Eli Wininger was scheduled to run the Moab 240 Endurance Run in Utah on Oct. 13, 2023.
But six days before, Hamas attacked Israel, killing at least 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages. Hezbollah launched rockets toward the Jewish state one day later.
He is doing so to commemorate the 251 hostages taken on Oct. 7, 2023. Wininger intends to run an extra 11 miles so that his race can be one mile for every hostage.
“A friend joked with me that when I was training for it last year, for the Oct. [13], 2023, race, and it turned out that ... I had to jump out and go to the war, that I wasn’t actually training for the race, but I was training for war, and I just didn’t realize it,” he told The Epoch Times in a Sept. 25 interview.
The five-day race consists of walking and running on smooth and rocky terrains through Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park. Wininger said he intends to finish the event in four days. He will be carrying at least 7 pounds of food, water, and even warm gear given the cold nights in the mountains. There are six sleep stations that include cots.
“I‘ll sleep maybe two hours, and I’ll get about three hours of sleep a day total,” he said, in addition to one to three 20- to 30-minute power naps.
“So you’re incredibly sleep-deprived,” he said. “People by Day Three and Four are known to hallucinate, and it puts you through the wringer mentally.”
Nutrition is key, he said.
“You’re going to be burning 10,000 to 15,000 calories a day if you’re not eating at least 3,000–4,000 minimum, ideally [5,000–6,000],” he said. “You’re gonna burn out and your body’s gonna give up on you because adrenaline can only go so long.”
Wininger says his army service has prepared him for the grind of the Moab 240.
“We did practice missions of seven to 10 days where we were only sleeping anywhere from three hours a night, carrying over 100 pounds of weight and going up to 100 kilometers [62.14 miles],” he said.
He did Ironman races before and during his army service. An Ironman is a 140.6-mile triathlon that includes swimming 2.4 miles, cycling 112 miles, and running a marathon [26.2 miles].
But, toward the end of his active service, Wininger got into running ultramarathons after reading books by David Goggins, an ultramarathon runner and retired Navy SEAL. He said he read “Can’t Hurt Me” and “Never Finished” three times each.
He signed up for the 2024 Moab 240 earlier this year after doing reserve duty. Despite the experience of being in tough races, he said, “I just couldn’t mentally get myself into the training. I figured, why am I doing this?”
In an interview with The Epoch Times on Sept. 22, Wininger said he trains for the Moab 240 by running 60–80 miles a week. This includes back-to-back or back-to-back-to-back runs between 15 to 30 miles each day. The rest of the week consists of eight- to 12-mile runs at a low-heart-rate pace and is therefore less intense.
For Wininger, the mental aspect is bigger than the physical grind.
“You can train and you can train, and all sorts of different training tactics that you can do. But no amount of training can keep you going at Mile 160,” he said.
“You either have a strong, strong, strong why and purpose and reason for doing it, whether it’s just your mental grit, whether it’s your determination to never quit, whether it’s the hostages, whether it’s all the above, maybe a parent, or whatever it would be, you need to have that ‘why’ that keeps you going.”
Wininger said that after the race, he will continue to raise money for the Hostages and Missing Families Forum and run his e-commerce and health coaching businesses. His unit is set to be called up on Oct. 28 in response to the fighting in northern Israel.
Finally, there is this connection between his running the race and the hostages:
“They ran for their lives, and I’m running for their freedom,” he said.
