After a full season back on the track following her burrito ban, Shelby Houlihan spent her weekend somewhere different entirely.
The Olympic middle-distance runner won her first-ever trail race at the Christiansen Trail Run in Phoenix, taking the overall victory over 14 miles of desert terrain around the North Mountain area.
Houlihan covered 24.19 kilometers with 508 meters of elevation gain, stopping the clock at 1:34:12 for the race after also doing a one-mile warm-up. Her average pace worked out to roughly 6:47 per mile on technical trails.
“My first ever trail race!!!” Houlihan wrote on Strava. “I need to do more of these.”
The race comes as Houlihan continues her return to competition following one of the most high-profile doping cases in U.S. distance running.
In 2021, she tested positive for nandrolone, an anabolic steroid, and was handed a four-year ban. Houlihan has consistently maintained her innocence, saying the positive test was caused by contaminated pork from a burrito she ate from a food stand the night before the test.
The explanation became a massive talking point in the sport, drawing skepticism from anti-doping authorities and widespread debate within the running community. The Court of Arbitration for Sport ultimately rejected her appeal, citing a lack of scientific evidence to support the contamination claim, and the ban was upheld in full.
Houlihan became eligible to compete again in early 2025.
This year, Houlihan didn’t take her comeback lightly.
Back on indoor tracks early in 2025, she dominated her first meet back, winning the 3,000m at the Razorback Invitational in 8:31.56. She then went on to finish second in the women’s 3,000 meters at the U.S. Indoor Championships in an 8:48.43 and earned a silver medal at the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing with an 8:38.26 performance against a top global field.
She followed that up outdoors by winning the women’s 5,000 meters at the 2025 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Eugene with a 15:13.61, adding a national title to her comeback season.
Despite all that, Houlihan has kept her public profile low, avoiding big media appearances and talking very little about the elephant in the room surrounding her suspension and return.
Trail running has increasingly attracted elite athletes from both track and road, and usually at the twilight of their careers there. But Houlihan’s appearance in Phoenix came while she remains competitively active on the track. At 31, she is still racing at a high level, making the trail debut more of a side hustle than a full shift (for now).
