Courtney Dauwalter will try again for the US Olympic Trials marathon standard in December
The four-time Hardrock champion missed the 2:37 qualifying time by 1 minute 55 seconds at the California International Marathon in 2025. She returns to Sacramento on 6 December, and says she is very likely to try an Ironman in 2027.
Courtney Dauwalter, one of the most successful ultrarunners in history, will race the California International Marathon (CIM) in Sacramento on 6 December in a second attempt to reach the qualifying standard for the 2028 US Olympic Marathon Trials.
The American, 41, confirmed her plans in an interview with Runner’s World published on 16 October. She also told the magazine she is very likely to attempt an Ironman triathlon in 2027.
Women need to run 2:37:00 or faster to qualify for the Trials, which will be held in St Louis on 25 March 2028. At CIM in December 2025, Dauwalter ran 2:38:55, missing the standard by 1 minute 55 seconds.
Going back to the pack
That run was an 11-minute personal best. Two months earlier she had run 2:49:54 at the Twin Cities Marathon, her first road marathon in 13 years, Marathon Handbook reported. (Canadian Running Magazine gave that time as 2:49:51.)
At CIM she went through halfway in 1:18:33, on schedule for the standard, before slowing to 1:20:22 for the second half. She ran much of the race in a group of women chasing the same mark, and told Runner’s World that was what drew her back.
“I also loved just the momentum of that women’s pack going for the OTQ. I’ve never run in a pack like that, and being part of it last year was really, really beautiful,” Dauwalter said. “It’s insane what you can do in a pack like that versus what you could do by yourself.”
Her 2026 season has again been built around very long races. She was second at the Cocodona 250 in Arizona in May and won the Hardrock 100 in Colorado for the fourth time in July. At the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc in late August she led the women’s race early but dropped out, which Runner’s World attributed to lingering fatigue.
Five weeks after UTMB, Runner’s World reported, she was already back in marathon training, with high-volume weeks and faster sessions on the roads.
An Ironman on the horizon
Dauwalter spoke to Runner’s World in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, where she spent part of the week before the Ironman World Championship on 10 October. She was there for her main sponsor, Salomon, which becomes the race’s title sponsor in 2027.
“I’m 100 percent curious about trying an Ironman, I just have to practice the swimming quite a bit,” she told the magazine. Runner’s World reported that the open-water swim makes her a little nervous, and that she might start racing triathlons in spring 2027. She has not yet decided which trail races she will run in 2027.
She also said the change of routine in 2025 had helped her mentally before another ultra season. “A new challenge, a new area where I had a lot of room to grow,” she told Runner’s World.
Under the selection rules described by Runner’s World, the top three women at the Trials with the appropriate qualifying times earn places on the US team for the Los Angeles Olympics later that summer.
“If I have the opportunity to take part in the Olympic Trials, I mean, of course I would want to be there,” she said.
