How Canada’s Jeff Pelletier went from top 10 to 2nd at Moab 240

Trail runner and film maker Jeff Pelletier recently released Racing for the Win–Moab 240, which documents his second-place finish last October at the 240-mile (386-km) race in southeastern Utah. We caught up with Pelletier, who appears on the cover of our Trail Special Issue (on newsstands now) to find out how he passed so many people in the final miles of the race.

Prioritizing fun 

Even the most seasoned ultra runners can recognize that 386 kilometres over challenging terrain is a massive challenge. Pelletier says he used one other bucket list race (the Bob Graham Round) to train for Moab 240 (it’s worth noting that he became one of only two Canadians to ever finish this race in his attempt last July.

He cherishes the training as much as the race itself, which surely contributed to his success.

“When I train for big races like Moab, I tend not to train to race, I adventure to race,” he says. “I like my training to be as fun and adventurous as the goal.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Overcoming sleep deprivation

With a cut-off time of 117 hours, Moab 240 is about more than just running. When competing in such a long race, you’re pushing your body to its limit on compounded exhaustion over a few days. Pelletier has become well-adjusted to these unique demands and came in ready.

“If it wasn’t for the drowsiness, I feel like I could have run forever,” says Pelletier.

He noted that he tends to feel stronger in a race over the course of the long distance and it’s not uncommon for his last 10 miles to be his fastest.

Pelletier says he goes into races of this distance with a sleep plan, but doesn’t expect things to play out perfectly.

“Hallucinations are common (and) can be challenging,” he added. “At some point you just begin to fall asleep in these races. I slept a total of two hours.”

Filming while racing didn’t change his finishing time

While most of us would find the distance alone to be challenging enough, Pelletier also had to film for his feature-length documentary. He says this didn’t take away from his finish, guessing that, all in all, the filming probably only added “around five minutes” to his overall time.

The film captures the excitement and emotion of the race, which sees Pelletier running his way into second place from a 10th place position in the final leg.