Take, for example, last October’s Moab 200 Endurance Run, which is actually 238 miles. Advertisement 
 
 Courtney Dauwalter: “Why not?” is my answer to the first question. Advertisement 
 
 CD: It’s a last person standing competition—actually it’s called Last Man Standing. She has won 11 ultramarathons and finished second in seven other endurance races. This fall, she ran 279.2 miles in what’s known as Big’s Backyard Ultra, a grueling race of attrition during which runners have to complete a 4.16667-mile loop each hour. Dauwalter had been on her feet for almost 40 hours and was leading the field of 215 runners as she set her sights on a course record for September’s Tahoe 200, one in a series of very, very long ultramarathons, the latest craze among distance running’s lunatic set. If they want to put their feet up, eat, go to the bathroom or close their eyes for a few minutes, they have to earn the time by running faster.
– There are runners, and then there’s Courtney Dauwalter—a star of “distance running’s lunatic set,” as the New York Times puts it. The 33-year-old ultrarunner routinely participates in races that exceed 200 miles. Since 2011, she has tackled 51 ultra races, Deadspin reports, winning 11 of them and being the first woman across the finish line in 27. Her ability, the Times writes, demonstrates that “ultrarunning is one of the few sports in which women appear able to hold their own against men.” Evolutionary biologist Heather Heying concedes that men are, for the most part, stronger and faster. But, she says, ultrarunning is about stamina. “It begs the question,” she says, “is there something going on for women … that gives us a psychological edge in extremely long-term endurance events?” Martin Hoffman, an ultrarunner and former researcher for the Western States 100-mile race, chalks up Dauwalter's success to the fact that few people participate in 200-mile races. “If you have the best trained male and female ultrarunners competing against each other, the men will always win,” he tells the Times. Research on 200-mile races, however, is too sparse to draw any conclusions, Heying says, adding that mental strength and pain tolerance are important equalizers. They seem to be for Dauwalter. “I put myself in situations where suffering is going to be involved and hope to be able to tap into the mental piece every time that physical pain becomes too much,” she says. (The ludicrous Barkley marathons will break you.)