American Abby Hall is lining up for the 2025 UTMB after a summer that she’s already more than satisfied with. In the following interview, Abby talks about recovery after winning the 2025 Western States 100 just two months ago, waiting to make sure that she was both mentally and physically ready to train again, and how she thinks that maybe UTMB and Western really aren’t as different as people make them out to be.
For more on who’s racing, check out our in-depth women’s and men’s previews and follow our live race coverage starting Friday.
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Abby Hall Pre-2025 UTMB Interview Transcript
iRunFar: Bryon Powell of iRunFar here with Abby Hall before the 2025 UTMB. How are you?
Abby Hall: Good. How are you, Bryon?
iRunFar: Alright. You certainly enjoy these mountains, don’t you?
Hall: Yeah. Yeah, I do. It’s been a number of years now of making these mountains my friends.
iRunFar: Yeah. So between CCC and UTMB, you’ve run the festival here at least four times.
Hall: Yeah. Yeah.
iRunFar: What brings you back this year?
Hall: You know, this year I’m coming back for redemption on the big loop. I had a hard-earned finish here last year, learned a lot, and feel excited to, yeah, be coming back and seeing what more I can do out here.
iRunFar: Yeah. Like last year, between like your comparison to winning Western States this year, or being on the podium twice at CCC, it wasn’t your best performance. But what meaning did it have for you? I think it did.
Hall: Oh, yeah, it was incredibly meaningful. I was, you know, it was my first big race back after injury. And you know, I wasn’t like still totally at home in my body yet. I mean, this course has its way of drawing weaknesses out of anybody, even the most prepared, let alone if there is any weakness or discrepancy still. It is hard on the body. And yeah, I thought about throwing in the towel multiple times and kind of learned why this race is such an appealing one to quit, because it has its way of, yeah, making you want to throw in the towel. And ultimately, it kind of unknowingly, during the race last year, became kind of like this symbol for me to finish and kind of bookend the chapter of injury and put that behind me. So I think despite the fact that, you know, when I was coming out of surgery and recovering and everything, like I had these big UTMB dreams, like I ultimately still needed more time. But I’m incredibly glad that I finished because it meant a lot to me.
iRunFar: Yeah. Did you learn anything along the way?
Hall: You know, I think for me, ultimately last year, I was still really struggling biomechanically with downhills, just loading the leg in that kind of single-leg mini lunge again and again, is just hard. Yeah. I still had to make more progress there before I could really trust my body, load it again and again. So for me, already this year, it’s been good coming back and feeling like more myself on the course. But I guess to answer your question, maybe what I learned last year, besides, you know, maybe some of the physical things, I think I learned just how much resilience the course takes. That even a successful day at UTMB, I think, is ultimately about really managing yourself and continuing to fight. And it takes a lot of guts.
iRunFar: There are so many stories of people who ended up on the podium at this race who have those things that did not go right.
Hall: Yeah.
iRunFar: Whether they went wrong early and they came back, or they’re just holding on the last 30, 50k.
Hall: Oh, yeah. I feel like I’ve set all of my lowness PRs last year. I was talking to a few people about this recently, and they’re like, “I think it’s going to feel better than you’re expecting.” So I feel like my memories from last year are all just grunting and putting one foot in front of the other, and just so brutal. So I feel like hopefully it can only go up from there.
iRunFar: Yeah, it’s a nice, very low benchmark.
Hall: Exactly. Yeah.
iRunFar: Speaking of benchmarks and expectations, I mean, you did win Western States just two months ago. Does that change expectations or pressure, whether it’s internal or external, coming into a big race like this?
Hall: You know, I think for me, if anything, it opens up what I feel like I can do with these races. And I think I’ve gone for so long in this sport feeling like I hadn’t quite squeezed the most juice out of myself, so to speak yet. If we’re using a lemon analogy. That’s what my hand’s doing there. And I think it’s really validating to close that gap between where I always have believed I could be and what I could actually do. And so for me, it’s validating that those dreams are not only dreams, they’re things I can actually go out and try to do. And so, yeah, it makes me feel even more validated about this kind of loop of like, “dream, try, attain.” Because I feel like it’s …
iRunFar: It’s more opening a door that you thought was there rather than any sort of extra pressure.
Hall: Yeah, yeah.
iRunFar: It’s like, oh, yeah, this is going to happen.
Hall: Especially because I think this year I feel like totally content with already what I’ve done this year. This feels like I didn’t have to race again. And it feels like a fun choice to be like, yeah, I want to come out here and get back in the fight and try.
iRunFar: Might as well get that jar of icing out and see if you want to have some.
Hall: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
iRunFar: So you’re here at UTMB. Do you think a course like this versus a Western States, do both of them suit you really well, or does one suit you more than the other?
Hall: Gosh, I think up until like this year, I would have said like, “Oh, I think this is what suits me, and not the American-style stuff.” And then I think maybe Western States threw that on its head a little bit, because I kind of always thought of myself as like an up-down course profile kind of person. And so, I think now, if anything, it’s just taught me about the merits of specificity. And when you do put in a specific block, when you get some time in on course, that’s where you feel comfortable. So, fortunately, I feel like I’ve logged enough years out here that I didn’t quite need as long of a window out here as I normally do. I feel like in the past, I’ve gotten out here in like July, even like mid-July at times. This year, we got out here like in the first days in August. So it was enough to do not a full loop around the mountain, but like a big arc around the mountain and remind my body what this course feels like, and, you know, work some kinks out. Ultimately, I feel like the fitness has been able to translate pretty well. And there’s a lot of parts in the course, too, where I’m like, this isn’t terribly distant, it’s not like night and day from a Western States. There’s still grindy climbs. There’s still flats. There’s like …
iRunFar: There’s running here.
Hall: There’s runnable downhills. So, of course, you throw in some doing that again and again on repeat. But I’d be curious for someone to do the math. I don’t know this off the top of my head. But if you chopped off from like Michigan Bluff to the finish, and if you took those ratios from the start to Michigan Bluff and repeated it over 108 miles, would it come out about similar?
iRunFar: Would it come out about the same vert? So it’s not that it’s necessarily steeper or longer climbs. It just continues to the end.
Hall: Yeah. I could be totally like barking up the wrong tree with that.
iRunFar: At least on the descent side, it should be pretty reasonable.
Hall: Yeah. And of course, the grades are different and all that, and climbs are longer. But it’s been interesting.
iRunFar: Do you feel like you’ve recovered pretty well after Western States? Because that was a huge effort.
Hall: Yeah, totally. I think overall, the recovery has gone really great. I tried to not commit to anything out here. I mean, as much as there were logistics to figure out of flights, and lodging, and commitments, and things like that, I tried to kick it down the road as much as I could, because I wanted to not just feel like it was an assumption that I was going to go for the double. I wanted it to feel really like a choice. So, yeah, July, we went out to the San Juans, went out to Hardrock. I feel like I just got some time to just chill and do easy runs if it sounded great. Not force anything. By the end of July, we wove in a few long runs to kind of see, how does this feel? Does this feel fun? Do I want to go run for, you know, many hours? And yeah, ultimately it was feeling good. And I’ve not felt like I’ve had to go to the well or anything in training. If anything, I feel like I’m coming in kind of undercooked. And I think that’s probably a nice place to be, considering it’s a lot back-to-back.
iRunFar: Yeah. Well, I hope you have fun out there and get that redemption you’re looking for. Best of luck, Abby.
Hall: Thank you! Appreciate it.
