple of times knowing that having someone to run with is often a better strategy than running alone, but Allgood felt like he was racing at his limit, so he finally told Youngfleish to go ahead.
“I really appreciated that she had looked back and was kinda trying to will me along with her,” Allgood said, “but by that point, I was kind of ‘spare parts.’”
From there, Youngfleish was running footloose and fancy-free, even though she had no idea she was leading the race.
“Gil and I were just running and chatting, and it was really fun,” she said. “And then at some point, he was like, ‘You go ahead.’ And I didn't know why. And then from there, at about mile 17-ish on, I was just by myself. It felt so fun. It was so beautiful. I was just running through the forest, listening to music and eating gels and just being so glad that nothing hurt. I was like, ‘Oh my God, I'm going to finish this race and not drop out from a stupid injury.’”
Over the final miles, Youngfleish caught and passed some of the runners in the back of the pack of the 50K race, which had started 90 minutes earlier and shared some of the same course. But when she crossed the finish line, she was surprised to learn that she was the overall winner.
She had previously finished third overall in a trail marathon in Utah in 2023 and finished fourth overall as the top woman runner at a 30K race in Grand Mesa, Colorado, in 2024 and fourth at a 70K race in Utah in 2025.
“The whole time when I was running alone, I kept looking around because I was sure somebody was going to appear in front of me,” she said. “I knew somebody could be really close to me, and I just wouldn't know, just because we were on trails and you can only see so far ahead with all of the turns. So I kept running hard and when I was coming toward the finish, I went fast down the final hill because I was hot and I was ready to be done. And then I finished and I didn't know I was in first until they told me. I was like, ‘Wow! That's so cool!’”
Women Are Rising on the Trails
It’s becoming more common for women to win trail-running races outright in recent years, largely because of the increasing women’s depth and performance in the sport. It happens more often in extremely long races, where studies have shown that women are closing the performance gap to their male counterparts. Ultrarunning Magazine reported in its February/March 2026 issue that 58 ultradistance races of 50K or longer were won by women in the U.S. last year.
Not all of the results carry the same clout or get the same attention as Courtney Dauwalter winning the Moab 240 in Utah in 2017 or Rachel Entrekin winning the Cocodona 250 in Arizona in early May, but there have already been dozens of trail races in the U.S. since this spring in which women have been the outright winners.
That includes Sylvie Abel winning the Quiksilver 100K on May 9 in San Jose, California, and Addie Bracy taking the overall win at the Ram Party 55-mile race on May 16 in Colorado Springs by more than an hour.
“I was pumped to be where I was on the podium, but I was more excited by the overall results,” Hickory, who was third overall, said. “The first thing I said to my girlfriend when I finished was, ‘I’m pretty sure we just swept the podium!’ That’s so cool. With Rachel Entrekin winning Cocodona, and Courtney has obviously snuck into top podiums before, it’s just so cool to know that we had done a mini version of that.”
Parry, who was second, agreed. “I still have a lot to learn about fueling for these longer efforts,” she said, “but it was an honor to race alongside such badass women like Brier and McKendree.”
Allgood is married to Adidas-Terrex professional runner Hannah Allgood, who finished among the top 10 women at the Western States 100 the past two years, so he is used to training with (and getting beaten by) fast women trail runners.
“It’s incredible, and that’s kinda the way that the sport is moving,” he said. “If you show up and you're ready to compete and you're on that day, it doesn't matter who the person is. But I think it's pretty special what women are doing. I'm really close to it, so I'm extra passionate about it. I love being able to train with fast women and seeing the progress of women getting faster and pushing the line. It’s a pretty special time.”
Hickory, 38, of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, has been trail running for about 15 years and has seen the influx of faster women in the sport and the impact they are having.
“It's getting so fast now and it's so cool,” Hickory said. “I'm so inspired. I feel like every major race that I either am in or watch, I'm just like, ‘Oh my gosh, women are dominating.’ And it doesn't feel like it's slowing down. So it feels very cool to be part of that wave of history that's happening right now.”
Brian Metzler is a Boulder, Colorado, writer and editor whose work has appeared in Runner’s World, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Outside, Trail Runner, The Chicago Tribune, and Red Bulletin. He’s a former walk-on college middle-distance runner who has transitioned to trail running and pack burro racing in Colorado.