I completed the Moab 240 Mile Endurance Run on 14th October 2025 in 107 hours and some change. Nine hours more than I had planned/trained for. (Results). I am not a fast runner. I finished 94th of 150 finishers. 115 runners failed to finish (DNF).
Here is how I did it.
Main stats
LOCATION: Moab, UT
MILES: 239.66 miles, begins and ends
ELEVATION GAIN: 31,564’
ELEVATION LOSS: 31,564’
AID STATIONS:
15 full aid stations
5 sleep stations
The Terrain
The terrain is brutal at times, with significant vertical, building to two major peaks at 10,000 ft altitude (circa 30% less oxygen availability). In between you are running vertically down lots of rock-kicking landscapes or climbing muddy trails.
Sleep
I slept a total of 8 hours, 2 per day starting circa 22 hours after the race start. then a similar time each day, except the last where I slept at circa 3am in the morning having come down of the toughest climb. Many runners would catch sleep on the trail (see below). I never did.
Nutriton
I mainly ate Neversecond Energy Gels every 1-2 hours. I preferred them as they are watery and you can force feed yourself without really tasting them. I also ate at aid stations their chicken soup and oatmeal. I tried a beef-burger twice, one was nice and the other shut down my running for an hour. I don’t normally eat meat, but all rules go when doing something like this. Everyone is different on nutrition and I met a runner who lived on cheeseburgers for the whole race! I was surprised how little I needed to eat. I lost around 7lbs during the race but the energy gels kept my energy levels up. I drank water, electrolytes and sometimes coca cola at the aid stations. I tried coffee once, but it wasn’t enjoyable.
Strategy
Walking, marching, running, climbing.
If I walked, I marched. I didn’t walk unintentionally unless resting to drink or eat before running again. I found most people walked much faster than me, but I could march reasonably fast. I ran wherever possible on flat or downhill. I was also slower climbing that most runners. It was easy to get into the habit of not running, which I noticed many did. I resisted this by marching/making myself run the flats / downhills. I would also take timed walking-breaks, but not for long, typically a minute.
I took it slow through to half-way, passing the first major peak Shay Mountain. Only then I allowed myself to listen to music from mile 126, and try to put my foot down. This worked well with me running through most of the night and passing over 20 runners.
Then the wheels came off on the major climb from Pole Canyon to Geyser Pass. A storm hit hard and everything went wrong. What should have took me 4 hours took over 8. The section is hard climbing, breathless, at altitude. Water from the storm, turned our trails in mud and I constantly slipped and fell. Our GPX was affected and in the dark with poor trail markings I got lost several times, including heading down and losing an hour the wrong way. I tried following others but kept falling behind breathless. We summited 4 times and the cold storm hit us sideways, and even though we all wore water proofs, we ended up soaked and freezing. It was as I imagined hell would be, stuck doing something that is painful, going wrong, with no end in sight. In the early hours of the morning, around 4am, I finally escaped to Geyser Pass Aid station and slept for two hours, harrowed from the experience but now with only 40 miles left to go.
On waking for the final run to the finish, my legs wouldn’t allow me to run for the next circa 15-20 miles. At an aid station, I had my knee’s taped with 20 miles to go which got me running again. The last few miles around the Porcupine Rim trail where beautiful and felt endless, before I finally making it to the roadway in Moab with 3.6 miles to go. When you hit the road, you know you are going to finish. Finishing was a very special moment after over 4 days running in such difficult conditions.
Mindset
My mindset got me through. I had visualized & meditated a lot on how I wanted to behave when things went wrong, or felt too difficult and how to give 100% throughout the race and remove quitting as an option. This year’s Moab (2025) was unique as all runners had trained for heat; but the weather flipped into storm and flash floods, turning our routes into thick mud, and streams. This caused many to quit, give up, or run too slow to hit the cut offs. They were not trained for our conditions and so their mind’s couldn’t cope and they quit.
I used the techniques in this book to focus on calm resilience when things got really hard. Specifically focused on mantra’s of patience, courage and wisdom in decision making. I was treating the whole run as a VisionQuest, doing something incredibly hard to build and learn resilience.
Crew, Pacers.
My wife, close friend, and his partner were my crew. They accompanied me in an RV which was a real treat every day to be able to sleep and change in it. Having a crew to support makes an enormous difference to your well being, even if only seeing them every 15-24 hours. I had no pacer, though sometimes ran with other runners.
Pre-Race Training
I trained for 6 months with an experienced coach on TrainingPeaks, Rachel Bambrick. She stopped me over-training and also pushed where I wasn’t getting enough vertical in. Lots of small tips along the way helped a great deal. I highly recommend. I did a lot of vertical training, but looking back now it wasn’t specific enough. I should have done more high step/trail or step-master, this would have protected my knees on the last day and allowed me to run further. My advice on training is you have to get as specific as possible and you can’t overdo your vertical training.
Post-Race Recovery
My feet exploded in size and I couldn’t walk for two days. I had to get helped through the airport on disabled transport to get home. Eating a ton of food, sleeping a ton, and relaxing with soaking feet to recover is how my last few days have gone.
Was a wild experience. Am deeply grateful I got luckier than most runners and nothing major went wrong. Hope this is helpful to those who are seeking their own VisionQuest!
